Cooking with Wine

Photo courtesy of www.smartwomanonline.com

My cousin asked me what dry wines she can cook with, so I thought I would share my answer with all of you.

 

Dry basically means that the wine is not very fruit forward and doesn't have a lot of sugar in it. If you get a wine that is too sweet, buttery, or creamy, it can take a away from the flavors of the food. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, you want the wine to "compliment" the food, not overpower it.

 

For those of us on a strict budget, the best thing to use is the cooking wines from the grocery store. Yes, you do not get the full flavors and alcohol that "regular" wines have, but it gets the job done!

If you are looking for a good dry white wine to cook with, go with a wine that has not been aged in oak such as a Sauvingnon Blanc or a steel barrel aged Chardonnay. For a red, you will want to do a Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec. Those two wines are usually very dry and do not have a lot of sweet fruit flavors in them.