5 Alternative Ways to Use a Wok

I invested in a wok a few years ago, mainly to stir-fry and do high-heat cooking. I didn’t make the decision lightly, though, since a wok takes up a fair amount of room and needs care and maintenance to work at its best. I was worried it would only be able to do one thing well, but it’s actually a really versatile piece of cookware!

I love deep-frying in my wok because its shape tapers down at the bottom, meaning you need less oil to fill it up but you’re still left with a wide surface area at the top. Woks also need to be seasoned, so filling it with oil is a great way to break in a new or young wok and start building a beautiful patina and natural nonstick surface.

Steaming dumplings, whole fish, or vegetables is easy when you use a wok as the base. Get some inexpensive bamboo steamers (which can stack on top of each other to get a lot of food steaming at once), and you’ve got an easy way to do healthy cooking.

Warming up tortillas used to mean heating them up one by one on a burner or in a frying pan, which never held more than two small tortillas at once. Not anymore! Faith shared that she warms tortillas up in a wok. Just lay them up the sides, as many as you can fit, and you’ll have a stack of toasty tortillas in no time.

• A Better Way to Heat Up Tortillas

Smoking food indoors doesn’t mean you need to buy a stovetop smoking box. With some foil, a cooling rack, and some wood chips, you can turn your wok into a makeshift smoker and smoke fish, nuts, or whatever your heart desires.

• Watch the video: How to Use Your Wok as a Smoker – CHOW

Popcorn in a wok? Yes, please! There’s plenty of room in a wok to do a big batch, and all that popping helps to evenly distribute oil and season the wok. Cookbook author Grace Young claims that it makes light, airy, and perfect popcorn — high praise for the humble wok.

• Wokcorn: Does the Best Popcorn Come from a Wok?

What else do you do in your wok?