Feel like your food is pretty boring?
You don't necessarily need a lot of unhealthy additives or even completely new recipes to liven up the flavor or texture.
If you have universal products in your kitchen, you can season many dishes. Below you will find ingredients that should be present in your kitchen, says Yulia Arkhipova .
In recent years, soy sauce has also become a very popular addition to culinary creations. However, if you are looking for a healthier alternative, you need to try coconut aminos. This is a sauce that tastes very similar to soy sauce. Despite the name, which comes from the fact that the product is derived from the coconut palm, the sauce does not taste like coconut.
An important advantage over soy sauce is that it generally contains much less salt or sodium, so it is also suitable for people with high blood pressure and other problems that require reducing their salt intake.
While the flavor is mostly similar to soy sauce, the coconut aminos have a slightly oily aftertaste that can add an even more interesting flavor to the dish. This sauce is also a great substitute for those who may have a soy allergy, as well as for people who are allergic or hypersensitive to gluten, which is found in many soy sauces.
A paste made from ground, roasted sesame seeds, known as tahini, is one of the main ingredients in the popular hummus, in addition to chickpeas.
However, you can also use tahini as a separate additive - for example, to enrich salads, as an additive to cereals, as a spread for chopped fruits or vegetables, for sandwiches, as a filling for pasta, risotto.
Overall, tahini is a great choice where you want a slightly creamier, nuttier flavor.
The base for making miso paste is fermented soybeans. It is a paste best known as an ingredient in the soup of the same name.
Of course, this is far from the only recipe in which you can use miso paste. With its help, you can achieve a pleasant taste known as "umami".
The paste can be used as a marinade and as an additive to various sauces, if desired also in combination with ingredients such as the already mentioned tahini.
One of the most versatile additions to sweet dishes is maple syrup, a natural sweetener with an extremely rich flavor and texture.
Maple syrup is best known as a topping for pancakes and waffles, but its uses are nearly endless. For example, you can also use it on cereal, in various sweet treats, and even as a coffee topping.
Maple syrup isn't just for sweet dishes, either. You'll get some interesting results drizzling a little of it over popcorn, using it with vinegar as a base for a salad dressing, and it's also great as a glaze for roasted vegetables.
Fans of spicy flavors should definitely try sriracha, a hot sauce that originates from Thai cuisine.
This sauce is somewhat similar to Tabasco, but slightly different and unique. You can use it wherever you like. You can simply pour the sauce over your finished dishes or use it as an additive to other sauces.
Mustard is a topping that can be found in most kitchens. However, it is usually the classic version of mustard that is interesting, but it would be a shame not to explore other versions of this popular topping and experiment with mustards of different colors, whole grain mustards, mustards with different spices and other toppings.
So it's a very diverse group of foods, each with its own flavor and texture, so you'll discover completely new combinations of culinary delights.
Previously we wrote about how to make crispy potatoes .