News Beat
9 Cheap Ingredients That Instantly Make Food Taste Better
Maybe you add a touch of baking powder to your tomato sauce to counterbalance the acidity, or perhaps you whack some cream in your bolognese (a la Mary Berry) for a smooth, velvety finish.
You might dust roast spuds and parsnips in semolina for a satisfying crunch, too.
But even though I write a lot about sneaky secret ingredients, I’m always on the lookout for more – especially if they don’t cost much. That’s why I was so excited to read the responses to an r/cookingforbeginners post shared by u/BlastarBanshee.
“What’s the one cheap ingredient that instantly makes everything taste better?” they asked.
Here are some of the best responses:
1) “Celery salt.”
“This is… under-appreciated,” u/Barneyboydog agreed.
“It’s a game-changer on fried eggs.”
2) “MSG.”
“I just ordered a thing of MSG… and holy shit. It’s actually got less sodium by volume than any salt I own, and the flavour is just mind-blowing,” u/alek_hiddel replied.
3) “A couple of tablespoons of lemon juice, red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar in a stew.”
“Yep… a splash (or two) of sherry vinegar at the end of a stew takes it to another level. I learned this trick a few years ago, and now I always have sherry vinegar on hand,” replied u/Dense_Willow4627.
4) “Smoked paprika.”
″[It offers] the simple ability to add the flavour of open fire cooking back into the food we eat.”
“Every time I taste something new and go, ‘oh that’s good!’, I look up [its] ingredients and it’s almost always [got] paprika,” u/Rogerbva090566 responded.
5) “As a Balkan [person], only Vegeta is allowed as an answer.”
“As a non-Balkan… this stuff is the shit,” said u/MuddyHandprints.
6) “A little yeast extract like Marmite is an awesome flavour boost for braised meat dishes, especially beef.”
7) “Salted butter in chocolate chip cookies.”
8) “If I’m making something that’s tomato-based, I’ll almost always add a good squirt of ketchup at the end.”
Credit: u/Untouchable-Ninja
9) ” An anchovy… or some dried mushrooms.”
“Basically, you know, MSG in a more natural state.”
