Club Soda Gives You The Fluffiest Waffles Of Your Life

There's nothing like warm waffles for breakfast on the weekends. Dutch waffles first arrived in the United States in 1620 thanks to early settlers, and in the years since, sweet and savory iterations of the dish have taken over brunch menus and breakfast plates across the country. Whether you like them bathed in butter, paired with fried chicken, or buried under a mound of fresh berries, good waffles have a soft, chewy center and a crispy exterior. But if you want to boost your basic buttermilk waffle recipe, mix in a little fizz thanks to a bar cart staple.

A splash of club soda is the easiest way to amp up your fried dishes, like fried chicken and crispy fish, and it's sometimes used in place of alcohol in recipes calling for beer batter. When it's cooked, heat causes the carbon dioxide in club soda to disperse into the mix, giving the batter an airy quality. It takes on the same characteristic in sweet batter and results in perfectly balanced waffles. 

Club soda is something of an all-purpose ingredient. Not to be confused with seltzer or tonic water, club soda is made with ingredients like mineral salts that intensify the carbonation and give it a subtly salty flavor. Sweetly-bitter tonic water, on the other hand, features sugar as well as quinine (a common medication for malaria), while seltzer is the simplest of the set with its flavorless added carbonation.

Because of the additional ingredients in club soda, the versatile beverage also famously works as a powerful cleaning agent to erase red wine stains and remove rust and debris from cast iron. Club soda is a common cocktail mixer, and some bagel shops even insist a little club soda makes cream cheese light and spreadable, but the fix-all liquid can also be added to batters and doughs for added airiness. For a soft, fluffy waffle with a crunchy exterior, replace some of the buttermilk in your go-to recipe with the bubbly beverage. The soda gives the batter a little extra rise and elevates its texture. Be sure to buy club soda, though, and skip the sparkling water since it won't be effervescent enough.