Episode 202: Summer Recipe Favorites

doTERRA: Cooking with essential oils might seem intimidating, but it couldn't be easier! Today, we'll share with you some of our favorite tips, tricks, and recipes for cooking with essential oils.

Welcome back to Essential Oils Solutions with doTERRA. The podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. Today's episode is brought to you by the On Guard protective blend.

A powerful blend of essential oils, On Guard provides a natural and effective alternative for immune support when used internally. Your body does a lot for you, so why not get your guard up?

Right now, as a podcast exclusive, if you buy a bottle of On Guard and enter the promo code PODCAST at checkout, we'll send you an exclusive audiobook. 100 Uses for Essential Oils. Check out the link in our episode description or visit doterra.com/podcastoffer to learn more. Open to US orders only.

Today, we're excited to talk to Glee Hoonhout all about cooking with essential oils.

Glee, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Glee Hoonhout: Thank you for having me, this is such a treat for me.

doTERRA: Well, we are excited to talk to you about such a fun topic. And to start out with, I want to ask, can I actually use essential oils in my cooking?

Glee Hoonhout: You absolutely can use essential oils in your cooking! There is no doubt. I've been using them for several years; we use them every day in our food. So, that's the great news about these wonderfully tested oils, is that doTERRA's oils, if they have the supplemental fact label on the bottle they are safe to use internally.

doTERRA: That is amazing. And like you said, it's so important to check for that supplemental fact label and make sure that you're only using the ones they're supposed to.

Glee Hoonhout: Exactly. I'm a bit of an experimenter, I love to try new things. And so, when I first started using essential oils, you know, one of the first recommendations was that I start putting Lemon in my water. Right? And I couldn't believe that I could actually do something like that. And, oh my gosh, it made the water so refreshing. And I am an avid water drinker now, which I was not when I first started using the oils.

doTERRA: I love that. Now, what are the biggest things that I need to remember when I am cooking with essential oils?

Tips for Cooking with Oils

Glee Hoonhout: Well, one of the things that's really important is that first of all, as we mentioned, you know, you just want to make sure that you have that supplemental fact label on the bottle. So, I always use that as kind of my gauge when I'm cooking. Right?

The other thing is, is that when you're using essential oils, because this is these are volatile aromatic compounds, temperatures, extreme temperatures can actually change the benefits of the oils. So, we want to get the highest benefits when we're using them and when we're using them in our food and using them internally.

So, I always say that when you're cooking with essential oils, add the oils at the end when you're done cooking, right? Give it a moment to just come off the stovetop or out of the oven, and then you can add your oils, which will make a really remarkable change in terms of their flavor.

And your dish is going to taste spectacular. And then, of course, you know, the other thing is that we don't want to add them to anything that's too cold, because that's going to change their benefits as well.

So, I always say when using essential oils with cooking, just make sure you add them at the end after you're done actually cooking the dish or give it some time to just cool off a little bit so you can really experience the benefits as well as the flavor.

One more thing that I love, you know, in terms of using essential oils is, you know, it's also really important to know that we want to avoid plastics, right? So, oils don't like polymers, they just don't like plastics.

So, I always, when I'm talking to somebody who's interested in kind of taking that deep dive into cooking with essential oils, just make sure you're using glass, you know, even with your water bottles, glass, ceramic of any kind.

And then, of course, stainless steel is a great is a very safe metal to use. So, if you are going to be adding them to a pan after you've made a sauce, you know, you don't have to worry about anything from the metal. So, stainless steel is a very safe metal to use as well. So, those are really, I would say, the biggest things to remember.

doTERRA: Absolutely. And I love those. And like you said, those little safety recommendations of making sure not to use plastic, checking the supplemental facts, those are so key when you're using such powerful compounds in your cooking.

Glee Hoonhout: They are. And the other thing is, is that, you know, the great thing about these oils is that because of their potency, we don't have to use a lot of oil. A few drops will go a long way.

And so, when you're using something like Oregano or even Cinnamon, those are considered to be hot oils. You can use, literally just put the toothpick into the bottle and get a little bit of the oil just on the toothpick and then swirl the toothpick in to say your sauce or your dressing or whatever it is that you're going to be using the oil in.

And that can go a long way. It really is a matter of just kind of just getting started. Just use a couple drops unless it's a hot oil, you want to use less and experiment. Have fun, right?

And everybody's taste is different, some people would like a little bit more, some people want less. But you'll figure it out as you're cooking.

doTERRA: Absolutely. Now, you mentioned Lemon in your water and how that was so amazing for you when you started out. What are some of your other favorite oils to keep on hand for cooking?

Glee’s Favorite Cooking Oils

Glee Hoonhout: Favorite oils? Obviously, I think this goes across the board. Citrus oils are phenomenal when it comes to using them in our food. So, I use my citrus oils in my water every day.

Green Mandarin is probably my favorite for water now. I hate to say that it's trumped Lemon, but it has. I love Lemon. Lemon is my favorite flavor when it comes to food, it really is. I love Lemon, but Green Mandarin just has, there is just this mysterious, wonderful thing that it does to our palate when we use it in food.

So, I love Green Mandarin. And not to mention that it's just a really beneficial oil to use internally. So, I use that every day in my water.

Of course, you know, the sky's the limit when it comes to citrus oils. So, you've got Grapefruit and Lime. I use Lime, Wild Orange and Lemon and Green Mandarin in my smoothies. I do just a drop or two of each.

And of course, I love the mint oils, so I have a little bit of a splurge brownie recipe and we use a drop of Peppermint in an entire batch. So, it goes a long way. But it just, oh, my gosh, the combination of chocolate and mint, right?

And then, of course, you know, herbs and spice oils. So, some of my favorites, I would have to say are I love Cilantro because I just love the flavor of Cilantro. So, of course, my Tex-Mex cooking or, you know, some of those other wonderful, delicious recipes, particularly for summer.

Cilantro is a great one. And when Cilantro is, not everybody knows this, but when Cilantro goes to seed, when it starts to flower. In other words, if you don't trim it back soon enough, it's going to flower and it's going to go to seed.

It's Coriander. Coriander is the seed. So, I love to use Coriander as well. They have very interesting complexities in their flavor. And so, I love using Coriander as well.

You know, Ginger, we use Ginger every day. We do a Lemon elixir kind of drink in the morning. And so that's with our Lemon oil and our Ginger oil. And Lemongrass is one of my favorites for Asian cooking as well.

So, we love to experiment and use these oils. And so many of them are great for different dishes. It's just a matter of what your personal preferences.

doTERRA: Absolutely. Now, quickly, before we end, I have to know, what are a few of your favorite summer recipes that use essential oils?

Glee’s Summer Recipes

Glee Hoonhout: I would say…listen, avocados are just prolific right now this time of year. Right? So, we love making fresh guacamole and we'll just take that avocado and just scoop that out and just mash it with a fork and add a little bit of chopped red onion and maybe some chopped fresh cilantro.

But this is the beauty of essential oils. If you don't have cilantro in the house, if you've got Cilantro essential oil, you're good to go. You don't have to worry about. And you also don't have to worry about using that fresh cilantro right away because it does start to brown after a few days. Right?

I love that I have these oils right on my kitchen counter. And I do, I have them on a tray. I have 42 oils that they're easy to get to. So, guacamole is one of our favorites.

We do smoothies frequently or fruit spritzers where we'll add a little bit of the citrus oils. I just went to a get together a few nights ago. I do a fruit salad and all I do is combine summer's delicious fruits.

So, watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, I avoid raspberries because they fall apart really easily, so I avoid those. But I'll put red grapes or green grapes and maybe some cantaloupe in there.

And then I put a combination of Green Mandarin, Wild Orange, Lemon, Lime, whatever is sitting around, right. And I toss probably about six to eight drops, have each into a big bowl, a big salad bowl of a fruit salad, and then I'll chop some fresh mint.

That's the one area where I would use the fresh mint as opposed to the oil because I would think it would be a little overpowering. But I love to just julienne, you know, just thinly slicing that fresh mint.

It just brings that nice, lovely green contrast to the salad and it's just absolutely delicious. People love it. I had people asking me, did you make the fruit salad where they come from? It's, literally it’s essential oils. They enhance the flavor of the fruit, which is wonderful. The flavors just bounce, bounce in your mouth when you're eating it.

Marinades, we do a lot of grilling during the summer months and we, actually we grill all year round, but we love using essential oils and some of our marinades and fresh salsa. We're going to have salmon tonight and I'm going to be I have a mango salsa and I'm going to add a little bit of Coriander or Cilantro to that one. Right?

And salad dressings. I have a go-to that I make, a fresh salad dressing with equal parts of white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and then I do a little bit of Dijon mustard, a crushed clove of garlic. And then I add, you know, a combination of citrus oils to our salad dressing. And that is what dresses our salad every evening. So, we love using essential oils.

Both my husband and I, we love to cook. I have a professional baking background. So, this is something that I do on a regular basis. And we just love adding the beautiful benefits of these oils to our dishes and to our food every night.

doTERRA: Well, all of those ideas and recipes sound incredible. I'm definitely going to have to try a few out.

Glee Hoonhout: Awesome. We'd love to hear that. I love it. The more we can promote this in terms of just using them our daily oils and even experimenting a little bit, wow. It's so great. I could talk forever about food in oils because it's really this is this is kind of where my heart is.

doTERRA: Well, we have loved talking to you about it. It's been incredible to hear all the different ways that you can incorporate these essential oils into your cooking, into your foods, into your water to make it a little bit more flavorful. It has been great to talk to you today, Glee.

Glee Hoonhout: Oh, thank you so much for having me, this has been so much fun.

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you want to try any of the products you learned about, click the link in the episode description or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.

And remember today’s episode was brought to you by the On Guard protective blend. A powerful blend of essential oils, On Guard provides a natural and effective alternative for immune support when used internally. Your body does a lot for you, so why not get your guard up?

Right now, as a podcast exclusive if you buy a bottle of On Guard and enter the promo code PODCAST at checkout, we’ll send you an exclusive audiobook, 100 Uses for Essential Oils. Check out the link in our episode description or visit doterra.com/podcastoffer to learn more. Open to US orders only.