A nutritionist and cookbook author shares the 4 flavor boosters she uses to make healthy dishes shine

• Healthy food should be tasty as well as nutritious.
• Registered nutritionist Sophie Gastman believes enjoying your food is the gateway to a healthy diet.
• She uses lots of pickles, spices, and oils to add flavor to her dishes in seconds.

Her two most-used herbs are cilantro and parsley. “I add them to everything from curries to salads,” she said. She also loves Thai basil in a stir-fry or noodle dish as it adds a really fragrant, almost licorice-like flavor.

She also uses spices to zhuzh up a dish in seconds. She “constantly” uses cumin in curries and on roasted vegetables for an earthy, warm flavor.

She thinks smoked paprika is brilliant for adding depth and a smoky flavor to traybakes, beans, stews, or roasted potatoes. And cinnamon is more versatile than people think, she said, “I use it in porridge and baking, but also in savory dishes like tagines, chilis, and slow-cooked stews.”

Anchovies

Anchovies, the salty, tiny preserved kind, put a lot of people off because they associate them with a strong fishy flavor, Gastman said, but when cooked, “the flavor melts into the background, leaving your dish with a new level of depth and umami that tastes like it’s been cooked for hours.”

Gastman uses them mainly in pasta sauces and salad dressings, and thinks people are sleeping on them.