Cooking with essential oils is becoming increasingly popular among foodies and health enthusiasts alike. Essential oils are highly concentrated plant extracts recognised for their fragrant and medicinal characteristics. As well as being used in aromatherapy and beauty products, essential oils may be used in cooking to provide flavour to your meals.
Cooking with Essential Oils Tips
Before you start adding essential oils to your cooking, it’s important to note some dos and don’ts when it comes to cooking with essential oils. Not all essential oils are designed for cooking, so make sure you do some research before you use any in your cooking.
Here are some rough do and don’ts to get you started:
Do
- Do ensure the essential oils you use are 100% pure
- Start small. Essential oils are potent so can overpower a dish quite easily if used liberally. Add a drop at a time to taste.
- Do experiment with flavours. There are many fantastic combinations of essential oils you can use to add some serious flavour to your dishes.
Don’t
- Don’t use essential oils that come in a plastic bottle. The plastic can break down over time, so you don’t want that in your food. doTERRA essential oils all come in glass bottles.
- Don’t use lower-grade essential oils
- Don’t use essential oils to replace fresh herbs. Whilst oils add flavour, fresh herbs are still the best way to get flavour and texture to your dishes.
Why use essential oils for cooking?
Essential oils can be used in all sorts of ways in our day-to-day lives, from aiding sleep to helping with digestion and aiding hair growth to helping relieve anxiety. And since eating and drinking are such a vital part of our lives, why shouldn’t essential oils be part of that?
Adds flavour
Essential oils are a fantastic and easy way to add flavour to all sorts of recipes. Adding a few drops to a dish can really make it stand out. Or you could dilute essential oils in oils to give your oils a bit of a kick!
Internal Benefits
Essential oils are a popular way to help promote wellness throughout the body*. Essential oils are a great way to help to cleanse the body, promote healthy digestion, provide antioxidants, and help in lots of other ways. So, including them in your food is a tasty way to get all these benefits.
Convenient
Essential oils are also really convenient! Sometimes getting fresh herbs or spices can be a pain, or perhaps you are mid-way through cooking and you forgot that fresh basil! Luckily, if you have the right essential oil to hand, just a few drops are needed and away you go! No more worrying about listing ingredients or if your herbs are still in date!
Some of My Favourite Essential Oil Recipe Ideas
Now that some basic dos and don’ts have been made clear, let’s look at some tasty recipe ideas to help elevate your cooking with essential oils.
Thyme and Lemon Roast Chicken
Mix one or two drops of Thyme essential oil and a drop of Lemon essential oil with olive oil and rub all over your chicken before putting it in the oven to give your meat an earthy and lemony flavour!
Mint-Choc Brownies
Before you pour your brownie batter into a baking tray, pop in a couple of drops of peppermint essential oil to give your brownies a minty kick. Peppermint oil is quite strong, so put a drop in at a time until you get your desired flavour.
Cinnamon oil-baked Apple Crisps
- Preheat your oven to around 160 degrees Celsius
- Thinly slice a cooking apple and toss the slices with a few drops of cinnamon essential oil, honey, and a little sugar.
- Place on a baking tray in an oven for an hour, making sure you turn the slices halfway through.
- And there you have some delicious healthy(ish) crisp snacks!
Oregano Oil for Pizza
Homemade pizza is delicious and can be a surprisingly healthy treat (depending on what you are using as a topping of course). Once your pizza is out of the oven, drizzle over some Oregano Oil to give it even more flavour. For the full pizza recipe, take a look at my Oregano Pizza Recipe blog.
Ginger essential oil
Ginger Oil is so versatile and can be used for all sorts of recipes including for stir-fries, for baking (like gingerbread or ginger biscuits) and could even be added to hot drinks to add a bit of spice.
Other Essential oils for cooking
The above are some stand-out recipe ideas you can use at home. There are lots of other essential oils you could use, citrus essential oils are great for both sweet and savoury dishes, lavender oil could be added to ice cream to give it a unique taste, cardamom essential oil can be added for a chai flavour to drinks, cilantro essential oil can be added to salsas and dips, and lots more.
The Botanist’s Kitchen
If you like the sound of trying out some essential oils with your cooking, the Botanist’s Kitchen has all the essential oils you need. Take a look through our website and you’ll find the right essential oil for your next recipe.
*Essential oils should not be used as a replacement for medicines or supplements including vitamins and minerals. If you have health issues, it’s always best to consult your GP.
