5 Creative Uses for Some of Our Favorite Ingredients

Instant mashed potatoes in a cake, mezcal in pasta sauce and miso in your spaghetti? They’re all a little unexpected, but don’t dismiss them as mere gimmicks. These are our most creative uses for some of our favorite ingredients, from a super moist, flavorful banana bread to a weeknight-friendly takeout favorite.

Put tahini in your banana bread

Earthy, nutty tahini is as at home in cookies, brownies and cakes as it is in savory hummus. Here, it replaces some of the butter in banana bread, lending the crumb an especially plush, tender texture. Banana slices, arranged on the batter, followed by a sprinkling of sesame seeds, bake into the deeply browned surface of the bread.

Runner-up: Tahini Swirl Brownies

Pour mezcal in your pasta sauce

Penne alla vodka has made a recent comeback, but we say save the vodka for martinis. By spiking the sauce with mezcal, we’ve updated the ’80s favorite and given it more dimension and complexity. The smoky-sweet notes of the Mexican spirit are a perfect match for this pancetta-enriched tomato-cream sauce.

Another vehicle for your vodka: Frozen Lemon Mousse

Stir miso into your bolognese

One-hour Bolognese sounds heretical, but this is no shortcut; this sauce is our version of what might be called Japanese bolognese. It’s faster and simpler to prepare than traditional ragù bolognese—even meatier!—thanks to umami-rich miso and soy sauce. It's an example of Japanese food culture's enthusiastic embrace of Italian cuisine, to the extent that it coined the term "itameshi" to categorize Japanese-Italian dishes. The base is all pork, with ginger, garlic, and scallion whites standing in for the traditional soffritto, and tomato paste for depth. You don't taste miso. You don't taste soy. You taste an extraordinarily meaty sauce that just happens to come together in a fraction of the time.

More uses for miso: Garlic Bread with Parmesan and Miso

Spoon marmalade into your stir-fry

This stir-fried spin on Chinese orange beef, a takeout favorite that typically calls for deep-frying the meat, uses orange marmalade to add layers of sweetness, bitterness and citrusy brightness. Five-spice powder adds to the complexity with its warm spiciness. Finish the stir-fry with scallions or use basil to accentuate the anise notes of the five-spice. This is great with steamed white or brown rice.

Then try mango: Stir-Fried Beef with Mango and Cilantro

Make a cake with instant mashed potatoes

Cakes made with mashed potatoes likely originated in the early 1900s as a resourceful way to use up leftovers. But it turns out there is magic in adding mashed potatoes to a cake batter. They not only inhibit gluten development so the crumb bakes up ultra-tender, they also retain water, which keeps the cake exceptionally moist. In this recipe, we use instant potato flakes to avoid the nuisance of peeling, boiling, ricing and cooling the spuds. Dutch-processed cocoa yields a more intense chocolate flavor and color than natural cocoa, but either works.

Then try: Gnocchi in an Instant

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.

Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.