When making baked chicken recipes, seafood recipes or when cooking with a crock pot, there are several optional ingredients you can add to change an ordinary meal to something unique. Some require rethinking the ingredients and their measurements, while others are simple additions to the existing ingredients. For some recipes, one or two bay leaves can add flavor without changing the character of the meal. Bay leaves are best in slow-cooked dishes such as crock pot recipes, and should be removed from the container prior to serving. They don’t taste very good when accidentally eaten, but the flavor they add to the meal is incredible given the small portion of the leaves.

For chicken recipes, celery seeds, white pepper, and paprika are also ways to enhance flavor that don’t increase volume. These are “season to taste” ingredients much like salt and pepper and you may need some trial and error to determine just the right amount for your needs. You can also try adding a cajun rub to your chicken recipe or a similar approach for the broth or sauce of a seafood recipe.

One excellent type of extra ingredient for baked chicken recipes is soup. Adding a can of prepared soup gives you a variety of flavor options, but can drastically change the volume of the meal. If you want to use soup as a simple marinade for a whole baked chicken recipe, the volume issue is practically non-existent; if you plan to add the soup to a chicken and rice dish, you should re-think the preparation to cut the volume down.

If you plan to make a chicken and rice dish, try using some broth as a substitute for water in making the rice. You can use the rest to cook the chicken. This will not work well for a cream-based soup. You’ll need to make some adjustments for volume in the crock pot recipe or use a larger baking pan for the baked chicken version. Try adding your vegetables after the chicken and soup have been cooking for a while. Once the soup has had a chance to cook down some, you may find the vegetables fit better in the crock pot. You can also drain some of the soup if you need to make room in the pot.

Both ready made soups and simple spices can add much to your standard seafood or baked chicken recipes. Be sure to factor in the right level of spices or soup for the number of people you’re serving and your meal will turn out fine.

More Intermediate Recipes