Before anyone asks, I’m not sure WHY I bought cooking wine, okay? But I did, and now I have it (both red and white) and I’m not sure what to do with it.
Can I use it in place of wine in any recipe, and if so, do I need to make any adjustments?
If I can’t use it in place of wine when cooking, then what should I do with it?
Cooking wine is wine. Yes, use it in place of wine in recipes that call for wine.
You might want to be cognizant of how much salt you add to a recipe when you’re doing that. It’s my understanding that cooking wine is simply regular wine that’s had enough salt added to it to make it unpalatable to anyone who might be tempted to drink it instead of cook with it.
Interesting side note: several years ago, when my family was receiving food stamps, I was able to use the benefits to obtain cooking wine, just as though it were any other grocery item (food stamps are not permitted to be used for the purchase of alcoholic beverages).
Throw it out and go buy some good wine. Never put any wine or spirit in a dish that you wouldn’t want to drink straight.
Well, I wouldn’t throw it out until you’ve tried to make something with it.
But, like 99 said, it’s got salt in it, so you’d want to make sure you cut down on salt in other places.
In the future, I’d buy a cheap box or jug of wine if you’re looking to go bargain basement with your cooking wine. I’ve never seen a real cook use “cooking wine” though.
Y’know, that raises an interesting question: since people no longer typically hire cooking staff, who can’t be trusted to stay out of the liquor cabinet/wine cellar/what-have-you, why do the vintners even still make cooking wine?
Also, what would be involved in distilling it into salted brandy?
Nope. Cheaping out on the ingredients means your food will suffer, flavor-wise. If you can’t afford to splash some of the wine you’re drinking into the dish you are cooking, maybe you shouldn’t be cooking with wine. You don’t have to use Chateau Petrus in your spaghetti sauce, but Ripple doesn’t cut it, either.
K99, probably three reasons: there still will probably be kids in the house, salted cooking wine lasts longer after it has been opened, and inertia.
You can buy it on Sunday, too.
Disagreed. I use the salty stuff all the time. You just can’t use it in great amounts, where it would be more noticeable.
And 4. Food service unfortunately draws a higher proportion of alcohol abusers than many other industries. Shops catering to the public are just a sideline for these vintners; restaurants are the main customers here. Alcohol in a restaurant kitchen is always a touchy subject.
I agree with Silenus. Recipes I use call for Wine - not “cooking wine”. There is nothing magical about heating wine that will make something unpleasant to drink, into something worth serving.
Except drinking a wine is a drinking a wine.
Cooking with wine is adding a small component to a dish that probably already has salt, sweetness, herbs, an acidic component. Nonsense to think you need to use a high quality wine for all of that.
Might help to define one’s terms anyway. . .I would never use a $20 dollar bottle of wine in a dish. If I’m cooking something that takes 2 cups of wine (coq au vin or something), I’ll put a lot of thought into it.
A couple tablespoons to deglaze the sausage bits when I’m making my 20 minute spaghetti sauce on Tuesday night? I’ll use anything.
Absolutely, Trunk. Opening up those alcohol-soluable compounds of a tomato sauce, I’ll use anything but antifreeze. Making cheese fondu, I’ll spring for the classy stuff. I may even get something with a cork.
ETA: Chinese food is a tough one, though. Cooking sherry and soy sauce make a powerful tour du sodium.
Hi, my name is WhyNot, and I buy boxed wine.
For cooking! Really! I don’t drink much wine, and I got really annoyed with wasting bottles because I needed 1/4 cup for a recipe. Thanks to my dad, who is of the **silenus **school of thought, I’d never consider a cooking wine (and they shouldn’t keep any longer than a regular wine, right?) But I found that a box o’ wine will last practically forever, thanks to the air tight valve, and it’s just fine for strogonoff or stew or tetrazinni or any of a number of other dishes. So I have a box o’ red and a box o’ white, next to my sherry and my vermouth in my pantry (both drinking quality, but I’ve never drunk them.)
Deglazing a pan is what they make vermouth for. 
Fortunately for me, I’ll drink just about anything. So for me, Two Buck Chuck makes for a good cooking wine. I’ve got some very cheap Chinese rice wine that came in a really cool bottle, but I’m actually afraid to taste it by itself. I do use it for cooking though, and I don’t think that it’s ruined anything yet.
Exactly. Cooking wine is useless. Just buy an average wine at the grocery store and use it instead.
My wife adheres to the “don’t cook with it if you wouldn’t drink it” rule as well. Yellowtail Shiraz-Cabernet is a good not-too-expensive red wine for drinking and cooking. She makes a steak with wine reduction sauce with it that’ll knock your socks off.
An old girlfriend of mine once sent me to the store for some wine to cook with. I didn’t think it made any difference, so I bought this cheap wine I’d never heard of called Mogan-David Concord Grape wine. That’s right: I unknowingly bought some Mad Dog to cook with. Mad Dog flavored pasta is…interesting.
Charles Shaw is a perfect example of a drinkable wine that is cheap enough to keep on hand for cooking. Cheaper than “cooking wine” too, I’d expect.
For what it’s worth, Emeril on cooking with wine:
http://www.emerils.com/cooking/archives/001038.html
(Okay, I added the “bam!” 
)
I guess that makes Emeril a blind pig.
Michaela (my ten-year old, from whom I derive my handle) has an Emeril cookbook for kids, and she’ll be the first one to tell you that anything he says about restraint was obviously added by accident. She’s learned to be very careful when trying his recipes.
The above was apropos of pretty much nothing at all, except that abusing Emeril is a pleasant pastime here on the Dope.