Build Flavor with Key Techniques
If you use the best ingredients you can find and balance the flavors overall, you should end up with great-tasting food—even before you do any cooking! Then, once you’ve built a foundation of flavor and layered it with aromatic ingredients, enhancing that flavor with cooking techniques can make healthy food taste incredibly delicious. It’s this kind of culinary know-how that really helps people achieve their health goals. Because let’s face it—sacrificing good taste for health never works. You’ll only continue to eat any food—healthy or otherwise—if it tastes good. Here are some tricks for building flavor and making healthy food taste friggin’ awesome.
BROWN YOUR FOOD. Browning is the single most important technique to making food taste better than it already does. It’s the first thing you do in most cooking. Brown onions in a pan. Roast vegetables in a hot oven. Grill mushrooms. Toast spices. It’s an absolutely essential technique because it creates new flavors in the food that were not there before. New flavors! When onions cook in a pan and go from white to gold to amber to deep brown, they get more and more flavorful because the natural sugar caramelizes. The darker the color, the deeper the flavor. Browning can happen in a hot pan, in a hot oven, under a hot broiler, or on a hot grill. However it’s done, the process creates those aromatic and savory caramelized flavors that we recognize as GBD: golden brown and delicious.
A little fat on the surface of food helps it brown more evenly. The fat seeps into all the nooks and crannies and helps deliver heat to all areas of the food for more thorough browning—and deeper flavor. You only need a thin film of oil. Our favorite method is to simply rub some oil in our hands, then massage the food with the oil so it’s evenly coated all over. Pretend you’re rubbing your sweetheart with suntan lotion. Use this method, and you’ll use minimal fat for maximum flavor. It’s perfect for roasting potatoes or grilling cabbage to make sure all surfaces are evenly coated and ready to get tanned. Strictly speaking, though, you don’t need fat to brown your food. See here to find out about no-oil sautéing and roasting.
ROAST YOUR VEGETABLES. From broccoli and cauliflower to Brussels sprouts and beets, roasting is a form of browning and a core method of bringing out flavor in vegetables. It not only caramelizes their sugars; it also evaporates water. Most vegetables are at least 90% water by weight. Roasting drives off water and concentrates the flavor of the vegetable itself. To taste this transformation, try our Tomato Confit (here). If you bite into the tomato when it’s fresh, it will taste bright, juicy, slightly sweet, and slightly acidic. After slow roasting, much of the water evaporates and the tomato browns a little, so it ends up tasting intensely savory, sweet, and infinitely more complex. Roasting is a great flavor builder. Taste what we mean by trying the recipes for Roasted Carrot–Lentil Dip (here) and Roasted Cauliflower Fagioli (here).
TOAST YOUR NUTS, SEEDS, SPICES, AND GRAINS. The browning that occurs on sautéed onions or roasted potatoes also happens with dry ingredients like nuts and seeds. Since there’s no added fat, we call it toasting. Want more flavor out of your whole grains? Toast them first! Toast oatmeal in a dry pan before cooking it. Toast barley before making a pilaf. In Indian cooking, toasting is a key technique for whole spices. Toasting intensifies the flavor of the spice, bringing aromatic oils to the surface, then grinding releases those bold flavors and aromas. Try a side-by-side comparison of ground cumin versus whole cumin seeds that are toasted and then ground. The flavor difference is insane. You can do the same thing with any kind of nuts or seeds to intensify their flavors. Check out our Ninja Nuts (here), or try Kale and Avocado Salad with Wild Rice, Grapes, and Toasted Seeds (here).
Press and sear your ’shrooms
CHAR AND SMOKE YOUR VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. Charring is an extreme form of browning, and it tastes incredibly good (aside from the trace carcinogens). Char is what’s exciting about the blistered crust on a pizza and the grill marks on zucchini. Don’t be afraid to burn it a little. A little goes a long way because the flavor is so intense and concentrated.
A hot grill or broiler is our method of introducing some char. The advantage of a grill is that it also adds smoke flavor. Smoke is yet another layer of flavor to add to your food. Smoke comes from wood, so grill your vegetables and fruits with hardwood charcoal whenever possible—or better yet, wood chips or chunks. Even an inexpensive charcoal kettle grill can add great smoke flavor.
There’s just something primal about char and smoke that makes us salivate. That’s why we grill the cabbage for Grilled Purple Cabbage with Mint and Peanut Sauce (here). A hint of char and smoke also balances the fresh spring flavors in our Minted Pea Ricotta, Grilled Zucchini, and Charred Lemon Toasts (here). And it brings a whole new dimension to a dessert of Grilled Peaches with Vanilla Spiced Gelato and Mango Sriracha Caramel (here).
PRESS AND SEAR YOUR ’SHROOMS. Okay, we admit it. We love ’shrooms. They are the meat of the plant world and one of the best sources of savory umami flavor. We love them in simple Mushroom Gravy Train (here) and in a Spicy Maitake Steak Sandwich (here). That steak sandwich is where we employ one of our favorite mushroom techniques: the press-and-sear method. This “patented” Wicked Healthy cooking method condenses the mushrooms, creating a crisp crust and dense, chewy, satisfying texture. It also browns the ’shrooms, amping up all the savory flavors. After pressing, you can also marinate and slow smoke the ’shrooms to make incredible plant-based barbecue (see here). Yum.
The method is pretty simple and has a big WOW! factor. Just heat up a cast-iron pan or other heavy pan until it’s wicked hot. Then add a thin film of oil to the pan and then as many mushrooms or mushroom clusters as you can fit in the pan (image A). Put a second heavy pan or a foil-wrapped brick or other heavy weight on top of the ’shrooms and press them down, searing them in the pan (image B). When they’re good and browned on the bottom, flip the ’shrooms and season the browned side with a little salt, pepper, and other seasonings (image C). Then repeat the process, flipping and seasoning the other browned side. The mushrooms will get crispy and browned on both sides; the water will evaporate, which concentrates the flavor; and the heavy weight compresses the mushrooms, which concentrates the texture and makes them wicked dense and chewy. From there, you can eat the ’shrooms straight up with sauce or marinate and barbecue them later.
This press-and-sear method works with any mushroom from plain white button mushrooms to big chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. Our two favorite ’shrooms to cook this way are lion’s mane and maitake. Taste the results in Lion’s Mane Street Tacos (here) and Spicy Maitake Steak Sandwich (here). Seriously, try them. This cooking method will change the way you think about mushrooms.
REDUCE, REDUCE, REDUCE. You see a direction like this all the time: “Reduce the stock to one-third its original volume.” What’s up with that? The fact is, most food consists mostly of water, and water dilutes the flavor of food. If you want to concentrate the flavor, evaporate the water. That’s the whole idea behind a reduction sauce: You simmer the sauce to drive off water and concentrate the remaining flavors. Keep in mind: The higher the sugars in the sauce, the faster the liquid will reduce. Reducing also creates a thicker consistency and more body in a sauce because there’s less water. This basic principle is at work whenever you simmer a soup, stock, or sauce—or any flavorful liquid for that matter. Maple syrup is simply reduced maple sap, and sticky balsamic glaze is nothing more than reduced balsamic vinegar. Reduce, reduce, reduce. Use this flavor-building method. Own it. Make it yours. It’s a great way to boost flavor when you’re cutting back on added salt, fat, and sugar.
NO-OIL COOKING
Everyone has their own definition of “health,” and more and more people adhere to a no-added-oil diet. The idea is that it’s healthier to eat whole foods than to extract the oil from foods and just use the oil. No problem. The fact is, you can sauté, roast, create flavorful sauces, and make kick-ass dressing without added oil. For specific no-oil recipes, see the list here.
No-oil sauces and dressings: Instead of oil, use whole-food fats like nuts, seeds, or nut or seed butters. For example, blend tahini (sesame seed butter) with lemon juice for sourness, orange juice for sweetness, an aromatic ingredient like garlic, and some fresh herbs like thyme or mint. Now you’ve got a delicious no-oil dressing to drizzle on eggplant, roasted zucchini, or whatever you like! Other whole-food fats that work great blended into no-oil dressings and marinades include avocado, silken tofu, peanut butter, cashew butter, and almond butter. Need a creamy no-oil sauce? Try our Wicked Healthy Cheese Sauce (here). It hits all the flavor buttons with a whole-food combo of butternut squash (sweet, and a touch of bitter), rice vinegar (sour), miso (salt and savory), soaked and blended cashews (fat), garlic (aromatic), and black pepper, smoked paprika, and cayenne pepper (spices). Pureeing everything with some soy milk gives it a nice, creamy texture. For a list of other whole-food fats to use in sauces and dressings, see here.
No-oil browning: The goal of sautéing and roasting is to build flavor in the ingredient by browning it. You don’t need oil for that. What you need is high heat, and maybe some flavorful liquid and rapid motion to keep the food from sticking. For no-oil sautéing, heat a dry pan over medium-high heat until it’s wicked hot. Then add your vegetables, aromatics, or whatever you’re sautéing to the dry pan and let some of the moisture evaporate. You actually want the ingredients to stick to the pan a bit for browning, but not so much that they burn. Shake the pan or stir rapidly to prevent burning. When you see some browning on the food and/or pan, add a splash of stock, juice, vinegar, coconut water, beer, wine, or other flavorful liquid to “deglaze” the pan and capture all that delicious browned flavor you just created. Add a splash at a time—just enough to loosen the ingredients and dissolve the brown glaze on the pan. No-oil roasting is very similar. The difference is that everything happens in the oven. Food also dries out more over the long roasting time, so you might add a bit more flavorful liquid to replace lost moisture. Even so, preheat your oven to pretty hot, around 400ºF. Then toss your veg with some flavorful liquid before adding it to the roasting pan. Use just enough liquid to lightly coat the veg. It helps to use savory liquids here because the longer cooking time could cause sweet liquids to burn. Spread the veg in a single layer on baking sheets with a little space around each piece of food to encourage browning. As it roasts, let the food cook without stirring until it starts to brown on the bottom and “unstick” itself from the pan. When it’s brown, give it a stir to turn the browned side up. If the food sticks, add a splash more liquid to help loosen it. Continue roasting, turning and adding a bit of liquid until the food is tender and nicely browned. The thicker the veg, the longer the cooking time.
ALTERNATIVES TO EXTRACTED FATS
Most fats used for cooking are extracted from whole foods. For instance, olive oil is extracted from olives. We’re not saying olive oil is bad for you! (We love using it!) However, it’s okay to take a break from oil now and then. Sometimes, we like to use whole-food sources of fat instead.
DESCRIPTION: RICH AND CREAMY YET MILD-TASTING FRUIT (AND NOT SWEET)—HASS IS OUR FAVORITE VARIETY
USE IN: SALADS, SANDWICHES, TOAST, GRAIN DISHES, BEAN DISHES, STUFFED; BLEND INTO DRESSINGS AND DIPS
FOOD: Olives
DESCRIPTION: SMALL FRUIT RICH IN HEALTHY FATS—FROM BRINED TO DRY-CURED, WE LOVE THEM ALL
USE IN: SALADS, RICE, PASTA, AND GRAIN DISHES, BREADS, PIZZA, BEAN DISHES, VEGETABLE DISHES, STEWS, DIPS, SPREADS
FOOD: Dark chocolate
DESCRIPTION: RICH, CREAMY “FOOD OF THE GODS” THAT’S HIGH IN HEALTHY FLAVANOLS—THE KEY IS DARK CHOCOLATE, AND WE ARE SO THANKFUL IT IS HEALTHY
USE IN: BREAKFAST GRAINS, BAKED GOODS, PUDDINGS, GELATO, CREAMY DESSERTS, SAUCES, SAVORY BEAN DISHES AND STEWS
FOOD: Coconuts
DESCRIPTION: TROPICAL FRUIT HIGH IN MINERALS—USE FRESH OR TOAST IT LIKE OTHER NUTS TO INTENSIFY THE FLAVOR, OR USE COCONUT MILK OR CREAM FOR LIQUID RICHNESS
USE IN: SWEET BREAKFAST GRAINS, SAVORY RICE AND GRAIN DISHES, SOUPS, PUDDINGS, GELATO, STIR-FRIES, STEWS, BAKED GOODS
FOOD: Nuts
DESCRIPTION: RICH, DENSE INNER PORTION OF VARIOUS FRUITS—TOAST TO INTENSIFY THEIR FLAVOR; USE NUT BUTTERS LIKE PEANUT BUTTER AND ALMOND BUTTER, TOO
USE IN: SNACKS, SALADS, RICE, PASTA, AND GRAIN DISHES, VEGETABLE DISHES, BAKED GOODS, SOAKED AND PUREED NUTS FOR PâTéS, SOAKED AND PUREED CASHEWS FOR CREAMY SAUCES AND SOUPS
FOOD: Seeds
DESCRIPTION: NUTRIENT-RICH REPRODUCTIVE COMPONENTS OF VARIOUS PLANTS THAT TASTE DELICIOUS RAW OR TOASTED; USE SEED BUTTERS LIKE SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER, TOO
USE IN: SNACKS, SALADS, RICE, PASTA, AND GRAIN DISHES, VEGETABLE DISHES, BAKED GOODS
Create Appealing Textures
That brings us to another important facet of deliciousness: texture. Crispy, creamy, crunchy, gooey, and chewy are just a few things we love about food! Just as you should aim for a variety of balanced flavors in your food, strive to balance textures as well. Texture is partly what drives the yum in our Spicy Maitake Steak Sandwich (here). The maitake steaks themselves are dense and chewy, the kimchi mayonnaise is creamy, the melted plant-based cheese is gooey, red onions and jalapeños are crisp and crunchy, and the sub roll is nice and soft. All together, the textures keep your mouth smiling. And that’s before you even get to the intense flavors!
MAKE IT CREAMY. Like flavor, texture comes from two things: ingredients and techniques. Ingredients like avocados, coconut milk, and peanut butter are naturally creamy. To create a creamy texture in other ingredients, try pureeing them. For instance, when you soak cashews in water and then buzz them in a blender, you get this incredibly creamy base. It’s sooooo good. We use blended cashews to add creamy texture to everything from Mushroom Gravy Train (here) to Chickpea Blintzes with Cashew Sour Cream, Apples, and Dill (here). You can blend up vegetables too. Cauliflower, for instance, is particularly high in pectin, a glue-like plant fiber. When you cook and puree cauliflower, pectin creates this nice, white, creamy puree. Taste for yourself in Cauliflower Mornay Sauce (here), a basic white sauce you can use almost anywhere. Even kohlrabi gets creamy when cooked and pureed. Kohlrabi brings the creaminess in our straight-up vegetable dish of Baby Bok Choy with Roasted Kohlrabi Vinaigrette (here). Tomatoes get creamy in Tomato Confit (here). Beans have pectin, too, and get creamy in our Fiery Black Bean Spread (here). So do onions. Puree some roasted caramelized onions and you’re on your way to a super-creamy and delicious soup, sauce, or dressing. Those are all great whole-food sources of creaminess.
To achieve a thick, creamy consistency with other ingredients, look to powders, starches, and gums. Potato starch and rice starch (or even just pureed cooked whole potatoes or rice!) add creaminess to dishes, as do powdered cornstarch, arrowroot, and tapioca. Mix any of these last three starches with some cold water and stir the mixture (called a “slurry”) into hot sauces or soups for more body. Use a ratio of about 1 part starch to 5 parts cold liquid. Or, let’s say you want to thicken up something cold like vinaigrette or dressing. Add about ⅛ teaspoon xanthan gum per cup of liquid. Just blend or shake in the xanthan, and it will thicken the liquid, creating a more emulsified (blended) mouthfeel in the dressing.
SERVE UP CRUNCHY AND CRISPY. Most of the time, vegetables are naturally crunchy. Fresh celery, carrots, and bell peppers all bring great crunch to a dish. Sometimes we’ll add cabbage to a salad just for crunch! Even if an ingredient isn’t naturally crunchy, you can create the crisp and crunch. The goal is to eliminate water in the ingredient and dehydrate it. That’s the principle behind Plant Bacon (here). For that method, we dehydrate strips of mushroom, eggplant, carrot, coconut, tempeh, tofu, or even rice paper to make them crispy and crunchy. Seasoned with salty, sweet, and savory ingredients, the strips become a delicious form of plant-based bacon that adds crunch to any sandwich. The PBLT is our favorite. That’s Plant-Based BLT with Tomato Habanero Jam and Herb Aioli (here). Damn, that’s some fine eating. Crispy is also a key component in our Roasted Beet Salad with Citrus and Tarragon Cashew Cream (here). Who doesn’t like the crackling, crispy, crunchy texture of food? Even the sound of it is appealing! Always bring some crunch if you can.
MAKE IT CHEWY. Here’s one of the more elusive food textures—and one of the most satisfying. Humans like to chew. That’s why chewing gum is so popular! Think of the chewy crust on a perfect pizza or the al dente texture of perfectly cooked pasta. It’s just so satisfying to sink your teeth into it. Good whole-grain bread also has that chew, and so does dried fruit like apricots, raisins, dates, and dried figs. We actually developed a special cooking method specifically to get more chew in one of our favorite ingredients: mushrooms. The press-and-sear cooking technique for mushrooms (see here) brings awesome chew to all kinds of dishes. Try it in Lion’s Mane Steaks (here).
SWITCH IT UP. Dialed in your flavors, and the dish still needs some excitement? Make sure it has a variety of crispy, creamy, crunchy, and chewy textures. If you’re serving a creamy soup like squash bisque, top it with some crunchy toasted pumpkin seeds for contrast. If your pasta dish has a creamy sauce, add some diced fresh bell peppers for crunch. An array of textures is especially important when making a salad. Great salads and Buddha Bowls (here) highlight various textures—from soft leafy greens and crunchy cabbage to chewy noodles, creamy dressing, crispy croutons, and crunchy nuts. It’s all about contrast, baby. Keep your mouth guessing from bite to bite.
Put All the Techniques Together
You’ve got your fresh whole foods, your herbs and spices, and your flavors and textures ready to go. What do you make? Let’s say it’s summertime. The zucchini looked plump at the market and the basil smelled amazing, so you bought them. Make some pasta! Use all the flavor-building ideas we’ve been discussing: Grill the squash to caramelize its sugars. Add some lemon to balance those sweet flavors with a little sourness (or use preserved lemons for even more flavor). Toast some pine nuts in a dry pan for nutty flavor and texture. Toss everything with cooked pasta, a splash of good olive oil, and some red chile flakes for kick, then twirl it on a plate. Shower it with hand-torn fresh basil leaves for more aroma and color. That’s how you make Orecchiette with Grilled Squash, Preserved Lemon, and Herbs (here). All that flavor paired with the satisfying earthy taste and texture of orecchiette pasta? What’s not to love? That’s how you make healthy food taste awesome!
Make It Look Good
It’s true. We eat with our eyes first—or maybe our noses if you smell the food before you see it! Either way, it’s important to make a plate of food look good. Notice in the pasta example we just described that we finish the dish with fresh basil leaves. They add aroma and color. From the colors and shapes to the garnishes and overall composition, a good-looking plate of food gets us salivating. Plating is something many home cooks overlook, but it’s important to make food look appealing.
CONSIDER SHAPES. The plant world has an astounding range of natural shapes to work with. Even tomatoes come in shapes ranging from round to heart-shaped to oval to teardrop. When you prep ingredients, try to retain some of their natural shape. Or enhance the natural shape. Let’s say you’re prepping asparagus for a stir-fry. Cut it crosswise on a slight angle (on a bias) so each piece is pointy and has more visual interest. Maybe if you’re cutting bell peppers, green onions, garlic, and carrots, you can cut them into narrow strips (julienne) to match the shape of the asparagus. Another visual strategy is to contrast shapes in a dish. Suppose you’re serving long spaghetti noodles in a creamy sauce. Maybe add some capers or other small round foods for contrast. That’s the idea behind the minced chives, shallots, and pink peppercorns in our Cacio e Pepe with Lemon Chive Butter and Pink Peppercorns (here).
GROOVE ON THE COLORS. A plate of beige food is not appealing. Fortunately, plant foods come in a rainbow of colors. Red lentils, pink beans, purple cauliflower, orange beets, light green peas, deep green kale, bright yellow tomatoes, deep blue berries… so much color! Make your plates colorful. If you’re making white bean salad, maybe use red onion instead of white so the colors pop.
SIMPLE IS BEST. Ask yourself: What’s the most important part of this dish? Sauces are often drizzled over the top; however, they’re typically not the star of the show. Maybe it makes more sense to spoon a pool of sauce onto the plate first, then put the main event on top. Showcase the star ingredient. That’s how we plate our King Oyster Scallops with Shaved Asparagus and Corona Butter (here)—with the sauce on the bottom. Or let’s say it’s a grain dish or salad where all the ingredients are tossed together. Maybe you save a little of each ingredient and place those bits on top for visual appeal. Either way, any garnish you add should be there to support the star of the show, not fight with it. When we were growing up, chefs would garnish their burger plates with big pieces of ornamental kale and slices of orange with the rind. What bullshit. First of all, you’re not going to eat those garnishes, and secondly, they’re stealing the show! Use edible garnishes only—and use them sparingly. A drizzle of oil or sauce or a sprinkle of crumbs or powder or a finely cut vegetable or fruit work fine to add a little visual pop. The golden rule with garnishes: Less is more. You don’t need tweezers to create a sexy dish.
Bottom line: Great-tasting food engages all of the senses. It should look colorful and sexy on the plate, smell amazing, incorporate a variety of textures that feel good in the mouth, and touch a bevy of flavor buttons from sweet and sour, to salty, savory, roasted, pungent, cooling, bright, astringent, earthy, spicy, fruity, floral, and herbal. Fortunately, plant-based foods do all of this for us—and more! That’s why they’re Wicked Healthy. One final consideration before sitting down to a plant-based meal: the ambiance. Put on some chill music, dim the lights a bit, and set the mood for enjoying a badass meal.
We travel a lot, for speaking events, teaching cooking classes, and catering food-centered events. We’ll admit it: If not prepared, traveling sometimes throws us off the Wicked Healthy path. Here are a few ways to stay on.
Stay hydrated. Carry a water bottle and refill it habitually. Pick up some coconut water or fresh juice now and then, especially on long travel days. Maybe a smoothie or a brothy soup here and there. Just keep the liquids coming in to help flush your system clean.
Pack snacks. A bag of trail mix or nuts, a fresh apple or banana, and some dark chocolate have kept us from getting hangry while traveling many, many times. Toss a few goodies in your carry-on. If it’s slim pickings on your trip, at least you’ll have something decent to hold you over to the next meal.
Find good airport food. Use an app like GateGuru to quickly find the food options in your part of the airport. You may be pleasantly surprised. Portland, Oregon, has great options now. Chicago has excellent tacos, too—thank you, Chef Rick Bayless! Some airports have plant-focused eateries, too. Even if you have to walk to a different concourse to find the good stuff, do it if you have time. The exercise will do you good. If time is tight, get your meal to go and walk on the plane with it. That food will no doubt be better (and cheaper!) than 90% of the in-flight crap on offer these days.
Get outside. Feel some sunshine and get acclimated to your location, especially if you’re in a wildly different time zone. Take a walk and explore the area on foot sometime during the daylight. That will help you get oriented, reduce stress, and help you sleep. Plus, you can scope out the food markets and restaurants. The Happy Cow app is wicked useful when traveling.
Explore your eating options. Do a little research before you go or while you’re there. As chefs, we usually know where we’re eating well before we get there. Who knows—you might find a great restaurant you want to try. Most places have healthy options these days. Scan the menus and look for the beans, lentils, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and fruits. Even steakhouses have awesome salad bars and side dishes. Be up-front with your server about any dietary preferences, and try to keep it simple. Restaurants are very accommodating these days. Far better than years ago.
