51 Chefs’ Favorite Ingredients To Give Your Taste Buds A Special Treat

"Butter. In soups, sauces, stews, browned or with more components added, on meat, with fish, in mash...

I mean, the reason your food tastes better at a restaurant is because it's made by a guy who doesn't give a crap about your arteries or cholesterol and will nuke your food with the golden yellow deliciousness."

"Garlic."

jvalverderdz replied: "No chef here, but garlic, along with onions, is my single favorite ingredient of all time. Just pour some chopped garlic and onions into a pan with olive oil, and it smells like I'm doing some fancy gourmet stuff."

"Bay leaves. Like salt, you don't want them to be the dominant flavor in anything, but they make a night and day difference in stews, pasta sauce, you name it."

accountingsucks420 replied: "Bay leaf in the stew is alchemy. I don’t know what it tastes like specifically, but if you skip it, the dish is sucky."

Bramblebelle said: "Around my house, we call it 'The Lucky Leaf' if you find one in your bowl."

"Slaps block of cheese on table CHEESE."

"Nutmeg. Goes in the sweet stuff, in the savory stuff, in some drinks."

"Paprika makes anything taste better."

KaszaJaglanaZPorem replied: "Hungarians entered the chat."

"Soy sauce. I will put it on anything including fruit. I have a packet of it in my bag all the time.

Is soup tasteless? Soy sauce. Marinating meat/veg/tofu? Soy sauce. Broke and starving? Rice with a bit of soy on top and it’s a filling meal (did this plenty during my college days). Stranded on a desert and need to eat your shoe to survive? Bam! Soy sauce that motherfather."

squreky replied: "I came here looking at how to eat my shoe and you provided it, thanks, man!

Soy sauce with steak is amazing!"

"Good smoky paprika. Give me a nice fresh smoky paprika and I can make magic."

"Chef of 25 years. My personal favorite is Worcestershire sauce. Use it more at home than in restaurants I've worked. Such a nice umami though."

dream_bean_94 replied: "My grandma has a bunch of severe allergies. Well, at least, that’s what she tells people.

For years, we have speculated that she’s just REALLY picky when it comes to food and, instead of admitting it, she just tells everyone that she’s “allergic” to whatever food she doesn’t like to eat.

The biggest one is seafood. She is “deathly allergic” to seafood and the type of fish that gives her the worst “reaction” are anchovies.

So, anyways, we’re out at the melting pot (fondue restaurant) one night and they’re making us the cheese fondue right at the table in front of us. The chef goes to add a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce and I’m like “STOP! Sorry, but my grandma is allergic to anchovies so we’ll skip the Worcestershire thank you!” and my grandma goes “I get this all the time, I love Worcestershire sauce and use it all the time!”. Heh heh... busted!

I told her that Worcestershire sauce is literally made out of fermented anchovies and she flipped out and denied it, said there’s no way that’s possible, and refused to look it up or read the back of a bottle.

She still eats it all the time and is still deathly allergic to anchovies."

"Onions. I add onions to almost every dish."

anonmymouse replied: "Onions are ok but recently I've discovered shallots. I knew they existed and everything before but never used them much, and now that I have I use them in everything. Shallots are the star of the onion world and no one can convince me otherwise, they're better in every way."

"Cinnamon takes a back seat to no ingredient. People love cinnamon. It should be on tables at restaurants along with salt and pepper. Anytime anyone says, 'Oh This is so good. What's in it?' The answer invariably comes back, Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Again and again."

"Sumac. Seriously, get yourself a huge bag for like $15 bucks and thank me later. It's lemony and salty, sweet and smoky and earthy and beautifully red. Sprinkle it on toast, curry, chicken, steak, tacos, devilled eggs, ice cream... Just about everything.

You can also brew it like tea and it has an intense wild-berry flavor."

TehPinguen replied: "My mom is half Iranian, so we grew up eating sumac with our rice all the time. My parents thought it was hilarious when little me asked for some while at a friend's house, and of course, they had never heard of it."

"Roasted sesame seed oil, it adds a light nuttiness and saltiness to a dish."

ratherbewinedrunk replied: "Use with care though. It's amazing, but it can overtake a dish fast if you use too much."

"Black pepper."

CurmudgeonInterrupte replied: "Fresh- black pepper."

"Vinegar. It is often the thing that is missing when people go for more salt and spices in their cooking wondering why it doesn’t taste quite as good as in a restaurant."

"Caramelized onions. I have had bowls of nothing but caramelized onions for whole meals. Besides that, they are a standard base ingredient of almost every good recipe I've made."

"Salt."

rjjm88 comments: "If there's an objectively correct answer to the question, it's this. Or butter."

rondell_jones replied: "I found out that French cooking was just different ways to flavor the butter."

"Rosemary."

FrozenSquirrel comments: "Look for Jacobsen’s Rosemary salt."

"Any form of acidic liquid. Please don't continually pour salt into your dish because it's lacking that punch. Use some lemon juice, vinegar, even Balsamico for the love of God."

"I've only been baking for a few weeks, but the zest of citrus fruits (especially lemon) is so good. I like to put zest on almost anything. For my mango pie, I used orange zest, and for my pear apple spice pie, I used lemon zest. I'm planning on doing an orange pie next or some other baked good that includes oranges."