Acid. Lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, and/or wine. Salt and acid make the existing flavors fucking pop.

For anything cheesy, add a touch of nutmeg. Not enough to identify it, but enough to know that something changed.

Taste as you go.

MSG. It’s amazing.

Couldn't tell you. Every time I make something really good that's worth repeating, the recipe is immediately wiped from my mind forever. It's like some monkey's paw curse that I can only make the thing the most delicious way once.

Also, butter.

MSG

Monosodium glutamate

Citric acid. It's like adding lemon juice, except without any added moisture, so it works where too much moisture could pose a problem, like when you are making a pizza, nachos, or frying something in oil. It also never goes bad and is incredibly cheap, I use it all the time and am not even halfway through the $15 bag I bought like 8 years ago.

Generally, salt or MSG. I find people tend to under-season their dishes, and not layer flavors as they cook.

MSG comes in many forms: cheese, tomato, mushroom, fish sauce, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce... MSG powder.

I'm not taling Uncle Roger portions here. Just a teaspoon of the naturally occurring stuff, a couple splashes of the sauces, or just or a pinch of straight MSG is all it takes to add a bit of savory depth to a dish. I get good feedback about my cooking. Occasionally I overdo the salt, but no so much as to render it inedible. It helps to move the table wine along.

MSG in everything except eggs. Doesn’t go well with eggs for some reason.

Dry yellow mustard powder in mac and cheese. Not the fiery English or Chinese stuff, just boring American yellow mustard.

MSG.

Well as a Hispanic, I'm obligated to say adobo, sazon and or sofrito...

But cumin is fire in a lot of things too... Like wanna add flavor but no salt? Sprinkle in a lil cumin. Mac n cheese with cumin is a vibe.

Not an ingredient necessarily, but I toast rice with spices before cooking it. I throw some oil and garlic in the pot I'm going to cook the rice in, then put in the rice and (for mexican-like dishes) garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, a little oregano, a little cayenne pepper, and salt. I mix that all up continuously over medium heat for a couple minutes, then I add the water and cook the rice. It makes an incredible difference in taste

Just like adding a pinch of salt can improve any dish, adding a dash of Worcestershire sauce can improve them for the same reasons but different taste group.

And more generally, if you taste something and feel like it's missing something, go through each of the taste groups and consider if that is what it's missing. Sweet, salty, acidic, umami are the main ones (I've never felt like a dish is missing bitterness, but maybe that's a weakness in my cooking). Spicy isn't a flavour group but can add to a dish and/or mask a lack of balance.

Also, do this balancing act after you've added all the ingredients because they can bring their own biases to the dish.

Salt :D

Lots of home cooks are shy with seasoning in general (but especially salt). While not impossible, it's fairly hard to over season stuff.

That's why if you ever look at "miracle season alls" the first ingredients are usually something like "Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder".

If you want to be amused, look at these ingredients lists. Often the only difference is what food coloring is used.

For example.

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/tony-chachere-s-original-creole-seasoning/172479

Vanilla pudding mix in the dough for cinnamon rolls.

For the brown sugar cinnamon filling, sub some of the sugar out for honey. If you pick a honey with a unique taste, anyone who has them will be unable to pinpoint what makes yours so good.

Smoked paprika. It throw it in a lot of stuff you wouldn't guess it was in, as it adds a little bit of a smokey flavour.

Nutmeg is a criminally underutilized spice, and a little goes a long way. Damn-near everything I cook gets a little bit of nutmeg.

If what you're cooking tastes like it's missing something but you can't quite put your finger on what it is, in my experience most of the time it's acid. My go-to way to add that is with a good squirt of yellow mustard.

A little bit of cocoa powder finds its way into a lot of darker colored savory dishes like stews and such

Coffee: just put like a 16th or 32nd of a teaspoon of cayenne in the grounds, gives a depth of flavour people love. Just a miniscule amount, they should never spot it for what it is.

Not sure if secret, but most people express surprise when I tell them I add unsweetened cocoa powder and brown sugar to my chilli con carne.

Heat, salt, fat, acid. Technique matters more than secret ingredients.

Using low and slow or high and fast where appropriate depending on the goal. Plenty of fat and salt on everything, and a little acid to brighten up the dish.

Adding half a bag of butterscotch chips sprinkled on the top of box brownie mix. I get tons of compliments like it's the best thing in the world (and it is arguably much better than without the butterscotch).

Last mile seasoning! Shortly before your dish is ready to serve check for salt acid and heat, and adjust accordingly. This is critical!!!!

If the recipe calls for ground beef I'll usually swap it for ground sausage.

MSG

This thread is fucking awesome and I'm gonna try lots of these.

My Ukranian mate showed me the ways of vegeta. No, not the anime character, the seasoning. Put that shit on fried eggs and never look back.

Actually you can add it to lots of stuff. But eggs were the first thing I experienced it with.

Last year I picked a huge amount of mushrooms in the forest, dehydrated them (you can buy a dehydrator or use an oven) and ground them to a powder.
I put mushroom powder in damn near everything I cook, gives it a nice hit of umami.

I spread pesto inside my grilled cheese sandwiches

LSD My cookies are wild man

Love.

I recently started grinding spices by hand with a mortar/pestle and salt/pepper mills, and it really made a difference. Now everything smells very nice, which really made all of the food I prepare much better. Less of a secret ingredient, but it's usually better to always have fresh spices / ingredients on hand (if possible)

This is an American problem, but I discovered Amish butter a while back and haven’t looked back.

It has a slightly higher fat content closer to European butter (85% vs 80% for the regular store stuff), so everything you make tastes better. Eggs, cookies, steak, potatoes- it improves them all. I can get it fairly easy from a local co-op and it’s the same price as regular butter, but that depends on where you are in the country.

Half a teaspoon of mustard to any creme-based sauce. People dont think it will taste good but once you try it... Doesnt matter if you dont like mustard on its own. But it just adds that different flavor, similar to how salt changes it, without wanting the dish to taste like salt.

For chicken or beef pot-roasted with vegetables, apple juice. I started doing it when recipes called for wine but I had little kids and no money.