It can get boring to cook and eat the same dish everyday. Sure, it’s great to have favorites and a much-requested recipe. Tuesday night tacos stuffed with ground meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and guacamole, anyone? But, it is fun to change things up, even just a little bit. Here are some tips on taking the same dish but changing it into a whole new recipe.
1. Deconstruct
Take the same components that are usually mixed together or layered together and don’t combine them at all.
- Take for instance an everything bagel with salmon, cream cheese, and onions. Instead of making a bagel sandwich, turn it into a everything bagel salad with bagel croutons. Cut the bagel into bite-sizes; toast in the oven or toaster oven (or toast and then cut into bite-sizes). Prepare a salad with thinly sliced red onions and cucumbers, diced tomatoes, capers, and chunks of cream cheese. Add pieces of smoked salmon. Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the salad, tossing until evenly mixed. Top with toasted bagel croutons.
- Same idea with pitas. Instead of filling pitas with hummus and veggies, make pita nachos. Cut pitas into triangles, season with salt and pepper, and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Layer freshly baked pita chips with shredded pork, tomatoes, lettuce, pickled jalapenos, and cheese, and bake for delicious, quick, and fun nachos.
2. Combine the ingredients differently
Experiment adding the ingredients at different times.
- For instance, if you always top oatmeal with fruit after it’s cooked, try fruit-infused oatmeal. Add the fruit (sliced bananas, diced apples, berries, dried fruit, etc.) to a pot of oats and water and let it cook together. You’ll get delicious fruit-flavored oatmeal all throughout rather than just the fruit on top. The dried fruit in particular benefits with this method as the fruit plumps up and gets twice the size!
3. Don’t cook
If the dish does not include raw meat or unsafe-to-eat-if-raw ingredients, then think about how the dish or some of the ingredients would be not cooked. The raw form of food offers a crunch and freshness that cooked can’t get. The contrast between crunchy raw vegetables and cooked meats or vegetables or breads is delicious.
- Take pizza for instance. Make a fresh tomato-sauced pizza. Start by baking the pizza crust. Meanwhile, make a fresh tomato sauce with diced tomatoes, a splash of balsamic vinegar, fresh basil leaves, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. Spoon over the pizza crust and serve immediately.
4. Cook
Take the same idea as not cooking a typically cooked dish and do the opposite: cook a raw dish.
- Back to the everything bagel and salmon example. Make an everything bagel and salmon egg bake. Cut the bagel into bite sizes and leave out to dry out. Slice smoked salmon into pieces. Slice red onions into thin rings. Add bagel, salmon, and onion rings to a greased casserole dish. Add freshly chopped dill and capers. Whisk eggs and milk in a small bowl and pour over casserole dish. Bake at 350 until set.
5. Serve in a bowl
Changing up the presentation of a dish makes it look differently and how food looks affects your experience of the dish.
Putting the ingredients in a bowl suggests comfort and warmth. Plus, a bowl really does keep a dish warmer by containing some of the heat better than a plate would.
- A mug works the same way. Home décor shops like Anthropologie sell colorful, over-sized mugs with handles that make it easy to hold a bowl of oatmeal. You taste the warmth of oatmeal at the same time as you feel the warmth of oat mixture while holding the mug.
6. Cut the ingredients differently
How an ingredient is cut brings out different textures and offers new experiences in how the ingredients tastes.
Experiment with diced versus sliced.
- A cucumber, for instance, is crunchy when diced but smooth and creamy when sliced thin.
- Cauliflower is a great example of how cutting it differently transforms the ingredient. Cauliflower florets, cauliflower ‘steak’, and now cauli’rice’ are all variations of the same ingredient but the different cuts lend to different uses. Cauliflower florets in casseroles give texture; cauliflower steaks, heads of cauliflower cut vertically, are seared and roasted for a meaty main dish; cauliflower rice is blitzed cauliflower turned into small rice-like pieces for rice substitutes in stir-fry, burritos, and sushi.
7. Blend
Put the ingredients in a blender and blend for a soup or smoothie. This really changes up the appearance, texture, and flavor of the dish! The individual pieces become one. Of course some dishes lend themselves better to this idea than others.
- Blend extra cooked oatmeal, milk, and frozen fruit for an oatmeal berry smoothie.
- Strawberry Tomato gazpacho becomes a refreshing chilled soup with an unusual and delicious flavor combination.
8. Turn sweet into savory
Make a dish that is usually savory and turn it sweet.
- French toast is usually sweet with maple syrup and fruit, but make ham and cheese french toast, a savory rendition of French toast with cheese, ham, and spinach tucked in between two slices of custard-dipped bread. Serve with honey mustard for dipping.
- Make scones, typically studded with dried currants, raisins, blueberries, or chocolate chips, but instead swap in herbs and cheese for herb cheese scones.
- Top yogurt with savory ingredients, liked grated cucumber and dill salad, grated beet salad, and turmeric chickpeas, topped with pistachios and fennel seeds for crunch.
9. Turn savory into sweet
Make a savory dish sweet and you’ll have a whole new repertoire.
- Pasta is so much more capable than just savory dishes. Make chocolate almond pasta. Cook your favorite angel hair pasta two minutes before al dente. Meanwhile, make a chocolate sauce. Heat a nonstick sauce pan over medium heat. Add unsweetened almond milk, cocoa powder, and a natural sweetener, whisking to combine. Bring to a low boil. Drain pasta and add to chocolate almond sauce, stirring until well coated. Let cook 1-2 minutes until pasta is just done.
- Make an omelet sweet with strawberry cinnamon omelet. Add cinnamon, salt, and pepper to your omelet mixture. Make omelet and plate, adding fresh sliced strawberries on top. Drizzle maple syrup over for a great combination of savory and sweet.
10. Make it bite-size
Turn a dish into bites and you get tapas, small dishes or snacks. Offer a variety of appetizers for an interesting dinner where every bite is different. Alternate between hot, cold, savory, sweet, briny, and bitter bites and dinner becomes an adventure.
- Take french toast again. Slice into thirds for french toast “sticks” or tapas. Dipping the cinnamony-sugar bread into hot syrup is easier than ever.
- And of course, individual fruit and yogurt parfaits are welcome any time of day, any season.
11. Bonus! Double the same flavor
Take one ingredient and use it twice. Think of ways to use the same ingredient in another way, either another part of the ingredient or the same part a second way.
- Apples, for instance, can be peeled and chopped up to use in pancakes. Make apple-infused maple syrup. Add apple peels to maple syrup that is being warmed on the stove.
- Lemons, limes, and oranges are really two flavorings in one. Use the zest and juice in your next vinaigrette, sauce, or muffin and cake mix.