5 Unique Ways To Use Anchovy Paste In Your Cooking

In American-style cooking, anchovy paste is one of those ingredients that a lot of us buy at the grocery store to make one recipe, and then it sits in the fridge waiting until the next batch of Caesar dressing. It's not a one-trick ingredient, however. In fact, lots of chefs use anchovy paste as a secret weapon for boosting the depth of flavor in ways that might surprise you. It's packed with lots of natural glutamates, which our tongues perceive as savory or meaty (also called umami), which can make an everyday recipe into something restaurant-worthy if you give it a chance.

Here we'll explore five unique ways to use anchovy paste, and we encourage you to try them all so that you can learn to master the possibilities. Don't worry about making a dish taste fishy; this all-star ingredient will simply enhance other naturally occurring savory qualities in your food and make ordinary recipes taste a bit more complex. Once you add it to your mental flavor library, you'll reach for the tube again and again whenever a dish needs a little extra oomph — even in some very unexpected places.

A great-tasting meatloaf or batch of meatballs doesn't require a lot of ingredients, but if you're relying only on lean ground beef, the flavor can fall a little flat (not to mention the loaf can come out dry and boring). Aromatics like carrot, onion, and celery are essential, but both of these dishes are a little more next level with just a little bit of anchovy paste. A tablespoon of the savory stuff will not make an entire batch of meatballs or meatloaf taste like fish, if that's a concern. Instead, like when it's included in Caesar salad dressing, the paste will taste super savory and meaty. So if your meatballs or loaf just aren't up to par, don't reach for more meat when all you need is a little essence of fish.

When you're thinking about making a batch of hot, spicy chili, anchovies are probably not the first ingredient you'd add to the grocery list. If you really want to win a chili cookoff, however, you have to at least consider the possibility. Despite all the herbs and spices, a lot of the ingredients in chili can use a bit of an umami boost, like ground meat and bland beans. Tomato sauces also come to life with a tiny bit of anchovy paste, so this is one ingredient you shouldn't sleep on for the next round of homemade chili. If you're unsure about it, try adding a small amount of anchovy paste to a bowl of cooked chili and taste it side by side with some untreated chili. If you like what you taste, scale it up into the entire batch.

When it comes to roasting vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, and red peppers, anchovy paste is an easy shortcut to super savory veggies with complex flavor. While it's true that a lot of vegetables have plenty of naturally occurring glutamates that make them taste savory, especially mushrooms and tomatoes, a boost from a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste can really wake up the flavor of many varieties of vegetables and balance out the sweetness that develops during roasting. You can either include some paste in a marinade before the veggies are cooked, or mix some into a warm vinaigrette to toss with the food after it's cooked. Try it with any roastable vegetable like cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and broccoli rabe, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, and of course mushrooms. A note for vegans and vegetarians: if eating anchovy paste is off the list, substituting the same amount of miso paste will work just as well.

If you're tasked with bringing the dips to the next potluck, or you're just underwhelmed with the same old recipes, reach in the fridge for the anchovy paste to elevate almost any kind of dip recipe. It's especially tasty in hot dips like spinach and artichoke, which can sometimes taste pretty one-dimensional or overly buttery when they're filled with cheese and other dairy. But you don't need to limit yourself to baked dips. Try adding a ¼ teaspoon of anchovy paste to French onion, whipped feta, or ricotta for a rich flavor complexity. It's also great in yogurt-based dips as well as hummus and other bean dips. You don't even need to make the dip from scratch; if you have a store-bought dip that's not all that exciting, dissolve a small amount of anchovy paste in a tablespoon of warm water and then mix it into the dip container to taste.

If you've ever wanted your roasted meats to taste a little bit meatier, you don't need more meat, just a bit of anchovy flavor. Roasts like leg of lamb, pork shoulder, and even prime rib have plenty of umami on their own, but a thin coating of anchovy paste on its own or mixed with a little olive or avocado oil can add depth and complexity that plain meat on its own could never achieve. If you're planning to marinate the meat before roasting, add a squeeze of paste into the mix. Or, you can rub the salty anchovy paste right into the surface of the meat before it goes in the oven or into the slow cooker (this works great for smaller cuts of steak, too). When the meat is cooked, anchovy paste is also excellent mixed into a compound butter for serving.