The Best Ways to Elevate Your Daily Dinner Routine

The Best Ways to Elevate Your Daily Dinner Routine
© Stefan Vladimirov

Change and elevate your daily dinner routine with different condiments and cooking styles. You can then apply what you discover and what you like to any other cuisine. Condiments and cooking styles are adaptable, offering endless possibilities to customize and enhance everyday dinners.

4 Easy Ways to Elevate Your Dinner Routine

To elevate your dinner routine, consider experimenting with different dressings like these found here. Play around with different spices, cooking styles and side dishes. Any or all of these strategies can give your dinner a major boost in flavor.

You can obtain unique, exciting, deep flavors by introducing fat, acid, salt and umami. Often called the fifth sense, it refers to an earthy, meaty, brothy flavor associated with amino acids like glutamine.

Experiment With Different Condiments

You’re already familiar with ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing and spreads like mayo. You probably have a favorite brand of hot sauce. Adding condiments that you love to food makes everything tastier. Enjoy this very same experience when you try different condiments, such as KEWPIE mayo.

Condiments like deep-roasted sesame dressing or pre-made Caesar dressing are versatile and packed with flavor. Their umami-rich flavor profiles bring richness to meats, poultry, fish and grain dishes.

Spicy sesame oil dressing adds that satisfying, nutty flavor found in lots of Asian takeout dishes: lo mein, stir fry, barbecue and braises. KEWPIE roasted garlic and onion dressing adds a delightful mixture of zing and sweetness. Used in an actual recipe or just as a topping, it makes supper different, new, exciting and delicious.

Incorporate More Spices

Spices bring heat, flavor and mouthwatering aromas to foods. Cumin, coriander and turmeric are the basic components of Indian curry. Use them together or individually for added color or flavor. A scant grating of fresh nutmeg gives cream-based dishes subtly sweet, nutty complexity.

Cinnamon and chili powder give meat-based soups, stews and casseroles a full-bodied, slow-cooked flavor. Other types of spices work best with meat, fish and vegetables. KEWPIE mayo introduces a luscious jolt of flavor thanks to its ratio of egg yolks and a variety of vinegars.

Thyme, rosemary, cloves and garlic complement animal proteins and veggies as well. Homemade or store-bought compound butters or infused oil are other ways to pair new spices with your dinner.

Play With Different Cooking Styles

Why not try oven-frying as an alternative to deep fat frying? The results are the same, but one is healthier. Just about anything you can cook with a traditional method you can prepare with a slow cooker or an air fryer. Likewise, many traditional western meat dishes are easy to cook in a variety of ways. Marinating the meat in brine, KEWPIE dressing or with Japanese mayo and spices gives each of these dishes a mouthwatering kick.

Some find it easier to play with different cooking styles by attempting recipes from other culinary traditions. Japanese tempura is an excellent way to discover another kind of deep fat frying. Tempura goes exquisitely with Japanese mayo dressing, too.

Asian cuisine throughout the diaspora makes use of quick or slow fermenting and steaming. Fermented, steamed or poached foods take on more nuanced flavor when prepared and served with savory or sweet spices and dressings.

Be Creative With Sides and Salads

Sides and salads like these here don’t have to come from the same culinary tradition as the entree. Soups/salads, dips, wraps/sandwiches and toasts are all viable sides. Feel free to prepare sides and salads made with cream, exotic spices, texture and umami. Think gyoza potstickers or a mushroom mayo sauté.

Elevating your daily dinner routine is easy and exciting. Doing it every so often keeps time spent in the kitchen and at the table all the more fulfilling. Experiment with new cooking methods, condiments, spice and side dishes to create newer, more diverse, engaging menus. When considering a high quality, umami-rich condiment, reach for a KEWPIE dressing or mayo.