With all the amazing types of cuisine out there, it’s not wonder that people find themselves hoping to try as much as they can. The feeling of ‘food FOMO’ can be quite intensive from time to time, because by choosing one dish to eat, you are by implication not choosing all of the rest.

Of course, there’s nothing to worry about here, you have time to eat great food even if it’s impossible to get around to everything. There are some great principles for doing so. One, is to keep an open mind. This way, ingredients that seem unusual to you or cuisines that you may not have tried still retain their importance. Second is to avoid relying on the same recipes all of the time, a little familiarity or reliability is never a bad thing, but it’s good to eat more than the same things everyday. Third is to try and be adventurous where possible, letting your experimentation, creativity, and taste buds guide you.

But how can we achieve such worth in the kitchen? In this post, we’ll discuss how to do that and more. Without further ado, let’s get started:

Start Small

Start small, and don’t overdo it. You don’t have to perfect an entire culture’s cuisine in the space of a few sessions within your kitchen. It’s okay to try small recipes that help you understand the best of a cuisine without making too much, without using out-there ingredients, and without feeling as though you have to suffer making something truly complex in order to verify your risk-taking.

For instance, a quick and easy Matar Paneer cooked in an Instant Pot could be exactly what you need for a delectable comfort meal using simple ingredients and spices. If you perfect this, then who knows what you could go on to achieve? 

Try Authentic Food Markets

It’s good to source the proper ingredients for a given cuisine should you hope to try a few recipes within it. This is a great excuse to head out into a local supermarket for a given culture, of which there will usually be one or two in your local town and certainly a few in your nearest city.

Even stocking up on the name-brand rice and spices can help you add a flair of authenticity. You may even be able to get some advice from the owners, who will usually appreciate it if you’re going out of your cultural comfort zone to try something new. An approach like this could make a tremendous difference in how calm and collected you feel in the kitchen from then on.

Go Out To Eat

It’s impossible for a writer to write a good book without reading plenty beforehand. It’s impossible for a carpenter to gauge a love for his or her craft without appreciating finished works that inspire them. Namely, it’s impossible for a good home cook to understand the foods they’d like to recreate or try without going out and exploring with their taste buds.

It might be, then, that going out to eat (or opting for restaurant delivery where possible using proper takeout apps that liaise with said official restaurants), can be a great way of trying new dishes, of comparing what you’re eating now to what you’ve eaten before, and getting a great idea of how something is supposed to taste to begin. Going out to eat is not only an enjoyable time, but a learning experience, and a challenging experience if you let it be. It can’t hurt to achieve that, then.

Experiment With Spices & Herbs

One thing is common – all cultures around the world use spices and herbs to get the most out of their dishes. If you can learn how to wield them, including what spices pair with which foods, how spices work together, and more, then you’ll have a hidden resource tucked away that can turn a good dish into a great dish.

That kind of approach is like a painter finally understanding how to use different color swatches to craft a particular tone in their canvas. Except this time, you get to eat whatever creation it is you’ve labored over. Learning tricks like this can also help serve as an entry point into understanding another culture, because if you understand their spices, you’re more ready to understand the flavor profiles their working with, and from there you’re likely to take more risks.

With this advice, you’re sure to become more adventurous in the kitchen – and have fun doing so!