Nothing makes you feel better on a cold winter night more than a soothing cup of tea, but about those hot summer days? Not a lot of people are fans of warm beverages when the temperatures are rising, yet most of them don’t realize how much they can do with just a couple of tea leaves in their kitchen. Cooking with tea isn’t that common in some parts of the world, but it’s quite usual in others, so you might want to think outside the box for a change and consider incorporated leaves into your cooking. Here are a couple of ideas you should try and how to get the best results every single time.

Why is tea an important cooking ingredient?

Everyone knows that tea is comforting and pleasant, but it’s even better when prepared with care – after all, handling those delicate tea leaves properly can sometimes be quite tricky. However, if you manage to approach them with the utmost precision and take what’s the best in them, you’ll certainly get extraordinary results. The reason for this are the natural benefits of tea and all the ways it enhances your health. It’s full of antioxidants and positively affects your immune, cardiovascular and digestive systems, and helps you control your stress and anxiety level.

There are lots of flavors that tea leaves introduce into your life – from woodsy and fruity, to astringent and sweet – and bringing some of these into your kitchen will significantly elevate your cooking skills and turn you into a master chef. Tea leaves will add a new layer to your meals and make them exotic, exciting, soothing and unusual at the same time. But, how can you incorporate tea into your menu and what are some of the combinations you might want to explore? Here are two great recipes you could try today.

Tea and pasta

Pasta is the ultimate comfort food and no matter how tired after a long day at the office you are, preparing it is an easy and quite straight-forward process. However, if you add just a small dose of tea leaves into the mix, your dish will become something entirely different and much more exciting than it used to be. Traditional pasta dough is usually based on a recipe passed on from one generation to the next and not everyone likes changing it, yet adding some green tea to it results in a nice pale green color, a new texture, and flavor.

This way, your pasta will attract the attention of your guests in a matter of seconds and help your noodle soup or spaghetti Bolognese become the talk of the neighborhood. Of course, you can easily find these kinds of pasta in a supermarket, but preparing it on your own is a much better idea.

Tea cookies

Whenever you’re down, eating a batch of freshly-baked cookies will instantly make you feel much better. However, while dipping your cookies in tea is great, not everyone likes the idea of preparing cookies with tea leaves. Luckily, this idea will make you want to eat the entire batch on your own and will surely satisfy the needs of everyone with a sweet tooth for cookies. And with such a simple and fast idea, you’re going to want to bake these cookies every single week.

The idea is quite simple – grind black tea into powder using a spice grinder, incorporate it into your favorite cookie dough and you’re good to go! And even if you’re not the world’s biggest fan of black tea, don’t worry, because you’ll only need a couple of tablespoons to get that amazing oriental flavor. Nevertheless, since black tea is quite dark and sometimes hard to wash away from your tea cups, the same might easily happen to your spice grinder too, so be sure to use a reliable and powerful dishwasher to wash all the fine powder away.

Other ideas

Some of the other ways to incorporate tea leaves into your cooking include tea-based cocktails, juices, soups and cakes, as well as chicken and smoked beef ribs seasoned with tea. As soon as you find out more about the perks of cooking with tea, you’re going to make them an essential part of your cooking ritual in no time.