Cheap tricks: 10 ingredient hacks to boost the flavour of your food
Mozzarella water in your pasta sauce? Curry paste on your roast veg? 10 clever (and surprising) quick wins to make your meals taste better
I’m always looking for a quick win in the kitchen. When the time to cook dinner is increasingly squeezed, I look for ways to amp up the flavour in less time. I buy more ready-made ingredients than I used to – cue adding tinned soup to risotto – and I’m often foraging the fridge to use things up (which is where my love of condiment jar dressings came into play).
Here are 10 of the most successful ‘cheap tricks’ I’ve tried lately, which I hope might inspire similarly frazzled and time-poor cooks.
1 Add mozzarella water to your pasta sauce
Save the water mozzarella comes in and add it to a tomato sauce (made by simmering a tin of tomatoes with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, a knob of butter, a whole, halved onion, 1 tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt and a splash of sherry vinegar). It will add richness and creaminess. Tear the mozzarella on top of the pasta at the end or serve in a salad of steamed green beans and hazelnuts.
2 Use up curry paste to roast vegetables
I’ve always got loads of half-finished jars of curry paste in my fridge. Recently I added a splash of oil to some Thai green curry paste and used to roast cubed squash and carrots. Serve over fluffy rice.
3 Make a stock from Marmite
It’s great in a risotto or soup. Add 2-3 tsp Marmite to around 750ml boiling water and stir to combine, to create the most flavourful stock ever in ten seconds.
4 Shake up a condiment salad dressing
Another tip to use up those random pastes and jars in your fridge. Take an almost-empty jar of harissa, olive tapenade, sundried tomato paste or pesto and top up with equal parts olive oil and vinegar (I like sherry or red wine) and a squeeze of lemon. Shake and season to taste then use to dress salads or grilled fish.
5 Use crisps and crunchy snacks as toppings
The crisp-topped omelette made famous on The Bear got me thinking of other ways to use crunchy, salty snacks. Crumble crisps onto salad or dips, use tortilla chips to top Mexican-style soups or chillies, or scatter Bombay mix over samosas with tamarind chutney, yoghurt and coriander chutney.
6 Save the oil from antipasti to create more flavour
Don’t throw away the oil from artichokes, sundried tomatoes or olives – it’s concentrated with loads of flavour. Drizzle over soups, on toasted bread to make a quick bruschetta, add to salad dressings or use in sauces.
7 Embrace canned soup in cooking
Linzi, a brilliant recipe developer at work got me into this. Sounds weird, but try it – think adding a tin of mushroom soup to your risotto or a tin of bean soup to your veggie chilli. They’re cheap and will add intense flavour and texture.
8 Crisp up any kind of bread
I’ve often got random almost-finished pitta breads, crumpets or flatbreads lying around. I’ve taken to tearing them into traybakes and then baking them for the last 10 minutes for a crunchy topping. Or cut tortilla wraps into triangles, sprinkle with a little paprika and bake, turning once, for 10 minutes to create instant crunchy homemade tortilla chips.
9 Jazz up shop-bought dips
A pot of houmous or baba ganoush is a different thing when it’s swirled through with some crispy chilli oil or crisped-up spiced chickpeas. Take soured cream dip to another level by topping with hot-smoked salmon, gherkins and dill (delicious piled on bagels).
10 Get creative with fish fingers
Ever since Nigella’s fish finger bhorta recipe went viral, I’ve looked at these freezer staples in a different light. They’re excellent broken up and served in tacos with your fave salsas, served with a katsu curry sauce and rice, or loaded into flatbreads with tartare sauce and salad to recreate my beloved LEON lunch of days gone by.