If cooking is something you enjoy then you will want to read this. We’re going to talk about how to use wine in baking and cooking, and you’ll find some great ideas in the following article!

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Wine has, of course, been used by cooks for centuries. In ancient times water was generally unfit to drink, so wine and ale were brewed and drunk as naturally as water is now. It found its way into cooking very quickly, and there are many innovative ways you can incorporate wine into your meals.

Let’s be honest, the first cooks who put wine into dishes were experimenting, so why shouldn’t you do so! You might want to try adding it to a roast when it’s in the oven, or perhaps steeping or marinating meat in wine before you cook it, and these are just the start of the wide range of ways you can use wine when cooking. One question is this: do you cook with red or white? The answer is that both can be used in different dishes, so let’s see what we can tell you.

Cooking with Red Wine

Before we talk about what you can do with red wine, we should say that you might want to make your own wine, red, white or rose. There are many affordable wine making kits available and it is not expensive to buy, plus most of the ingredients are basic household goods. You can find all the kit for wine and beer making online or at a brewing shop, and there are many outlets as home brewing is a very popular pastime that is very satisfying.

So, what does red wine go with when cooking? A classic beef stew, of course! The thing is that as the dish cooks much of the alcohol will evaporate. What you are left with is the concentrated flavours of the wine itself, and this is a great way of adding flavour to a beef dish. Red is best with red meat dishes, so will lend itself to any lamb dish you want to try, and we recommend you look at Mediterranean recipes as there are barely any that do not use wine as an ingredient!

A merlot, cabernet or a pinto noir are all great cooking wines as they have the right flavours, and you’ll never taste a beef dinner as good as one cooked in red wine!

Cooking with White Wine

White wine is the wine of choice to cook with if your recipe says ‘add wine’. Only when red is specified should you cook with red. Don’t go for too sweet a white wine, but choose a dry or medium for added flavour. What can you cook with white wine? Many different dishes can be enhanced by adding wine, and a classic is to cook chicken with a white wine sauce. This brings out the full flavours and really adds something to chicken which can be quite bland sometimes.

White wine is used in Italian cooking in many pasta dishes too, and fish dishes go well with a nice white whine sauce also. In fact, very little can not be cooked with wine, so it’s worth searching for recipes to see what you can find. There’s a lot to be said for adding wine and learning how it changes the flavours of a dish, and once you try, you’ll be hooked.

If you’re making your own wine, you’ll have plenty to hand to cook with, and if not you’ll find there are many affordable options at your local store so start now, and have fun cooking with wine.