White Wine Makes These 27 Recipes Shine (2024)

FAQs

What does white wine add to a recipe? ›

Using wine in place of some or all of the vinegar in classic beurre blanc and Béarnaise sauces will make them less acidic and more complex. Wine also adds depth to and cuts the richness of cream-based sauces. You might even want to try whisking a little white wine into your scrambled eggs or omelet before cooking.

There are a myriad of great choices but we tend to favor pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc. These lighter-style wines will bring out the flavor of your dish without overwhelming it. Avoid robust and oaky white wines like chardonnay. Once the food is cooked, the oak-influence may cause your dish to taste bitter.

Wine's acidity also helps more delicate ingredients stay tender and moist in quicker-cooking recipes, such as poached vegetables or steamed fish. As wine cooks, its flavor becomes concentrated, so it also lends savoriness or sweetness to a dish. Generally, dry red and white wines are recommended for savory dishes.

White sauce with wine for pasta

Pasta with cream sauce begs for white wine. If you are making a cream sauce or a dish with poultry, seafood, pork, or veal, and you want to play it safe, try a crisp, dry white wine such as Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio), Pinot Blanc, or Sémillon.

Cooking wine tends to be higher in alcohol, coming in at around 16 to 17 percent. This is intentional, since alcohol burns off during cooking— the higher the alcohol level, the longer it takes to burn off. A cooking wine also contains salt, some preservatives and in some cases, a sweetener.

If you're looking for something slightly sweeter, fruity, and well-rounded, try the Pinot Grigio. If you're looking for something with higher acidity levels and a little drier, but still on the lighter side, go with the Sauvignon Blanc.

Sauvignon Blanc has higher acidity and more potent aromas that keep the senses on high alert. It also contains the unique compound pyrazine, which gives it its grassy notes. Pinot Grigio can also be perfumey, though it is less aromatic and more mellow in acidity, with lighter citrus notes.

The truth is that you can use old wine for cooking a variety of dishes. Whether you use red or white wine doesn't matter. You can cook with wine for up to two months or longer after the bottle has been opened. Even if the wine you use for cooking is unfit for drinking.

When you reduce either the wine or the sauce it's in by boiling or simmering, you will be concentrating the sourness as well, so be mindful of how far you reduce a sauce after adding the wine. It can easily become unpleasantly sour. Wine starts out as grape juice, and grape juice is sweet as well as sour.

When to add white wine while cooking? ›

I almost always deglaze a pan with a splash of white wine after sautéing mirepoix and other aromatics and before adding the next ingredients. It adds a lightness to the sauce, and as the alcohol evaporates the flavours from the vegetables and the fat they were cooked in concentrate.

To offset creamy sauces (eg carbonara or fettucine alfredo) think Soave, Bianco di Custoza, Pinot Bianco, Sicilian whites and lighter Chardonnay or Chardonnay blends. With baby vegetables (primavera) or herbs (verdura): try a crisper Italian whites such as Falanghina, Vermentino or Arneis.

Chardonnay is a natural choice, either from Burgundy (look to the Mâconnais or a standard Bourgogne Blanc to keep things affordable) or from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. A light, mild red could also work with Fettuccine Alfredo, like Schiava from Alto Adige or Beaujolais from France.

You will want to look for wines with crisp acidity to cut through the richness of the various cheeses, bechamel sauce and cream base in the lasagna. Sauvignon Blanc and Chablis style unoaked Chardonnay will be a great compliment to the cheese, herbs and cream with their delicate citrus and mineral profile.

Let's start at the beginning, wine is used in cooking for flavour. But its big advantage is natural acidity which tenderizes foods and keeps them moist. Not to get all science-y about it, but essentially the alcohol in wine, which eventually cooks off, helps the flavour molecules of the other ingredients open up.

Do you remember your first bite of linguine with clams, French onion soup, or chicken scallopini? Cooking with white wine brings balance, fruit, and acidity to so many of our favorite recipes.

The wine seems to enhance the food's flavors on your tongue. The crispness in white wines brings out the light, delicate flavors of fish, pork and chicken. Likewise, big red wines with tannins like to marry with the fats in marbled meats and high-fat cheeses.

The alcohol helps release flavor molecules in foods and assists in dissolving fats, allowing ingredients to reveal their own unique flavors in ways that other liquids (like water or broth) or fats (like butter and olive oil) cannot.