If you think all vegan food has to be bland and boring, think again. Here are five of our favorite ingredients for ensuring that every dish coming out of the kitchen is packed with flavor. What are yours?
Truthfully, any cook, vegan or otherwise, can make use of these pantry staples for boosting the flavor in a dish.
1. Sun-Dried Tomatoes - Chopped into tiny pieces, we add a few sundried tomatoes along with the garlic when making soups and sauces. They give an extra savory boost to just about any dish. Tomato paste also does the same trick.
2. Capers - A teaspoon of these tiny brined buds goes a long way toward brightening the flavors in a dish. Try them in salad dressings or sprinkled over pasta. We also think capers also make a great substitute for anchovies.
3. Kalamata Olives - Like capers, we find these plump Greek olives give dishes a bright and zingy flavor. One of our favorite things to do is chop olives with a handful of fresh herbs into a paste that can be used on pizza, as a spread on sandwiches, or even swirled into soup.
4. Dried Mushrooms - Dried mushrooms are useful even in dishes that aren't mushroom-focused. One or two dried mushrooms reconstituted in water and minced finely add savory depth. You can also use the soaking water for deglazing pans or making sauces. Try grinding dried mushrooms into powder and sprinkling them into dishes like any other spice.
5. Miso Paste - Miso is often our ace in the hole. It's savory flavor is more subtle than many of these other ingredients, we think. We like that we can make it the showcase ingredient or use it to simply create a savory base to our dishes. We use it in everything from quick soups to glazes to salad dressings.
What are your go-to pantry staples for boosting the flavors in your dishes?
Related: Taste Boosters: 8 Ways to Add Smoky Flavor to Any Dish
(Images: Mushrooms/Flickr member avlxyz licensed under Creative Commons, Olives/Amazon.com, Capers/Flickr member timlewisnm licensed under Creative Commons, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes/Amazon.com)
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Quick question about capers, hopefully someone can help me. I bought a jar of capers from Whole Foods and it doesn't say anything about refrigerating so I left them in the cupboard but my Mom says that I should have refrigerated them and they're no good now. I opened them about a week ago.
So, do they need to be refrigerated after opening (and if so, why doesn't is say so on the label? grr) and can I salvage these capers or should I throw them out?
Thank you!
Ditto and add tamarind paste, chipotle Tabasco, walnuts, and lemons. OK, lemons are not strictly a pantry item, but they keep well so I include them.
Roasted red peppers in a jar. I always have these around. They're good on their own, and it's easy to make sauces with them in the food processor. Just add olive oil, sherry vinegar, etc.
Man, Vince's spam is getting annoying.
@Anthropos, I refrigerate mine after opening. As far as saving them goes... that's up to you. My thoughts are that there's so much vinegar/brine solution in that jar, they may be okay... But also, a jar of capers is not so expensive. Tossing it (saving the jar for another use or at least recycling!) isn't the end of the world...
Korean fermented red pepper paste (gochujang) can give a fiery kick to many dishes, and chinese fermented black bean and garlic sauce gives depth to stir fries or what-have-you.
But two items I always keep around for added depth and flavor are fresh garlic and ginger. Not exactly a pantry item, but crucial nonetheless.
Thanks, LauraJane!
Simple, but essential: soy sauce, tamari, &/or Bragg liquid aminos. One of these goes into almost everything I make, from vegetable stock to seitan. I also find tomato paste tremendously useful in a variety of food. To add a bit of complexity to dishes that are traditionally long-simmered with a meat like ham hocks (I'm lookin' at you, red beans & rice), I'll toss in a bit of liquid smoke at the end.
I cannot believe nutritional yeast was left off this list! I sprinkle it on toast, throw it into scrambles, and use it to create delicious gravy, sauce and pesto.
Those particular olives are my favorite!!
For me, I LOVE having bread dipped in seasoned fruity Extra Virgin Olive Oil once a day. It satisfies me with the good healthy fats.
Also, I eat a lot of avocado. They are filling and packed with fiber. Avocados add a wonderful, rich creaminess to so many dishes.
Crushed red pepper flakes have become a staple for me.
At the end of the day, though, a good salt does wonders for adding flavor to dishes... vegan or not!
Worcestershire sauce (it's pretty easy to find fishless ones). And Paprika is great. Really, we're mentioning all (vegan) things umami.
Capers. Anchovy paste. Juniper berries.
I ate a mostly vegetarian diet for about 10 years, but when I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure (due to a virus—my arteries were clear and my cholesterol low), I had to give that up and start eating more meat.
Why? Sodium. The vegetarian and vegan recipes I had been making often turned out to be 3-4X higher in sodium than simple meat recipes. Olives, capers, and miso are all quite high in sodium (I keep Eden Organic Shiro Miso when I can, but at 330mg of sodium per tablespoon, it rules out those recipes that call for 1/2 cup of miso for what turns out to be three servings). Reduced-sodium soy sauce is around 500mg of sodium per tablespoon. Olives and capers are also quite salty, as can be some sun-dried tomatoes, usually the ones packed in oil. Bragg's Liquid Aminos, IIRC, are about 720mg of sodium per tablespoon.
Tabasco is actually pretty decent, at 30mg per teaspoon. The newer Tabasco-brand sauces are more like 200mg per teaspoon and must be used much more sparingly.
My go-to add-on of choice, which surprises me as much as anyone, is the Sunny Spain seasoning from Penzey's Spices. It's lemon pepper but without the salt (salt is usually the first ingredient listed in lemon pepper blends, and if not first then second). I mix it with salt substitute, which works for me because a) it tastes salty to me (I'm lucky) and b) my meds require me to get extra potassium anyway, and salt substitute is potassium chloride.
Non-CHF patients can probably go with regular lemon pepper. it's got salt and pepper, and some lemon zest, but also powdered citric acid. I heard Thomas Keller on The Splendid Table say that salt and acid are the only two real seasoning ingredients we have, and using this stuff in a shaker has made a world of difference for me. It brightens up nearly every dish, from tomato-based pastas to fried rice to soups. It has made a huge difference for me in dishes that normally involve salty-briny ingredients that I simply cannot use in any noticeable quantities. Check it out.
Uh, anchovy paste isn't vegan.
Good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, chargrilled artichokes in olive oil. Italian ingredients make great store cupboard essentials, vegan too!
Really good dijon. I have at least four kinds of mustard in my fridge right now. It adds that kick to just about anything.
Also, cashews. Soak them and puree them and they become a dessert, a sour cream, a cheese, a ravioli filling, a spread, the cream base of a soup, the crispy coating on kale chips... the possibilities are endless.
Folks might have already mentioned a few of these, but here are a few things off the top of my head:
- liquid smoke
- chipotles in adobo
- smoked paprika (can you tell I like smokiness?)
- roasted red peppers
- tamarind paste
- pomegranate molasses (I like to use it instead of blackstrap in BBQ sauces, chilis, etc.)
- a good vegan broth (Better Than Bouillon makes some great ones)
And this isn't one that really adds flavor, but I think you guys should do a post on the amazing wonderfulness that is the raw cashew. When I want to make a creamy sauce or dip, I soak some raw cashews overnight or however long I have and then blend it well. I got this from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cashew tofu ricotta recipe in Veganomicon. Since then I've used it to make faux cream cheese (on which I put my homemade habanero jelly), mac and cheese, and creamy pasta sauces.
For people looking for parmesan-like substitutes, try mixing some nutritional yeast with salt and chopped raw cashews. Chop the cashews finely in a food processor, but don't let them go to butter/paste state. Toss it all together and it makes a salty/nutty topping for dishes.
www.maryworrell.com
@Mary Worrell - I couldn't agree more about the cashews! I think we use cashews in almost every sauce we make. I'm not a vegan who thinks every sauce should be tofu-based, and cashews have very nicely filled that niche for us.
Also, I've been blending nutritional yeast with walnuts for a vegan parm, but I'm going to try the cashew blend (and I'm really not sure why I haven't before!).