“Instead Of Water, I Use Stock”: Home Cooks Are Sharing Their Best Ingredient Substitutions, Here Are 30 That Might Help You Level Up The Flavor Game

You can rarely have to much garlic

That's my way also. Sometimes even triple.

Handful a day keeps the vampires away

Yes!!!!!!!!

Yep. We love garlic.

There's something about unsalted butter that just doesn't taste 'right' to me. I've tried it, but just keep going back to salted.

Same!

I'm always worried when I bake and it asks for unsalted butter that I *have* to use it or else it will completely ruin the recipe. When it comes to baking you have to be so precise so I get paranoid. But I'd honestly get angry if I found out I could have used my regular salted butter and didn't have to make a trip to the store to specifically get unsalted because the recipe asks for it. I have never noticed any difference in flavor so I don't get the point unless you have a dietary restriction.

They typically tell you to use unsalted butter because then you can control the amount of salt you put in the dish. It's not about saltiness, but about control. If you're inexperienced this can work, but if you are, the more control you get over your flavors, the better.

Actually salted butter is bad for baking, it doesn't have a high smoking point, it burns easily and also separates. That's why they tell u to add salt separately. Don't get me wrong, I love salted butter. But I think it's also so the salt u add evenly spreads out instead of possible clumps of salted butter. But, then again, I may be wrong🤷🏻‍♀️

If I don't have wine, I go and get some wine.

I usually pour the wine into the chef when I'm cooking. 😄

This is something I learned from my own mother, who in turn learned it from her own, and so on. You have to be careful though, always taste your food. Cooking is all about good balance. Sometimes you want to use water if the flavor is too strong.

Cooking rice in chicken stock totally ups the flavor.

Wine is a game changer for recipes. Absolutely delicious 😋

Oh my gosh my condolences on being allergic to the best ingredient in the world. I literally made a face of pain when I read this.

That's shallot.

My friend and housemate loves garlic but discovered a cpl years ago that she is actually intolerant to it. Basically bloats up and needs to be near a loo for the rest of the day the next day!! It's not too bad the further down the ingredients list it is, but she still has an after effect from it.

😱😱

Try Asafetida aka Hing. It's what some Indian recipes use instead of garlic. Smells a little farty straight out of the jar, but gives a nice garlicky spiciness when mixed in sauces and such.

Most canned and frozen vegetables are typically fresher, more flavorful, and more nutritious than the veg you can get from grocery stores. For tinned/frozen veg, they are picked and processed at peak freshness, whereas the raw ones are sometimes picked too early, and then spend days, if not weeks in transit.

I've read that canned tomatoes are better nutritionally. Something to do with lycene content.

I stock up on Marzanos when they're on sale (still pricey even then) but they sure make a difference in my Spaghetti Bolognese.

I use the chopped tomatoes with onion and green chilies on top of tacos and nachos. Just drain well, and no knife required

Green onions? Spring onions...?

The smart part is replanting the roots so they grow new onions.

Chives are milder.

I inadvertently have chives growing in the crazy paving in my back garden, so it's fresh chives for evermore.

The only time I prefer chives to scallions is if I'm making my own onion and chive cream cheese or something where I want the smaller chive. But they do taste the same. I never not have scallions in my fridge (and garlic and onions. My fridge will be barren but I'll always have those in my fridge). I love them so much. And while I can put them in a jar with water and they'll grow back, they don't grow back the same. They're skinnier and usually lighter in color. They taste a lot less 'vibrant' if that makes sense. Not sure what to do to get them to grow back the same thickness and with the same flavor but it's not the same as fresh.

I cook the onions before adding them to the dish. Love the flavor, but not raw onions.

I use dehydrated onion in place of raw. They don't bother my stomach and the texture is easier to hide from my family.

It kind of depends on the context, as each of them have their place to shine. E.g. pancakes are better when fried in butter, but try to deepfry something in butter and you have a recipe for disarster, and a vinaigrette made with butter is bound to be a wierd thing... Butter in general has a narrower temperature range than oils. Heat it too much and it will burn, and cool it to much and it will re-solidify into a paste.

Again Bretons will love you (if salted butter), but you have to choose. In order to Mediterranean love you, butter with olive oil. Always. Becsuse olive oil is better.

If you care about your waistline, stock or aquafaba or wine or soy sauce instead of butter or oil.

So true! Even trying on butter (anything really) tastes better. And I usually use sunflower oil if needed. Olive oil doesn't tastes right for frying. Even those extra heat ones...

I will never understand the obsession we have with using evoo in everything. The point of using it (other than if you just like the flavor) is that evoo has healthier fats but not when used in the proportions it ends up getting used in. Drizzle it in a pan instead of butter and that's okay...but most people put a half a cup or more, then sometimes put it on top of the finished meal itself. I'm so tired of everything I eat tasting like olive oil. And the amount used it often negating the health benefits. There's like 17 grams of fat in a teaspoon of evoo. And it also has a high smoke point which means it burns quickly. Just use a little less butter and you'll be fine and it will taste so much better.