Cook your greens in pan drippings. Next time you’re making a chicken or roast, save those pan juices. While your meat rests, sauté a big pile of spinach or Swiss chard in the drippings, says Louis Malonado, Top Chef alum and executive chef of Northern California’s Spoonbar and Pizzando. It’s way more flavor-packed than the usual olive oil-garlic combo, and saves you from having to clean another pan. (Find out how to get more home-cooked flavor into every meal with The Amish Cook’s Family Cookbook, including more than 300 recipes that go way beyond Shoefly Pie!) Say yes to the spiralizer.Spiralizing might not change the flavor of your veggies. But it does let you eat them in new, unexpected ways—which is sometimes all you need to make a boring food fun again. Instead of tossing sliced carrots in your stir-fry, serve spiralized carrots underneath your stir-fry like noodles. Or sauté spiralized beets in olive oil and top with raw goat cheese, a little bit of bacon, and chopped walnuts, says Annie Lawless, cofounder of Suja Juice and co-author of The Suja Juice Solution. How good does that sound? (Check out these 5 spiralized dinners that can help you lose 5 pounds.) Add a flavor finisher. Like a sprinkle of Parmesan on pasta or a dab of butter on a splurge-worthy steak, cooked veggies taste even better when you add a flourish of last-minute flavor. Try squeezing fresh lemon juice on roasted broccoli or cauliflower, sprinkling cumin-scented sea salt for steamed carrots, or tossing roasted root vegetables with a mixture of pungent minced fresh ginger, garlic, and orange zest, says Earthbound Farm executive chef Sarah LaCasse. Up your broth game. We’ll admit it: Even homemade vegetable broth isn’t all that special. Until you caramelize your vegetables and deglaze your pan with white soy sauce and tomato before adding your liquid—along with a few handfuls of umami-rich seaweed, dried mushrooms, and nutritional yeast. That’s what Picholine’s chef Terrance Brennan does to make a vegan “bone broth” for his vegetarian tasting menu—and how you might want to build a more flavor-packed veggie soup, too. Try tomatoes with sherry. A drizzle of syrupy balsamic vinegar is the classic compliment for ripe summer tomatoes. But a few dashes of sherry vinegar is even better, says Melissa King, a private chef and founder of the Co+Lab pop-up restaurant in San Francisco. It delivers the acidity you crave minus balsamic’s overpowering sweetness, so you get more fresh tomato flavor. MORE: 11 Ways To Dress Up Frozen Veggies Go ahead and Bragg. Instead of drizzling steamed veggies with the usual soy sauce, try Bragg Liquid Amino Acids instead, recommends Kerry Dunnington, author of Tasting the Seasons. The all-natural protein concentrate is derived from soybeans just like tamari or shoyu, but boasts a lighter (yet still umami-rich) flavor. “When I season with soy sauce, it tastes like the vegetables are drowning in sodium. When I use Bragg, it tastes like I’ve properly seasoned my vegetables,” Dunnington says. Pair Brussels sprouts with fish sauce. To add more dimension to naturally sweet roasted Brussels sprouts, take some inspiration from Southeast Asian fare. “Topping roasted Brussels sprouts with fish sauce, Tobasco, chopped scallions, and sesame seeds adds depth, umami, and balance,” Maldonado says.
