When you think of a recipe, what do you think of? Do you think of an unbreakable set of rules, or do you see it more as a list of recommended ingredients and directions on how to use those ingredients? Well, for me, it is the second one. I see a list of ingredients other people have used and think about how I can change it. How I can make it better. How I can make it mine.
In this post, I am going to tell you how to make a recipe your own! And maybe after reading this, you will be able to see a recipe the same way I do!
Start Small
If you are a beginner cook and want to make a dish completely yours, you may want to rethink your game plan. Start small! Maybe there is that one ingredient in the recipe that you just can’t stand. Take it out! Change a seasoning. Swap a vegetable. Choose a different cheese. You don’t have to reinvent the entire dish right away.
Instead, start with one or two small changes. As you get more comfortable experimenting with recipes and learning how different ingredients work together, you can start making bigger changes. Before you know it, you may have a version that is completely your own!
Know What You Can Change
In every recipe, there are some ingredients that are there for a reason. Before you change or remove an ingredient, think about what that ingredient is doing for the dish. Is it adding flavor? Is it thickening a sauce? Is it adding moisture or acidity? Or is it one of the main building blocks of the dish?
Some ingredients can easily be swapped or taken out without completely changing the dish. But then there are others that are the building blocks of the recipe. Without them, you may end up making an entirely different dish. Those ingredients you don’t necessarily want to take out. It is best to leave them alone and let them be the star of the dish.
Then there is baking. Yep, I’m going there.
Baking is a little different because the rules are much stricter. Baking relies on specific ratios and reactions between ingredients, so changing something can affect the way whatever you are making bakes, looks, or tastes. You have to be a little more careful when experimenting.
But with cooking, the rules are more like mild suggestions. Just be careful with those special ingredients that are important to how the dish comes together. They are there for a reason.
Taste As You Go
I won’t spend too much time on this one because I have already made a post about it in the past (Why You Should Taste As You Cook), but it is still very important.
For example, if you are making a sauce that you have made a hundred times, you should still taste it before you serve it. Maybe you added too much of one ingredient and not enough of another. Or maybe you are making an entirely new dish. Those are definitely the times when you want to taste as you go.
And when you are changing a recipe, tasting is even more important because it tells you whether the changes you are making are actually working!
Think About Balance
When it comes to cooking, you need to think about balance. No, I am not talking about standing on one foot while you stir your marinara sauce. I am talking about flavor balance.
Salty, spicy, sweet, savory, acidic. All of those things help make a dish what it is. When you are changing a dish, think about what you want from it and what your changes will do to the rest of the dish. Think about how spice could affect your Alfredo sauce, or how sweetness could affect your curry.
When you add or change one flavor, it can affect everything else. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment! It just means you should think about how all of those flavors are going to work together.
Take Notes
Whether you are following a recipe and want to change it, or you are throwing random ingredients together to see what you get, you should always take notes.
Taking notes may seem unnecessary to some people who have an excellent memory, but trust me, you will want to take notes. Because if you make something absolutely amazing and then forget what you did, you will regret not writing it down!
Write down what you changed, how much you added, and anything you would want to do differently next time. That way, when you make the dish again, you aren’t left trying to remember whether you added one teaspoon of something or three.
Don’t Be Afraid Of Mistakes
And finally, last but most certainly not least, you cannot be afraid of making mistakes because they are bound to happen.
Whether you are changing a recipe or making one of your own, you will make a mistake somewhere down the road. And you know what? That’s okay! Everyone makes mistakes in the kitchen.
Not everyone drops an entire pan of lasagna on the floor (guilty), but everyone at some point adds too much salt to a dish or burns milk (also guilty).
You can’t be afraid of mistakes because that is how we learn. You learn what to add and when, how much salt to use, or that you need to stir the milk the whole time. Sometimes you learn what not to do, and that is just as important as learning what to do.
Mistakes aren’t a bad thing. Not even a little.
Outro
I always end my tips with a challenge, and this one is no different.
So, next time you go to make dinner or lunch for your family or yourself, try changing something. Even if it is using a different kind of cheese, adding another seasoning, or swapping out one ingredient, change something about it.
You may be surprised by how much one little change can make a recipe feel like your own.
And don’t forget to taste as you go, take notes, and don’t be afraid of mistakes!
Until Next Time…
Stay Saucy
Hailey 🍝
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