I’ve been making Goya stove top rice for years.
This is really, really basic, but adding a chopped up red bell pepper to the mix while it cooked greatly improved the taste.
I’m thinking tonight I might add green pepper and yellow onion. I wonder if chopped, boiled red potato would be good, or if that is too much starch?
Anyway, what other super simple additions to a typical dish can you think of?
I wouldn’t add the potato; they don’t have much flavor on their own, and it’s just more starch.
That said, other small changes:
saute dried rice in butter for 2-3 minutes, until it very slightly starts to toast, before adding water to cook it in.
Hell, add butter to everything to make it taste better. Mr. Athena constantly compliments me on the eggs I make. Most of the time, he makes his own eggs, but occasionally I make 'em for him. The big difference? I use butter, he doesn’t.
Keep fresh lemons and limes in the house. A little squeeze makes a big difference, whether it’s on top of veggies, in soups/stews, or sauces. A squeeze of lime in chili right before serving, for instance, can really brighten the flavor.
add salt throughout cooking, not just at the end. I think you end up using less salt, because it permeates through the entire dish. Adding it only at the end just puts it on top of the food; it’s better if it’s throughout the food. Always sprinkle salt on meat before cooking - it’ll be drawn up into the meat and provide more flavor.
DRY your meat before browning it. You’ll get a better brown. If you put a wet piece of meat in a skillet, you end up steaming more than browning.
Similarly, dry your veggies thoroughly before cooking or adding them to salad. A salad spinner is your friend. Watery veggies just end up tasting diluted and dull. They’re also harder to cut.
In agreement with the OP: Aromatics such as peppers, onions, and garlic go a long way flavor-wise. Add 'em to anything.
Well, it’s so simple that it’s mentioned on the box, but adding tomato sauce in place of some of the water in Zatarain’s Jambalaya mix really does make it quite a bit better, IMO.
I guess this is controversial because there are people who are so militantly against salted butter, but… using salted butter makes baked goods taste much better to me.
Also, I’ve given up on cooking with olive oil. It adds a peppery taste that I dislike. I keep a bottle of EVOO for salad dressing, otherwise I cook with canola. It’s much cheaper too.
Huh. I only add salt at the end, so that it coats the surface. That way the flavor of the salt hits the taste buds directly to maximize the effect, without adding the extra sodium that simply soaks into the food for little flavor enhancement.
Double the vanilla in any recipe that calls for it. (And use the real stuff. It doesn’t have to be the real expensive stuff, just the real stuff.)
A few years ago, I decided to start making my own spaghetti sauce. It wasn’t totally “from scratch” because it used a can of crushed tomatoes, but I figured it would have less salt/sugar/preservatives than the store-bought stuff, and it turned out to be cheaper too.
I used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated that called for basil and garlic. When I tasted it, I was surprised that it didn’t seem to have the same “oomph” that I was used to with spaghetti sauce. I wondered if I was just too used to the salt & sugar. Then I decided to try adding oregano, even though the recipe didn’t call for it. It made a huge difference, and now I think it’s comparable to the jarred sauces.
I daresay 99% of batches of home-made spaghetti sauce start with canned tomatoes. You can make it totally from scratch with a bushel of ripe fresh tomatoes from the farmers market in July or August, but that doesn’t mean it will be any better.
This goes without saying, but freshly ground pepper makes a big difference.
I just remembered that my sister gave me an onion dicer for Christmas. So I diced the onion and pepper and added both to the rice as it cooks. Smells great!
I’m making marinaded chicken breast to go with it. I added kosher salt to the underside of the chicken. Hope it comes out well.
Now, try adding some cumin, oregano, and a pinch of red pepper flakes instead of the seasoning packet and use chicken broth instead of water. And use plain rice instead of the boxed mix. Voila, you’ve just invented Mexican rice!
(Seriously, love, you’ve doctored your box halfway to the dish from scratch. Keep going!)
If you are making soup from scratch, add roux at the end. Even if you don’t use enough to make a thick soup, it emulsifies the broth and pulls all the ingredients together.
I’d stick with the red, orange, or yellow peppers. Green peppers are better raw. They get ugly drab green and can get a little bitter when cooked for a while. You could add them at the end of cooking though.
Yeah, I agree that most sauces are made with canned tomatoes, but sauce made from fresh, ripe tomatoes will be better. Most people dont want to screw around with peeling and seeding them, which is understandable for a home cook.
Almost all canned tomato products contain added citric acid, which makes it neccessary to cook it much longer. I’m my experience many people dont simmer it long enough, and resort to adding sugar. Adding sugar is a shortcut and plain wrong IMHO.
Brine your poultry. Amazing what it does
Adding salt brings out the flavor of foods. You dont want it to be the first thing that hits the tastebuds. It should be added at various stages through the cooking process depending on what you are cooking. The only time I wouldnt do this is when making reductions that might have salty ingredients like soy sauce.
For sure! Pork as well.
A few dashes of Red Wine vinegar will make any pot of chili taste better.
I use Mexican vanilla. It’s awesomer! 
As for baking cakes, whenever it calls for oil, I use coconut. Makes 'em more delicious. I also do the ‘milk in place of water’ trick too.
Beyond those, for a boxed mix of stuffing, I sauté and add onions and bell peppers, plus I use chicken broth as the liquid substitute. Actually renders that stuff edible.
Like Snake Plissken says, you WANT it to soak into the food; it adds a significant amount of flavor.
Scrambled eggs are the best and easiest way to illustrate how salt works. Ever forget to salt the raw eggs, and try to add salt to the finished scrambled eggs? It’s a significant difference to the flavor of the eggs - salt at the end just sits on top, and you have bland eggs + salt, two distinct and separate flavors. Salt at the beginning of the cooking process results in nicely flavored eggs.
In my experience, salting at the end also ends up with adding more salt. The food itself tastes bland, so the gut reaction is to add more salt.
Interestingly, I don’t like salting my eggs before scrambling. (I’m also someone who pan-scrambled their eggs). It’s one of those things you have to try yourself to figure out what you like. The claim is that salting eggs beforehand make them tougher–but I’m not sure that’s born out in my experience. I just prefer the whole of the salt on top of my eggs at the end. While I love salt, I actually don’t need a lot of salt for eggs. Two scrambled eggs get literally a pinch of salt sprinkled on top of them.
I especially second the tips on brining (at least lean meats like pork loin and chicken breast; I don’t think it’s necessary for chicken thighs, pork shoulder, and fattier cuts, and actually prefer those unbrined, if possible.)
To the tip about adding tomatoes to jambalaya: For those who are interested in these sorts of things, that’s the main thing separates a Cajun (tomato-less/brown) jambalaya from a Creole (with tomato) jambalaya.
For cooked tomato sauces, a little bit of chopped anchovy or fish sauce goes a long way to amplify the flavor without tasting overtly fishy. (These fish products being rich sources of umami.)
A little bit of vinegar can make a lot of stews taste better. Many folks just balance for salt and pepper at the end, but a little bit of vinegar judiciously used can also heighten the flavors like salt can.