“What Fancy Ingredient Have You Tried That Is Completely Worth The Hype?” (30 Answers)
Interview With Expert
No matter how much or how little experience we have in the kitchen, many of us have at least a handful of culinary secrets. It might be as simple as remembering to season our food well. Or how adding just a bit of butter or garlic can make a huge difference to the flavor profile of a dish. The more we’re willing to experiment, the more we can learn.
The friendly everyday cooks of the popular r/Cooking subreddit spilled the beans about the fancy ingredients that they’ve personally found to be extremely worth the expensive price tag. In their opinion, they’re completely worth the hype. Scroll down for some inspiration for the next time you want to make something new. Oh, and be warned, you might get incredibly hungry reading this!
Bored Panda reached out to famous pie artist and author Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin (@thepieous) to get her thoughts on expensive vs. cheap ingredients. You’ll find the insights she shared with us as you read on.
This post may include affiliate links.
Real maple syrup
New Englander here. Maple syrup is plentiful and can be found reasonably priced. It is a staple in our fridge. I use as a sugar substitute in everything from salad dressing to whipped cream. I'm not so sure about the 99% figure being non-maple.
According to pie artist Jessica, who runs a series of online baking courses at ‘The Pie Savvy,’ she looks at three main factors when choosing whether or not to splurge on ‘fancy’ ingredients or to save some money and opt for store brand options.
She looks at whether or not a particular ingredient is going to be the “star of the show,” whether it will be subjected to temperature extremes, and whether you’ll be serving your dish to “culinary fussy pants.”
“When I am going to be blending a lot of different elements together, there is less pressure on any one ingredient to carry the show, and it becomes more about the overall flavor profile and mouthfeel of the dish,” Jessica explained to Bored Panda in an email.
High quality Olive oil. I got some from a farm in California and it was amazing. So fresh, fragrant and flavorful.
My SIL's parents have olive trees and produce their own oil, so I get it fresh every year! 😎😊 Also Greek olive oil is one of the best 🤤
I like slightly higher end butter. Kerrygold is always solid.
Kerrygold has a towering reputation in the USA. People don't seem to understand that's how butter is supposed to taste. Kerrygold is fine. It's okay. It's most definitely not the best. But if Americans fed their cows on grass their dairy products would taste so much better.
“For example, if I am baking a chicken pot pie, it is less critical that the minced veggies I mix in with the meat and sauce and spices be the freshest, most artisanal of the season. But if I am preparing a dish of lightly steamed veggies with just a little lemon juice and herbs for seasoning, suddenly those subtle nuances of flavor, texture, and freshness in the vegetables become critical to the success of the dish!”
Meanwhile, the pie artist drew our attention to the fact that many of the subtle compounds and enzymes that differentiate the merely ‘ok’ ingredients from truly great ones get destroyed in the heating or freezing process.
“In blind taste tests, even master chefs can’t tell the difference between many of the high and low-end ingredients once baked. For example, if you are going to be cooking at high heat with butter or oil, the brand is a little less critical than it would be if you were to spread that butter on a piece of toast and eat it plain, or drizzle that oil on a fresh salad at room temp,” she said.
“If you are eating butter or oil unadulterated at room temperature, then it makes sense to spring for the most fresh and flavourful options.”
Not fancy but something most people use. Whole nutmeg. Once I started using at rather than the pre gound stuff and I never looked back. Also good local honey from different pollinating sources. You can taste the difference between honey from bees that polinate say clover and the honey from bees that pollinate apple blossoms.
Probably all spices are best kept whole until use. Some spices are also better stored in fridge, but not all.
Good fresh farm eggs
Moreover, you have to consider your culinary audience. Who exactly are you cooking for? Are they going to be able to tell the difference between high-end and low-end ingredients?
“I don’t bother busting out the hand-grated truffles for my kid’s mac n' cheese… but I might if I had some foodie friends over who I knew would appreciate the subtle distinction! If I am dealing with a dinner guest who I know has a particularly sophisticated palate, I may opt for the more expensive ingredients (or offer a cheeky mix of dishes with higher and lower-end ingredients to see if they can tell the difference!),” Jessica shared with Bored Panda.
I dunno if this counts, but homemade chicken stock. Some people are equating fancy with expensive or rare, which is valid. The first time I tasted an aged balsamic I was blown away, spent 20 minutes trying to convince myself not to spend $50 on a tiny bottle of vinegar, failed and bought it, and I have not regretted it. It’s so good. But when I’m feelin real fancy, I make stock. I made my last stock with 5lb of chicken drumsticks on sale for $4, a cleaver, a carrot, a shallot, a celery, a bay leaf, a vinegar, peppercorns, water, and an electric pressure cooker. That might not sound fancy, but the product is so far beyond those boxed stocks. Just, unbelievably beyond you don’t understand till you’ve done it. The effort and quality is what makes homemade stock fancy for me, not the price or rarity.
Oh yes, good broth is amazing. From time to time we buy chicken, pork or beef bones and make strong broth. Sometimes we bake the bones first to make it even stronger. We make a lot of broth (no vegetables, just bones and spices) and can it for later use. You want soup? Fry some veggies and add a jar of broth. You want some sauce? Add small jar. It makes everything amazing.
Parmesan reggiano. Maldon salt. Berkshire pork.Good Scotch.
Good Scotch? I think that applies to all alcohol. There is huge taste difference between bad rum and good rum and the price can vary by 10% only. Personally I would suggest Flor de Caña, it is great rum with price tag similar to Bacardi, but it tastes much better.
Nothing in particular...but I'm always skeptical when someone gets a cheeseboard that has a ridiculously expensive cheese...like there's no way this is worth 50 dollars a pound or whatever...and every time I eat it and my words.
In our personal experience, what matters the most is the freshness of the ingredients, as well as the flavor profiles and combinations you create. The price isn’t necessarily all that important. If an ingredient is ‘in season’ or locally produced, you can get it at a relatively low price, even if it’s a delicious part of your dishes.
Meanwhile, if you’re willing to spend more of your time to save money, you can compare and contrast the prices at your local stores, mom-and-pop groceries, and outdoor markets. Even a bit of research—combined with some charismatic haggling—can help you get what you want and keep your wallet happy.
However, this probably won’t work all the time. Some ingredients like honey, olive oil, and maple syrup are very sought after. And the ‘real thing’ is genuinely expensive due to its high quality and massive demand. So unless you’ve got a network of trustworthy suppliers on speed dial, you’ll probably need to shell out the big bucks to get your hands on the top-shelf stuff.
Smoked paprika....
All paprika. Also, there should be a number on the pack, it is called ASTA. On average you will get 100, maybe 120 units, but you want to get paprika with 180. I know, it costs a bit more, but you will use much less! And you will love the smell and the color.
Cardamom.
It is just ridiculously tasty in baked goods.
You can do some simple tests to check whether you’ve gotten your paws on real (aka ‘natural’ or ‘raw’) honey or the fake (aka mass-produced) kind. Real honey is what bees make: you’ll most often find it in a jar, and it is, through and through, honey and nothing else.
On the other hand, fake honey has various additives, from dyes and sugar to flavors. This sort of honey might be made from syrups or sugar solutions and might have nothing to do with bees at all. Fake honey tends to immediately dissolve in water, while real honey will sink. It also spreads if you place it on your finger, unlike natural honey, which tends to keep its form.
Forbes notes that there are reliable reports that around 80% of all the Italian olive oil that can be found on the global market is fraudulent. If you use lots of olive oil in your daily life (like we do), it’s quite possible that you don’t have ‘the real thing’ in your kitchen. It might be a low-quality knock-off that’s passed off as virgin or extra virgin olive oil. Or it might be a completely different oil that’s been modified to look like what it’s meant to copy. Even the ‘certification’ printed on the labels can be faked. To say that we feel betrayed is an understatement.
High quality mustard
mustard is so stupidly easy to make. Ground, whole seed, doesn't matter, add ICE COLD, water and let it sit for 15 minutes. It will be shockingly spicey. When you add vinegar it stops the reaction that makes it spicey so taste along the way if you don't want it too overpowering, Tumeric for color and then you can add honey, jalapeno's or whatever you like in a mustard.
Black garlic. Thank you Bob’s Burgers for that tasty treat.
Broadly speaking, when it comes to olive oil, you’re likely buying a fake if the price is low and you’re taking the bottle from a random shelf at your local grocery store. You’d think that the situation was better in Italy, but this isn’t the case. Around half of all the olive oil found on the country’s shelves is thought to be fake.
If fake honey and low-quality olive oil weren’t enough of a headache, you might want to check if your maple syrup is real, too. Real maple syrup is made from maple tree sap, which is boiled down.
Fake maple syrup, on the other hand, is simply a cheaper, mass-produced pancake syrup that might have nothing to do with maple trees at all. They’re chock full of sweeteners and coloring.
What expensive ingredients, in your experience, have been totally worth the cost, dear Pandas? On the flip side, what are some cheap(er) ingredients that you feel everybody should consider buying? Tell us what you think in the comments! We always enjoy hearing from you.
Vanilla bean paste
Whole vanilla beans for me. I use the empty pod in a jar of sugar and I have my own vanilla sugar.
Gruyère cheese for macaroni and cheese.
Chef here…REAL truffles and truffle oil….I swear it’s easier to get pure cocaine than real truffle oil.
Harder to find wild mushrooms like morels, chanterelles, and maitakes. I hate that they cost so damn much. I’m looking forward to moving to a place where I can forage.
Oregon is the place for OP. They're everywhere in the Coast Range.
Roquefort cheese and smoked aged garlic. Ruinously expensive, but takes pasta sauce from "that was lovely, cheers" to *silent weeping at the beauty of the world.*
My SO bought a tiny smoker (a sewing machine is bigger) and sometimes smokes cooked eggs and garlic in it. Then makes an egg or potato salad with both ingredients. I am not a big fan of smoked stuff but especially the garlic is wonderful. You can even just smear it on fresh roasted bread
Not really fancy, but parmigiana reggiano is really *the* only parmesan. Sichaun peppercorns for Chinese stir frys, grass fed ground beef for grilled burgers, local honeys as opposed to most any store brands.
Canned San Marzano tomatoes for pasta sauce. Changed everything.
I'm Asian, so here's something a bit different:
- Real baijiu for Chinese stirfries (vs ordinary shao xing wine)
- Real sake for Japanese dishes (vs ordinary ryoshiru)
- Ceremonial-grade matcha
- Legit fermented fish sauce (this is cheap in general, but the premium ones are really good - there are fake stuff made with just the extract plus artificial caramel coloring and salt 😠)
- Fermented soy sauce (again, cheap in general but the higher grades from small artisans in Japan are just...🤤)
- Real local vinegar (i especially hate it when there's additional citric acid in a bottled brand. I buy from small local producers)
Arborio rice, basmati rice (thought i could get away with using normal everyday rice because these two are expensive here but i'm a believer now)
People put citric acid in vinegar? Or in other words, people fake vinegar?
Luxardo cherries for cocktails.
Seems insane to spend $20 on a jar that small of anything, let alone something that I go through in like a month or two. But it’s now just a non-negotiable part of my budget.
Ah now this is how I'm outed as a peasant. I tried them, and I much prefer the fluorescent red ones á la 1960s cocktail
Cured meats like real Iberico ham. Oh my god, get the f**k out of my way and gimme.
Not really fancy but I’m f*****g heavily with shallots right now
Duck fat. It makes roasted veggies amazing.
Bone marrow. It’s like beef butter it’s amazing.
Oh I love that stuff. Luckily no-one else in the family does. Mr Auntriarch bought me a marrow spoon a few Christmases ago.
Fancy flaky salt like Maldon. Ridiculous price but makes a huge difference for anything that you would sprinkle with salt before serving, like salads or roasted veggies.
Ceylon cinnamon, instead of the cassia cinnamon that's usually in grocery stores. Ceylon is true cinnamon, less toxic in large quantities, and the one that's good for your blood sugar. I buy Frontier Ceylon from Vitacost.
Real, dark maple syrup
Block parmesan instead of the shake jar
I'm such an apple snob, but life is too short to eat Gala apples, much less Red Delicious.
Honeycrisp is my low-end, but I prefer Washington State-grown Envy Apples, British Columbia Salish Apples, Lucy GLO or Lucy Rose Apples, Cosmic Crisp, SugarBee, or a few other varietals.
I will eat a Fuji Apple in a pinch, and I use Granny Smith for charcuterie or salads sometimes. Ambrosia Apples are alright too. But those are all apples I'll only eat in the off-season, and lately, I've been able to get New Zealand Envy Apples during the off-season.
My daily mid-morning snack is a high quality apple and Dark Roast Peanut Butter.
Ghee. The real kind. Everything tastes so much better.
I haven’t tried this but watching the Salt Fat Acid Heat documentary made me want real soy sauce. If anyone has seen the documentary the salt episode was probably my favorite segment of the series.
Freshly grated Wasabi (as opposed to green colored horseradish)
A proper pesto made the right way in Genoa Italy. With warm bread for dipping.
Proper Hungarian paprika
Paprika is ground up dried red bell peppers, so what makes Hungarian paprika different?
Hatch Chilies
Hatch chilis come from Hatch, New Mexico. They sell these by the bushel from roadside stands in Denver in the Fall. You can buy mild, medium or hot. They will fire-roast them right there. I take them home, peel off the blistered skin, divide them into one pound bags and freeze them for green chili throughout the year. download-6...e5c76f.jpg 
Preserved lemons. They’re delicious in African lamb stew, in pasta, on pizza… still experimenting with the possibilities. Really easy to make at home too.
Indigenous Australian ingredients, hard to come by because not readily available, pricey too. Finger limes especially are simply divine.
Good deli meat like salami, mortadella, and sopressata.
Truffles. I know it's divisive to say but as someone who went in with low expectations when trying it for the first time, I can see why it's beloved by so many around the world.
I even had a pandan custard pie with shaved white truffles that completely blew me away. It was one of the tastiest desserts I've ever had and a lot of that credit goes to the truffles.
Pandan is a wonderful ingredient as well. It works wonders in not just sweets but savory dishes too due to its distinctive aroma.
Le Puy lentils. Like many great foods, there are lots of pretenders that are labeled French green lentils, but are not Le Puy lentils. The real deal are so ridiculously good compared to all other lentils, it's silly.
Bottled yuzu juice. It does a fair job of replicating the aroma and favor of the fresh fruit, which is hard to find outside of Japan.
Good cold pressed olive oil. DOP balsamic. Quality parmigiano. Heritage breed livestock meat. Black truffles (white truffles taste like foot sweat to me). Great bourbon. Even greater wine. Spend the $100 on that vintage Napa cab, Italian Amarone, or French Chateauneuf du Pape. Your life will be better for it. Fois Gras. Beef Tallow. Duck fat. Irish butter. Fleur de Sel salt *chefs kiss* maldon is great but I’d eat that s**t by the spoon. Duck eggs. Aged shoyu. Aged fish sauce. Cheese. Filthy funky musty stinky f*****g cheese. NON CELEBRITY TEQUILA. Old expensive scotch. I’m talking scotch old enough to order it’s own scotch. Macallan 30 will literally change your life. Mozzarella de Bufala
(Accidentally replied to someone else’s specific comment so I thought I’d repost under the main thread)
I'm with you on most of these (especially white truffles!) Except that here in France we have access to cheap, good quality butter, and cheap-ish good stinky, runny cheeses. And you can get some really good wine for about 30€.
Traditional German egg noodles for homemade chicken noodle soup.
Argentine shrimp.
Specific "fancy" foods that are worth the hype:
* Plugra butter
* Berkshire pork
* Luxardo cherries
* Point Reyes **Bay** blue cheese - the flavor balance is amazing
Categories of food in which it pays to do your research and opt for a well-reviewed premium, sometimes much-more-expensive, version.. or versions depending on your specific application:
* EVOO
* Balsamic vinegar
* Koshihikari short-grain ("sushi") rice* (you will also need the right premium cooker)
Oh dear. Brand names do not mean good products, unless you don't have access to a proper selection. Blue cheeses particularly - I find it hard to imagine a factory-produced brand name being anything like as good as any of the many blue cheeses I could buy in any supermarket here.
Wagyu beef, caviar, foie gras, lobster, uni, and many more. I honestly think the list of expensive ingredients that aren't worth it is shorter. There's usually a good reason unless it's just marked up for a brand name.
Fois Gras. It's the richest thing you can put in your face.
It's barbaric. The way the birds are treated should be outlawed everywhere.
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This list just made me hungry and sad. Some of these are niche luxury items, but so many of these just come down to high quality 'real', food made traditional ways. I hate that FOOD is a premium ingredient, and mass produced, processed substitute is all most of the people I know can afford.
ummm pure vanilla extract anyone? imitation doesn't come close
So most of the list is just fresh quality food instead of artificial flavored ones. Sounds simple, but it does make a world of difference
I grow a few herbs, and my favourite is oregano. We pick large bunches and dry them out in the oven. So much better than store-bought dried oregano (which I'm not sure is even the real deal).
When given the choice, choose your ingredients from Italy, Japan, Spain or France and 99% of the job is done. Name one thing better elsewhere..
A lot of these are occasional indulgence things. On a daily basis: Sea salt - I use fine sea salt for everything now, and maldon flakes for finishing or table salt. Fresh-ground peppercorns, for pepper. Tomatoes - if you can find them locally grown, field ripened and fresh picked heirloom tomatoes are a completely different experience, and you will not regret them.
So many of these, mostly seemingly from the US, are simply saying "don't use cheap imitations" of things which I would never think of even having cheap imitations available. Real Olive oil, well yes, what else? "Quality" or "good" this that or the other makes me sad to realise that there are people that have grown up with fake foods. Like, if it says Parmesan, or Balsamic, on the pack then that's what it is - there is no 'real' involved, it either is the product or it is not the product.
Real honey, maple syrup, and local eggs. Can't live without 'em, thankfully they're affordable here in Minnesota, but we make our own or get them from family most of the time.
"Jambon de Paris" at Bristol Farms. low sodium, but still better than most brands of American ham I have tried, and is similar to ham I have had in Holland and Belgium
NASAL NAPALM! If you've never heard of this stuff and you're tired of the wimpy a*s s**t horseradish you find in your local grocers and they don't carry horseradish root, GO FOR THIS COMPANY. They're, like, $18, after tax, for a 5 oz jar, but it goes a LONG way and it's delicious! Not just spicy as all get out, but also very horseradish-y. Wonderful buy, you can find them at pepperpalace.com
This list just made me hungry and sad. Some of these are niche luxury items, but so many of these just come down to high quality 'real', food made traditional ways. I hate that FOOD is a premium ingredient, and mass produced, processed substitute is all most of the people I know can afford.
ummm pure vanilla extract anyone? imitation doesn't come close
So most of the list is just fresh quality food instead of artificial flavored ones. Sounds simple, but it does make a world of difference
I grow a few herbs, and my favourite is oregano. We pick large bunches and dry them out in the oven. So much better than store-bought dried oregano (which I'm not sure is even the real deal).
When given the choice, choose your ingredients from Italy, Japan, Spain or France and 99% of the job is done. Name one thing better elsewhere..
A lot of these are occasional indulgence things. On a daily basis: Sea salt - I use fine sea salt for everything now, and maldon flakes for finishing or table salt. Fresh-ground peppercorns, for pepper. Tomatoes - if you can find them locally grown, field ripened and fresh picked heirloom tomatoes are a completely different experience, and you will not regret them.
So many of these, mostly seemingly from the US, are simply saying "don't use cheap imitations" of things which I would never think of even having cheap imitations available. Real Olive oil, well yes, what else? "Quality" or "good" this that or the other makes me sad to realise that there are people that have grown up with fake foods. Like, if it says Parmesan, or Balsamic, on the pack then that's what it is - there is no 'real' involved, it either is the product or it is not the product.
Real honey, maple syrup, and local eggs. Can't live without 'em, thankfully they're affordable here in Minnesota, but we make our own or get them from family most of the time.
"Jambon de Paris" at Bristol Farms. low sodium, but still better than most brands of American ham I have tried, and is similar to ham I have had in Holland and Belgium
NASAL NAPALM! If you've never heard of this stuff and you're tired of the wimpy a*s s**t horseradish you find in your local grocers and they don't carry horseradish root, GO FOR THIS COMPANY. They're, like, $18, after tax, for a 5 oz jar, but it goes a LONG way and it's delicious! Not just spicy as all get out, but also very horseradish-y. Wonderful buy, you can find them at pepperpalace.com
