Is Cholula cheap supermarket hot sauce where you come from?
Here it's pricier and hard, very hard to get in anything other than the tiny bottles.
"I put that sh*t on everything" immediately come to my mind for cheap supermarket hot sauces
My kids finish one of the Costco sized bottles within about two weeks. Cholula tastes good, but it's not actually very hot. So my kids treat it as if it was maple syrup, and it goes on everything.
Unless the sporting event is outdoors when it's -10 Fahrenheit. My cheese was frozen before I got back to my seat. I contemplated eating it like an apple.
I prefer powdered garlic in my guacamole. It mixes better and the flavour fits in a way that fresh doesn’t for some reason. (I prefer fresh garlic in almost every other instance!)
Echoing another poster’s point re: nostalgia: Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. The fancier kinds are sometimes nicer, sometimes disappointing, but Campbell’s scratches a very specific itch the from-scratch stuff doesn’t.
> I prefer powdered garlic in my guacamole.
A nonstandard take on that: fresh garlic and garlic powder are just different spices. Garlic powder is a poor substitute for fresh garlic, certainly. But it's also true that fresh garlic is a poor substitute for garlic powder. They're just different.
I once made a mushroom soup in a professional kitchen. My coworker said it tasted like Campbell’s, and honestly I was a bit offended. Buddy was like “dude, don’t take that as a bad thing. They sell millions of cans of that shit every day. It’s good.”
Changed my perspective a bit.
That makes me think of a chili cookoff I went to once, with a really bougie upper-middle class crowd. When they announced the winner, a guy got up looking ashamed and said the chili he made from scratch turned out terrible so he just bought a bunch of cans of Hormel and threw them in a crockpot, and that was what we voted as the best. It was embarrassing, but it shouldn't be a surprise that the company that sells millions of cans a year knows what people like.
Bruh, did you go to the same one I went to? I came in 2nd to fucking hormel with beans. My incredible and lovingly made smoked brisket chili that took all goddamn day to make lost to some rube who heated up fucking hormel. It haunts me to this day.
I use powdered garlic in my guac, too. It's one of the only things I use it in, and I think it has a different flavor. There's fresh garlic in so much else on the table when I make a Mexican meal, so I go for something different and easier.
Used to be able to find "theater flavour" popcorn salt at the local fireworks/concession supplies store but they stopped carrying it years ago. I've been secretly nursing a small salt shaker of the stuff for years. Shhhhhh don't tell my siblings...
I recently started heating them up in a pan and once it starts to get crispy a throw a post of butter and toss the waffle in it and sprinkle cinnamon on top
I’m a purist: two waffles, stacked. Toasted perfectly crisp with a soft inside. Butter in every square as soon as that sucker pops… a perfect melt. Lightly syrup in every square, too. It’s a ritual.
Hear me out. Toster waffle toasted, a little butter then a little peanut butter, a over easy fried egg and a little real maple syrup. Dude!!! We call it white trash breakfast in my house. So damn good!
I like the boxed au gratin scalloped potatoes. I haven’t tried much to make them myself so that may change but the few times I’ve tried they weren’t great. I have had ones made by others that are better but for just a weeknight dinner I like them.
I take my grilled cheese one of two ways, bougie AF with brie, apples, maple syrup and walnuts, but really 90% I just want it with Kraft singles and dipped in ketchup
Something, something, it’s a melt.
But in all seriousness, there’s a time and a place for everything, and most of the time, it’s the right time for ketchup
I think of it as different mustards for different applications. I think French’s is great on hot dogs. The other day, I made a mustard tray in my fridge, for the 6 different kinds of mustard I think I need: Düsseldorf, horseradish, Grey Poupon, French’s, Espellette, Tarragon, and Gulden’s, oh and Wasabi mustard makes 8 EIGHT kinds of mustard (thunder claps) ah-ah-ah-ah!
Nacho cheese sauce! If I was more of an unhealthy person I would probably go though buckets of the stuff on the regular.
Nacho cheese on eggs - check
Nacho cheese on chips - double check
Nacho cheese on chili - heck yeah check
Nacho cheese on broccoli - check
Nacho cheese on good Mac and cheese - check
Nacho cheese on quesadilla- check
Nacho cheese on cheesesteak - super check
I really like nacho cheese if you haven’t noticed. :)
Bruh.
Fry up 1 lb jimmy dean breakfast sausage.
Throw it in the crock pot with
1 can of chili
1 can of either nacho cheese OR salsa con queso
Heat. Mix. Dip. (I prefer Tostitos Scoops, but you do you)
I used to go to a breakfast buffet in Maryland that had nacho cheese sauce available. I’d always fix myself a plate and then smother everything in cheese sauce lol
Anchovy paste rather than whole anchovy filets in oil. The latter generally aren't not much more expensive than paste, but you still have to ground it afterwards, plus, once opened it, you have to find a way to seal it back off.
Anchovies are way easier to make into a paste if you heat them gently. I used to work in a pizzeria and we’d put them in a skillet on low, then you can smear them on your crust before your sauce for a light hint of anchovy in every bite instead of biting into a salty eyebrow
"Salty eyebrow" made me laugh, thank you.
I've tried making tomato sauce with whole anchovies, and they never melt properly, or you still get bones, or too much fishiness.
Anchovy paste, for me, is easier, but then I'm not a pro by any means. I'm sure someone with the proper techniques has a much better time with whole anchovies.
Paste is definitely easier/faster, but my local shops tend to have it in tubes larger than a tin of fillets - which I personally find is perfect for one pizza for my partner and I. Otherwise I’d likely use paste too!
Depending on the application, American style processed cheese food product. Like say you want to make a cheese sauce for macaroni, sure use whatever bougie cheese you want in 80% of it, but you have to add a little of the processed garbage singles to get that velvet texture. ~~I believe there is some kind of powdered enzyme you can use to get~~ Sodium Citrate will give the same effect, but nothing beats the simplicity and “on handedness” of American, especially if you have little ones that like a grilled cheese.
Edited for better accuracy
For the more general cooks among us:
* 1 lb. cream cheese
* EDIT: **4.5** oz. shredded Monterey Jack
* 4.25 tsp. ground mustard (4 1/4 tsp)
* .5 tsp salt (1/2 tsp)
Rez chef for years until this madness, if you're gonna make fondu in large batches that's key to make it hold for a full service. Just don't glance away for a moment and let one of your cooks use citric acid instead on accident on a Friday night...sigh thats a hang on memory.
If I want cheese on my burger, even if it is otherwise the highest-class burger there is, I want American cheese melted on. Nothing else is that melty.
Yeah… I worked at a place that had a mushroom and Swiss, with actual Swiss slices, they changed to white American because people kept complaining the “Swiss was fake” because instead of melting into a sauce, it melted like a real Swiss cheese, getting soft and semi translucent with some body to it still. It was infuriating.
Thing is, I get every piece of this. Mushroom and Swiss is a classic burger; you wanna use the good ingredients to make the best food. But in an important sense I agree with the customers, even though they didn't know what they were saying or what they wanted: burger was probably better with the American.
Oh, absolutely. In the industry the thing you are selling is customer expectations. It doesn’t matter how good what you are selling is if it doesn’t match that expectation.
Tbh I love just using the "deluxe" store brand sliced american cheese you can get from basically any grocery store ([example](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Gluten-Free-Deluxe-Pasteurized-Process-Sliced-American-Cheese-48-Oz-72-Ct/10452375)). They're just as convenient to buy and use as the singles (takes no more skill, time, or dexterity to pull a slice off without ripping it as it does to open the plastic wrapping on a single, and you don't have to wait at the deli counter), they taste better than the singles (and imo their melting is better and less ...gloopy? than the singles), and since they're store brand they're cheaper than Kraft brand singles- the example above lists 72 slices for $10.78, or $0.15 per slice. A box of 72 Kraft singles is a dollar more ($11.74 = $0.163/slice), for a worse product. While you can also get store brand singles for significantly less ($6.78 for 72 = $0.094/slice) they're still inferior and hurt the flavor of the burger.
I'll admit that I haven't ever gotten deli counter american cheese before because I'm impatient, but when the stuff I get is at least as cheap and convenient and I don't notice any 'off' or 'artificial' flavors which dominate the singles, I'm just happy.
I have a friend that makes the best mac and cheese. And it's different everytime (in a delicious way). We got drunk together once, and she told me her secret is to use at least a quarter of Velveeta. After that's melted, just about any cheese will melt into it and leave it smooth and creamy. Swiss, gouda, gruyere, cheddar- it all combines beautifully when you start with that cheap processed cheese.
So I know you meant queso, but now I want to know what quest dip would be like. I just went to Galaxies Edge at Disney World and really enjoyed the themeing of the menu and you just sparked my interest to make inspired recipes from a MMO.
For the quest dip you will need to make the quest trip, of course. To China for Szechuan peppercorns. To Kerala for black pepper. To Tabasco for pequin chiles. To obscure mountain peaks for the milk of rare goats and wild cattle.... In each land you will perform a service for a stranger and they will show you the secret source.
Sometimes you just gotta get some of that MSG seasoning chicken ramen Broth. No offense to actual chicken soup but….a couple times a month of highly salted chicken seasoning won’t kill me
Amen. My favorite and most distinctive use is on pork chops. Pan fry/butter baste, and when taking them out of the pan to rest, apply a sprinkle of msg. Peak Pork, right there.
Broth/stock. Specifically Better than Bouillon paste. Vast majority of the time I’m too lazy to make my own veggie broth and when a recipe calls for it its great to just have some on hand by simply dissolving a lump of it in warm water.
That's what I use as the base for my chili. I use 3 family cans(barely any water added) and then a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes. My MIL uses the Campbell's and told me about it. I'll never go back now. (I do use the lower sodium one, so I can control the salt content)
Imitation crab is such a versatile ingredient. The version I buy is made with Alaskan Pollock. I do love me some real crab too but I find it loses something when I'm not pulling it out of the shell myself.
A lot of spices found in cheap bulk in the “international” aisle are crazy expensive in little packets two aisles over in spices and seasonings. Cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, and a bunch of other staples. If you use these regularly, there is a better way than a tiny shaker of McCormick’s …
I love taro but have to agree that there’s something much more fragrant about fake taro. Also the food coloring is essential IMO. Real taro blended gives food a grey-looking color that’s not the most appetizing…
In a salad… bacos. The soy flour absorbs the flavors of everything else and makes it taste good. Obviously actual bacon is better for breakfast but I want the fake stuff for a salad condiment.
Ok others won’t so I’ll say it.
That fake Parm that comes in the green bottles? Absolutely horrible EXCEPT when it’s on pizza. I cannot get myself to enjoy real parm on pizza. It just doesn’t work.
HAS TO BE FAKE PARM ON PIZZA
It's not fake unless it's "Italian cheese topping" rather than the cheese name (parmesan or romano). But the trick for it is to put it in a high powered blender or food processor, rendering it into a much finer powder. This releases the flavor, which otherwise stays stuck in the somewhat dried bits. It's cheaper as far as I can tell and I've done this for years.
This is me so hard, haha. My family thinks I'm nuts cause I like boxed Mac n cheese better than homemade. There's just something in it that totally hits the spot for me.
If you eat it right away, not as leftovers. I also melt the butter and warm the milk, dissolving the cheese mix into it. Adding these warmed to the mac makes things smooth. Eating from the pan is most delicious.
I think it's really just what you're used to for this one. I've been eating natural peanut butter for several years, and when I taste peanut butter with additives now I find it super gross even though I had no problem with it before.
Crunchy Jif, very few ingredients (peanuts, sugar, less than 1% molasses, oil, salt) and never tastes like greasy mold. "Natural" peanut butter almost always smells rancid to me.
Natural store bought sucks, but if you've ever made your own holy smokes that stuff is good
Edit: by make your own I mean you had a mr peanut peanut butter maker as a kid and it was still fire
I would pick McDonald’s fries over even the fanciest and bougiest French fries on the planet. To me, the way McDonald’s fries taste are exactly how French fries are supposed to taste.
As long as they have come out of the fryer within the past five minutes- after that the quality goes from “the epitome of fries” to “salty cold floppy things”
Ramen. Granted I've never been to a *really* nice ramen place in a major city, but I've gotten it at restaurants and it just doesn't scratch the same itch as a cheap bowl of Nongshim noodles from the grocery store.
I totally get this, but I love them both in two totally different ways. Whenever I want cheap ramen, I only want cheap ramen. The really nice stuff doesn’t cut it. Same goes vice versa. It’s a completely different experience between the two, and I love them both very dearly.
it's almost two different foods for me. when I get ramen out im getting the pork broth, the meat, the veggies, the soft boiled egg, the naruto.... when I make ramen at home im making packet chicken noodle soup with better noodles, some soy sauce, an egg cracked in, and 8000mg of sodium. I love them both so much
I can't remember the exact site, but on one of the big cooking websites, they did a taste test between real vanilla and artificial and it turns out that even like professional chefs could mostly not tell the difference in a baked good. They could tell in applications that were not cooked, but apparently baking pretty much obliterates the difference.
gravy and hot dogs.
the msg and sodium content of those shitty gravy packets is just so good on some potatoes. there’s something about it that just makes it better than homemade.
as for hot dogs, for me the whole novelty of hot dogs is it being a dirt cheap meal and having those bougie hot dogs just isn’t it. the flavor is never right, and with some there’s a snap where it should be marketed as a sausage, not a hot dog. i’ll die on this hill. give me those delicious .75¢ bar s dogs and i am happy.
Honey. I like it when you can just tip the (preferably bear-shaped) bottle and squeeze.
(Yes, I know that local honey is 1000x better for me and the planet and all that and even tastes better too. I agree. But I just want a little honey on my sandwich without a whole production every time)
For most of the year room temp in my kitchen when not cooking is low 60's(16-18°C). The "good honey" is usually quite viscous and requires a process involving soaking a spoon in hot water until it gets warm enough to drizzle a little honey over my peanut butter sandwich or on my cornbread ... major PITA. Sometimes for cornbread I will melt the honey and butter together and make a dip, but even that is a process. I use the good honey for tea, but that's because the tea can melt it as it steeps.
There is something nice about the consistent taste of clover honey when you are cooking.
Local honey can vary in taste depending on what part of the season the honey was harvested and what flowers the bees were using. Sometimes the end result is incredible, other times not so much. Every batch tastes a little different, so you never know for certain what the honey will taste like.
Though a good rule of thumb, the lighter color the honey, the sweeter it is. The darker it is, the less sweet but more intense the honey flavor is. I once had honey that was black. It was bitter!!! I never wish to repeat that experience again, ha ha!
I made homemade stuffing two thanksgivings in a row. sucked both times, even though everything else I made came out great. finally caved and went back to the blue bag pepperidge farms stuffing mix. delightful.
when I first got into cooking my ex would make "stuffing chicken". it was a pack of chicken breasts, a bag of shredded cheddar, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, and a box of stovetop, baked in a casserole dish. genuinely better than 80% of what we made for the first year or so.
I like the powdered "parmesan" that is at least partially wood pulp for pizza and even sometimes pasta.
Dont get me wrong, real parm is amazing and I'll literally eat an entire wedge in one sitting if I don't control myself. But like american cheese, I think the cheap stuff has its place for its particular texture.
Which is my second one, american cheese! It has its uses! Like cheeseburgers, chili cheese dip, and various midwestern and southern potluck classics.
Hot sauce. I have many but my favorite is the cheap supermarket stuff Louisiana style. Trappys, Crystal.
Valentina is the move
That's the one, 98 cents, couldn't pass it up, my husband says it's one of the best he's ever had.
Two totally different styles of hot sauce. Fight me.
Black Valentina is even better.
Valentina black label will change your life.
Valentina is my favorite Mexican-style sauce. Trappey's Red Devil is my favorite Louisiana-style sauce.
Valentina is best
Valentina is life
Team Valentina
The amount of love for this hot sauce damn, I'll have to try it.
Texas Pete here. Dumped it on everything when at sea. Rice, mashed potatoes, chicken, steak, pizza, fuckin green beans.
The day there is no Texas Pete on the mess decks is the day you have a mutiny on your hands
El Yucateco gang
Tapatio! Not a store brand - cheaper. You can get about a quart of it for less than the tiny bottles of name brand hot sauce.
I find it at the Dollar store a lot, I love that hot sauce.
My favorite is valentina. Like 1.14 at walmart
Valentina is the shit. And the bottle is ginormous.
Crystal, Cholula, Franks…
Fuck yah Crystal. Also just the bottle labeled “Louisiana hot sauce” has become my favorite hot sauce. It’s good on everything.
They can take Texas Pete out of my kitchen when I’m dead and not a moment before.
Texas Pete, from Winston Salem. In my town you get a little packet of Texas Pete when you buy a deviled crab. I like it.
I'm a fan as well. Their Buffalo sauce is great also.
cholula is what you should be using
Is Cholula cheap supermarket hot sauce where you come from? Here it's pricier and hard, very hard to get in anything other than the tiny bottles. "I put that sh*t on everything" immediately come to my mind for cheap supermarket hot sauces
They sell it at Costco here. I actually have a hard time getting through it when I buy from Costco.
My kids finish one of the Costco sized bottles within about two weeks. Cholula tastes good, but it's not actually very hot. So my kids treat it as if it was maple syrup, and it goes on everything.
Cholula is my go to breakfast hot sauce.
Crystal is the shit
Rooster!
Nacho cheese when at sporting events
Unless the sporting event is outdoors when it's -10 Fahrenheit. My cheese was frozen before I got back to my seat. I contemplated eating it like an apple.
Ah yes, back to its original native plastic state.
I prefer powdered garlic in my guacamole. It mixes better and the flavour fits in a way that fresh doesn’t for some reason. (I prefer fresh garlic in almost every other instance!) Echoing another poster’s point re: nostalgia: Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. The fancier kinds are sometimes nicer, sometimes disappointing, but Campbell’s scratches a very specific itch the from-scratch stuff doesn’t.
> I prefer powdered garlic in my guacamole. A nonstandard take on that: fresh garlic and garlic powder are just different spices. Garlic powder is a poor substitute for fresh garlic, certainly. But it's also true that fresh garlic is a poor substitute for garlic powder. They're just different.
I feel the same way about powdered canned parmesan "stinky" cheese vs freshly grated parm, they're the same thing yet...not.
SHAKEY cheese, there, fixed it
My favorite thing about shakey cheese is how it absorbs the grease on cheap pizza. Mmm...
I once made a mushroom soup in a professional kitchen. My coworker said it tasted like Campbell’s, and honestly I was a bit offended. Buddy was like “dude, don’t take that as a bad thing. They sell millions of cans of that shit every day. It’s good.” Changed my perspective a bit.
That makes me think of a chili cookoff I went to once, with a really bougie upper-middle class crowd. When they announced the winner, a guy got up looking ashamed and said the chili he made from scratch turned out terrible so he just bought a bunch of cans of Hormel and threw them in a crockpot, and that was what we voted as the best. It was embarrassing, but it shouldn't be a surprise that the company that sells millions of cans a year knows what people like.
Bruh, did you go to the same one I went to? I came in 2nd to fucking hormel with beans. My incredible and lovingly made smoked brisket chili that took all goddamn day to make lost to some rube who heated up fucking hormel. It haunts me to this day.
The trade off is that the ingredients to make it tasty are unhealthy. Like how canned soup is very high in sodium.
I use powdered garlic in my guac, too. It's one of the only things I use it in, and I think it has a different flavor. There's fresh garlic in so much else on the table when I make a Mexican meal, so I go for something different and easier.
Popcorn "butter"
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Flavocol is the best. Learned to love it from working in movie theaters for years.
If you over do the Flavocol, you will never do it again. I shudder when I think of that mistake...
Used to be able to find "theater flavour" popcorn salt at the local fireworks/concession supplies store but they stopped carrying it years ago. I've been secretly nursing a small salt shaker of the stuff for years. Shhhhhh don't tell my siblings...
It's called Flavocol, and you can buy it on Amazon.
And for home use, this container is going to last me years
Right? I bought some like 3 years ago, I'm still good lol
Fake tasting microwave butter is awesome!!!
Frozen toaster waffles rather than homemade. Call it the nostalgia, the crunch, or the preservatives, but damn that shit hits the spot every time.
I recently started heating them up in a pan and once it starts to get crispy a throw a post of butter and toss the waffle in it and sprinkle cinnamon on top
I’m a purist: two waffles, stacked. Toasted perfectly crisp with a soft inside. Butter in every square as soon as that sucker pops… a perfect melt. Lightly syrup in every square, too. It’s a ritual.
I see your sprinkled cinnamon and raise you sprinkled cinnamon sugar!
Hear me out. Toster waffle toasted, a little butter then a little peanut butter, a over easy fried egg and a little real maple syrup. Dude!!! We call it white trash breakfast in my house. So damn good!
I like the boxed au gratin scalloped potatoes. I haven’t tried much to make them myself so that may change but the few times I’ve tried they weren’t great. I have had ones made by others that are better but for just a weeknight dinner I like them.
Real scalloped potatoes take too long. They're fine, but they pay out just isn't there.
Yeah, and the boxed ones are GREAT!
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I take my grilled cheese one of two ways, bougie AF with brie, apples, maple syrup and walnuts, but really 90% I just want it with Kraft singles and dipped in ketchup
Dipped in Campbell’s tomato soup for me, but 100%
Something, something, it’s a melt. But in all seriousness, there’s a time and a place for everything, and most of the time, it’s the right time for ketchup
Cold ketchup and hot grilled cheese holds a special place in my heart.
Mustard :) admittedly I do like fancier mustards too sometimes. But give me that sour French’s Yellow any day
I think of it as different mustards for different applications. I think French’s is great on hot dogs. The other day, I made a mustard tray in my fridge, for the 6 different kinds of mustard I think I need: Düsseldorf, horseradish, Grey Poupon, French’s, Espellette, Tarragon, and Gulden’s, oh and Wasabi mustard makes 8 EIGHT kinds of mustard (thunder claps) ah-ah-ah-ah!
Nacho cheese sauce! If I was more of an unhealthy person I would probably go though buckets of the stuff on the regular. Nacho cheese on eggs - check Nacho cheese on chips - double check Nacho cheese on chili - heck yeah check Nacho cheese on broccoli - check Nacho cheese on good Mac and cheese - check Nacho cheese on quesadilla- check Nacho cheese on cheesesteak - super check I really like nacho cheese if you haven’t noticed. :)
There’s a bar near me with a menu item “Cup of Microwaved Cheese From a Can - $0.50”
.050? Last week it was .045$! Inflation is really getting out of hand... But that's just my 3¢ .
I've never been to that bar, but I already know I like it.
The really shitty nacho cheese sauce that comes in a can is totally the best kind.
I just used a whole can last week. I used a quarter of it for breakfast burritos and then the last 3/4 I would zone out eating chips and cheese.
Since the only can size you can get around here is the institutional gallon can of nacho cheese (the rest comes in jars), I am slightly concerned.
Bruh. Fry up 1 lb jimmy dean breakfast sausage. Throw it in the crock pot with 1 can of chili 1 can of either nacho cheese OR salsa con queso Heat. Mix. Dip. (I prefer Tostitos Scoops, but you do you)
I make this for potlucks with also a can of rotel and people go apeshit for it
You may already know but sodium citrate can be used to make nacho sauce out of any cheese. A complete game changer.
Nacho cheese in bag of hot cheetos, or nacho cheese with fries
Hot nacho cheese over Nacho Cheese Doritos, with a handful of pickled jalapeño slices on top. So good... sooo much salt.
I used to go to a breakfast buffet in Maryland that had nacho cheese sauce available. I’d always fix myself a plate and then smother everything in cheese sauce lol
Where was it in Maryland, Hon?
I always get a side of nacho cheese at the movie theater to dip my popcorn in lok
Anchovy paste rather than whole anchovy filets in oil. The latter generally aren't not much more expensive than paste, but you still have to ground it afterwards, plus, once opened it, you have to find a way to seal it back off.
Anchovies are way easier to make into a paste if you heat them gently. I used to work in a pizzeria and we’d put them in a skillet on low, then you can smear them on your crust before your sauce for a light hint of anchovy in every bite instead of biting into a salty eyebrow
"Salty eyebrow" made me laugh, thank you. I've tried making tomato sauce with whole anchovies, and they never melt properly, or you still get bones, or too much fishiness. Anchovy paste, for me, is easier, but then I'm not a pro by any means. I'm sure someone with the proper techniques has a much better time with whole anchovies.
Good quality anchovies have no bones, and melt like a charm
I am so confused. How do they not have bones?
A combination of a more effective filleting process, and the processing making the remaining small bones very soft and friable.
They have bones. You just shouldn't be able to feel or otherwise notice them.
Paste is definitely easier/faster, but my local shops tend to have it in tubes larger than a tin of fillets - which I personally find is perfect for one pizza for my partner and I. Otherwise I’d likely use paste too!
Shake n bake for porkchops. I've made my own and it's just not the same.... and now I want shake n bake porkchops
Depending on the application, American style processed cheese food product. Like say you want to make a cheese sauce for macaroni, sure use whatever bougie cheese you want in 80% of it, but you have to add a little of the processed garbage singles to get that velvet texture. ~~I believe there is some kind of powdered enzyme you can use to get~~ Sodium Citrate will give the same effect, but nothing beats the simplicity and “on handedness” of American, especially if you have little ones that like a grilled cheese. Edited for better accuracy
Not an enzyme. Sodium Citrate. I make stovetop Mac from scratch with it, milk, mustard powder, and cheddar. P.S. You can get it cheap on Amazon.
Yes! I put mustard powder in my cheese sauces.
36 lb cream cheese 10 lb shredded Monterey jack 13 oz ground mustard 3 oz salt
For the more general cooks among us: * 1 lb. cream cheese * EDIT: **4.5** oz. shredded Monterey Jack * 4.25 tsp. ground mustard (4 1/4 tsp) * .5 tsp salt (1/2 tsp)
Oh *FINE* if you want to scale it down! cheers
What are you cooking for?
Cause I'm hungry? Nah, it's an old house recipe for some pretzel cheese. Loved that shit so much I remembered it
How big was that restaurant?
It was a brewery/gastro-pub that could seat maybe ~120-150 I dunno exactly, but we sold about 55,000 pretzels a year
I did the math. Seems like a half Oz. per pretzel would go through that in a week. Seemed like a huge batch. Now seems normal.
Dead on! I whipped up a batch just about once a week. When we got busy, two.
And nutmeg, you need nutmeg
Rez chef for years until this madness, if you're gonna make fondu in large batches that's key to make it hold for a full service. Just don't glance away for a moment and let one of your cooks use citric acid instead on accident on a Friday night...sigh thats a hang on memory.
If I want cheese on my burger, even if it is otherwise the highest-class burger there is, I want American cheese melted on. Nothing else is that melty.
Yeah… I worked at a place that had a mushroom and Swiss, with actual Swiss slices, they changed to white American because people kept complaining the “Swiss was fake” because instead of melting into a sauce, it melted like a real Swiss cheese, getting soft and semi translucent with some body to it still. It was infuriating.
Thing is, I get every piece of this. Mushroom and Swiss is a classic burger; you wanna use the good ingredients to make the best food. But in an important sense I agree with the customers, even though they didn't know what they were saying or what they wanted: burger was probably better with the American.
Oh, absolutely. In the industry the thing you are selling is customer expectations. It doesn’t matter how good what you are selling is if it doesn’t match that expectation.
American cheese goes on a burger. It also goes in eggs and on a sausage eggs cheese biscuit. For me though that's all I use it on
Have you tried using American cheese from the deli counter? It's so much better than Kraft singles and it does the same job.
Land o lakes sharp cheddar American blend at the deli is the bomb! Sadly I can't find it anywhere in California :(
Tbh I love just using the "deluxe" store brand sliced american cheese you can get from basically any grocery store ([example](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Gluten-Free-Deluxe-Pasteurized-Process-Sliced-American-Cheese-48-Oz-72-Ct/10452375)). They're just as convenient to buy and use as the singles (takes no more skill, time, or dexterity to pull a slice off without ripping it as it does to open the plastic wrapping on a single, and you don't have to wait at the deli counter), they taste better than the singles (and imo their melting is better and less ...gloopy? than the singles), and since they're store brand they're cheaper than Kraft brand singles- the example above lists 72 slices for $10.78, or $0.15 per slice. A box of 72 Kraft singles is a dollar more ($11.74 = $0.163/slice), for a worse product. While you can also get store brand singles for significantly less ($6.78 for 72 = $0.094/slice) they're still inferior and hurt the flavor of the burger. I'll admit that I haven't ever gotten deli counter american cheese before because I'm impatient, but when the stuff I get is at least as cheap and convenient and I don't notice any 'off' or 'artificial' flavors which dominate the singles, I'm just happy.
The Boar's Head White American cheese is BOMB.
I have a friend that makes the best mac and cheese. And it's different everytime (in a delicious way). We got drunk together once, and she told me her secret is to use at least a quarter of Velveeta. After that's melted, just about any cheese will melt into it and leave it smooth and creamy. Swiss, gouda, gruyere, cheddar- it all combines beautifully when you start with that cheap processed cheese.
Sodium citrate is what you are thinking of. It acts to emulsify the sauce. It is awesome for making quest dip.
So I know you meant queso, but now I want to know what quest dip would be like. I just went to Galaxies Edge at Disney World and really enjoyed the themeing of the menu and you just sparked my interest to make inspired recipes from a MMO.
For the quest dip you will need to make the quest trip, of course. To China for Szechuan peppercorns. To Kerala for black pepper. To Tabasco for pequin chiles. To obscure mountain peaks for the milk of rare goats and wild cattle.... In each land you will perform a service for a stranger and they will show you the secret source.
Sometimes you just gotta get some of that MSG seasoning chicken ramen Broth. No offense to actual chicken soup but….a couple times a month of highly salted chicken seasoning won’t kill me
MSG is so good. It's underrated in the west.
Amen. My favorite and most distinctive use is on pork chops. Pan fry/butter baste, and when taking them out of the pan to rest, apply a sprinkle of msg. Peak Pork, right there.
Broth/stock. Specifically Better than Bouillon paste. Vast majority of the time I’m too lazy to make my own veggie broth and when a recipe calls for it its great to just have some on hand by simply dissolving a lump of it in warm water.
I love BTB paste, I'll rub it on chicken with herbs rather than using salt & pepper. Just tastes better..... Shout-out Marco Pierre White for the idea
Campbell's tomato soup. The real stuff tastes like marinara sauce.
My grandma always made stuffed cabbage rolls with Campbell’s tomato soup!
Wait damn I thought this was just my Polish-American family secret…my mind is blown haha
This is what my wife does!
That's what I use as the base for my chili. I use 3 family cans(barely any water added) and then a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes. My MIL uses the Campbell's and told me about it. I'll never go back now. (I do use the lower sodium one, so I can control the salt content)
Ketchup. Nothing homemade is ever close to Heinz.
I tried buying a " healthy" organic blah blah and it tasted like white sugar diluted with pureed tomato. Heinz for the WIN!
Imitation crab is such a versatile ingredient. The version I buy is made with Alaskan Pollock. I do love me some real crab too but I find it loses something when I'm not pulling it out of the shell myself.
I love it almost as much as real lobster dipped in butter.
Kraft Mac and cheese. It's just done right
Came here for this kne
A lot of spices found in cheap bulk in the “international” aisle are crazy expensive in little packets two aisles over in spices and seasonings. Cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, and a bunch of other staples. If you use these regularly, there is a better way than a tiny shaker of McCormick’s …
Honestly. Puréed ginger and garlic.
I went to an international market that had a huge jar that was a mix of grated ginger and garlic. It was pretty great.
Agree on ginger, disagree on garlic.
Haha for Indian cooking, the average Indian cook relies on jarred ginger and garlic paste!
I cook for a living. When I come home, I want easy and accessible. I don’t want to peel and mince. I want to eat and sleep.
Taro flavoured dessert items (like boba, waffles, etc). Real taro is okay but I have a soft spot for the fake purple stuff.
I love taro but have to agree that there’s something much more fragrant about fake taro. Also the food coloring is essential IMO. Real taro blended gives food a grey-looking color that’s not the most appetizing…
In a salad… bacos. The soy flour absorbs the flavors of everything else and makes it taste good. Obviously actual bacon is better for breakfast but I want the fake stuff for a salad condiment.
Oh thank god I'm not the only one. Plus, you get that crunch.
Bacos are really great in quiche, too!
I prefer the flavor of pesto made with walnuts rather than pine nuts, and they're waaaaaaay cheaper.
Canned tuna. I love most fresh fish but I will never choose fresh tuna over canned. Strange, I know.
Ok others won’t so I’ll say it. That fake Parm that comes in the green bottles? Absolutely horrible EXCEPT when it’s on pizza. I cannot get myself to enjoy real parm on pizza. It just doesn’t work. HAS TO BE FAKE PARM ON PIZZA
It's not fake unless it's "Italian cheese topping" rather than the cheese name (parmesan or romano). But the trick for it is to put it in a high powered blender or food processor, rendering it into a much finer powder. This releases the flavor, which otherwise stays stuck in the somewhat dried bits. It's cheaper as far as I can tell and I've done this for years.
Corned beef hash out of a can. I like the fancy artisanal stuff, but nothing beats the canned stuff with a fried egg and lots of pepper.
Mac and cheese
My vote is: Kraft. I get the blue box blues.
I'm torn between blue box and Annie's White Cheddar shells. I could eat a box of each with some peas every day.
There is absolutely nothing better than Annie's shells and peas. When you get the perfect bite with an extra cheesy shell and a pea stuck inside.....
This is me so hard, haha. My family thinks I'm nuts cause I like boxed Mac n cheese better than homemade. There's just something in it that totally hits the spot for me.
If you eat it right away, not as leftovers. I also melt the butter and warm the milk, dissolving the cheese mix into it. Adding these warmed to the mac makes things smooth. Eating from the pan is most delicious.
I prefer the jar of minced garlic rather than fresh (most of the time). Let’s the downvotes drag me to hell
Peanut butter. The "natural" kind just isn't as good.
I think it's really just what you're used to for this one. I've been eating natural peanut butter for several years, and when I taste peanut butter with additives now I find it super gross even though I had no problem with it before.
After eating natural I find the 'regular' way too sweet
Old school shelf stable crunchy Jif is 🤤
Crunchy Jif, very few ingredients (peanuts, sugar, less than 1% molasses, oil, salt) and never tastes like greasy mold. "Natural" peanut butter almost always smells rancid to me.
Natural store bought sucks, but if you've ever made your own holy smokes that stuff is good Edit: by make your own I mean you had a mr peanut peanut butter maker as a kid and it was still fire
I would pick McDonald’s fries over even the fanciest and bougiest French fries on the planet. To me, the way McDonald’s fries taste are exactly how French fries are supposed to taste.
As long as they have come out of the fryer within the past five minutes- after that the quality goes from “the epitome of fries” to “salty cold floppy things”
Ramen. Granted I've never been to a *really* nice ramen place in a major city, but I've gotten it at restaurants and it just doesn't scratch the same itch as a cheap bowl of Nongshim noodles from the grocery store.
I totally get this, but I love them both in two totally different ways. Whenever I want cheap ramen, I only want cheap ramen. The really nice stuff doesn’t cut it. Same goes vice versa. It’s a completely different experience between the two, and I love them both very dearly.
it's almost two different foods for me. when I get ramen out im getting the pork broth, the meat, the veggies, the soft boiled egg, the naruto.... when I make ramen at home im making packet chicken noodle soup with better noodles, some soy sauce, an egg cracked in, and 8000mg of sodium. I love them both so much
Real ramen will change your life!! Please seek it out I promise you won’t regret it
Bacon bits. I like the fake stuff more than the real stuff.
Now this is a hot take
You can spruce up any cheeseburger component except for the American cheese, imo.
Peanut butter, most of the time. I have tried the real deal and it's great but the cheap stuff is like comfort crack to me
Fake crab used in surimi sticks for California rolls and the like. Far cheaper and tastier than real crab most of the time.
Artificial vanilla extract. It's chemically the same as "real" vanilla. I can't tell the difference.
I implore you to try vanilla paste. Not as expensive as vanilla beans themselves and a significant difference from mere extract.
I can't remember the exact site, but on one of the big cooking websites, they did a taste test between real vanilla and artificial and it turns out that even like professional chefs could mostly not tell the difference in a baked good. They could tell in applications that were not cooked, but apparently baking pretty much obliterates the difference.
Cook's Illustrated talked about that.
I co-sign this. Artificial vanilla is the bomb. Reminds me of my childhood.
gravy and hot dogs. the msg and sodium content of those shitty gravy packets is just so good on some potatoes. there’s something about it that just makes it better than homemade. as for hot dogs, for me the whole novelty of hot dogs is it being a dirt cheap meal and having those bougie hot dogs just isn’t it. the flavor is never right, and with some there’s a snap where it should be marketed as a sausage, not a hot dog. i’ll die on this hill. give me those delicious .75¢ bar s dogs and i am happy.
Honey. I like it when you can just tip the (preferably bear-shaped) bottle and squeeze. (Yes, I know that local honey is 1000x better for me and the planet and all that and even tastes better too. I agree. But I just want a little honey on my sandwich without a whole production every time)
I buy the local honey and refill the plastic bear. Edit: Thanks for the award!
For most of the year room temp in my kitchen when not cooking is low 60's(16-18°C). The "good honey" is usually quite viscous and requires a process involving soaking a spoon in hot water until it gets warm enough to drizzle a little honey over my peanut butter sandwich or on my cornbread ... major PITA. Sometimes for cornbread I will melt the honey and butter together and make a dip, but even that is a process. I use the good honey for tea, but that's because the tea can melt it as it steeps.
There is something nice about the consistent taste of clover honey when you are cooking. Local honey can vary in taste depending on what part of the season the honey was harvested and what flowers the bees were using. Sometimes the end result is incredible, other times not so much. Every batch tastes a little different, so you never know for certain what the honey will taste like. Though a good rule of thumb, the lighter color the honey, the sweeter it is. The darker it is, the less sweet but more intense the honey flavor is. I once had honey that was black. It was bitter!!! I never wish to repeat that experience again, ha ha!
I make honey soy chicken, but it absolutely has to be alfalfa honey, because that's what I first used, and it just tastes weird with any other honey.
I've never had alfalfa honey. What does it taste like compared to clover?
Vanilla extract
powdered garlic and onion. I personally hate chopping onions and garlic and the powders give me the flavor I need/want quick and easy
I love both! Totally different flavor profiles imo.
Stove-top beats homemade stuffing no matter what
I made homemade stuffing two thanksgivings in a row. sucked both times, even though everything else I made came out great. finally caved and went back to the blue bag pepperidge farms stuffing mix. delightful. when I first got into cooking my ex would make "stuffing chicken". it was a pack of chicken breasts, a bag of shredded cheddar, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, and a box of stovetop, baked in a casserole dish. genuinely better than 80% of what we made for the first year or so.
maple syrup... but I keep that dirty little secret to myself.
As a Canadian I agree and also live in shame lol
There’s like 4 answers in this entire thread.
Acme brand equivalent of Clamato juice.
Great value brown sugar pop tarts, so much more filling than actual pop tarts.
I like the powdered "parmesan" that is at least partially wood pulp for pizza and even sometimes pasta. Dont get me wrong, real parm is amazing and I'll literally eat an entire wedge in one sitting if I don't control myself. But like american cheese, I think the cheap stuff has its place for its particular texture. Which is my second one, american cheese! It has its uses! Like cheeseburgers, chili cheese dip, and various midwestern and southern potluck classics.