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If you want to expand out your cooking a little while also making your meals more nutritious and delicious, then grains are the way to go. Making good use of grains in your cooking is one of the best things you can do for your health, and they are also wonderful for adding some meatiness into a dish. If you don’t eat meat, that can be a marvel, but even if you do it’s something to consider. Let’s take a look at all you need to know about cooking with grains to make them really sing as a part of your cooking.

How To Cook Grains: The Overview

First of all, there are some rules of thumb you can generally follow when you are cooking grains of any kind, so that is something to be aware of. If you want to make sure that you are cooking them right, do the following. First of all, use a heavy saucepan and a tight-fitting lid. Always rinse your grains thoroughly before use. Make sure you get the grain-to-water ratio right (which depends on the grain), and always fluff the grains after they are cooked. And if you are cooking grains for salads, reduce the cooking time slightly so they are still a little chewy.

Recipes With Grains

There are a lot of ways you can use grains in your cooking, and it’s probably a good idea to have some particular meals that you can follow which are always going to be worth trying out. A good example would be something like a Lebanese tabbouleh salad, or a couscous salad. You might even try a farro salad, or you could make a lentil soup packed with vegetables and seafood. There are so many directions you can go in, and once you realize the potential of grains in this way, you’ll find yourself using them more and more in your cooking. This can only lead to healthier and more delicious meals at home.

On The Side, Or Main Event?

One of the things about grains is that they are really versatile. Because of this, you will often find that you can use them either as an ingredient on the side in something bigger, or as the star of a dish themselves. In fact, they are very often used in both of these ways. If you want to really make the most of grains and learn how to cook with them properly, you should try both of these types of uses. That way, you’ll get to know the grains and how they work a lot more intimately, and from there you can make a better decision about how to cook with them in the future. That’s a great thing to look forward to.

Those are just some of the things to consider when you are learning how to cook with grains. As long as you remember all that, you should find that you are soon able to use grains in your cooking easily and professionally.

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This is a contributed post