Ever wondered how you can make your whole grain dishes tastier? Here’s a tip: add flavor at the very beginning, when cooking them. Doing this will ensure the grain itself is flavorful, so whatever you add it to will already taste better than if you added a plain old boring grain!

The best news is, flavoring grains while cooking is super easy. Here are 5 simple ways to do it:

1. Use vegetable stock instead of water

   Vegetable stock is so much more flavorful than plain water, so if you’re going to cook grains in a liquid that they’re going to absorb, why not make it tasty stock?

2. Add kombu seaweed

   Adding kombu seaweed when cooking grains and legumes is super beneficial not only from a flavor perspective (it gives it a great umami taste) but also because it adds healthy minerals to the water and makes the grains and legumes more digestible.

3. Add toasted spices and/or dried herbs

   Toasted spices impart such a flavor punch to anything, including grains. However, you don’t want to deal with loose spices and herbs in your cooking water. To avoid this, make a sachet (small bag) to the cooking water with your spices and herbs in it so that it can easily be removed. To do this, simply double up 2 pieces of cheesecloth, put your herbs and spices in the middle of it, gather the ends, and tie it up with a knot or two. You can tie it up with a piece of twine.

4. Add chopped vegetables

   You can also add vegetables straight into the cooking water. We recommend you use hearty vegetables for this like carrots, celery, and onion, as they’ll be cooking in the water for a while and you don’t want them to be overcooked or completely fall apart. Simply dice them relatively small and add to the cooking liquid. This method also works best when cooking grains for vegetables, stews, or soups, since the vegetables will stay mixed in. If you want to be able to take the vegetables out, you can always put them in a sachet and add that to the grain cooking water.

5. Use white wine

   White wine is another great seasoning. Simply add it to the cooking liquid and the grains are going to soak up that beautiful flavor. Everyone will be wondering why your grains taste so good! You can also do this with beer if you want to feel extra adventurous.

 

 

  

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