Cooking with Culligan: The Impact of Water Quality on Your Favorite Thanksgiving Meals

Water is a fundamental ingredient in many of our favorite recipes, yet its quality often goes unnoticed in preparation. When preparing your cherished Thanksgiving dishes, the purity and taste of your water can have a profound impact on the final result. As holiday dinners approach, make sure quality water is at the top of your ingredient list with the help of Culligan Water of Topeka! Let’s dive into some of the most notable dishes and beverages on the dinner table and why high-quality water can make a difference in both preparation and the final dish. 

Why Does Quality Water Matter in Recipes?

Quality water matters when it comes to cooking and preparing holiday dinners and drinks. The quality of your water can change the cooking time and overall taste of your meals. Not to mention when you use untreated or contaminated water, you always run the risk of making you and your family sick.

Water is essential for cooking in many different ways. Not only do you use it to wash your hands and all produce but water also helps regulate temperature during cooking. Well-seasoned chefs can look at how the water behaves, whether it’s a slow boil or a rifling boil, to tell how hot the food is. Additionally, water helps extract flavors. Think of how much your coffee, tea, and soups rely on water to get the job done!

Unfiltered water can also negatively affect the texture of food. Tap water that isn’t free of harmful chemicals such as chlorine, lead or copper from pipes or faucets can affect how well food cooks and changes its appearance when cooked with them as well. The color-changing effects of poor water can make it harder for people who have low vision or other visual impairments to tell what color ingredients are supposed to be (such as raw chicken vs cooked chicken). This problem can leave people extremely sick from food that hasn’t be properly prepared.

How Does Water Affect My Favorite Dishes?

All of your favorite holiday dishes can be impacted by the water that comes out of your kitchen faucet. It may not always be obvious, so here are just a few examples of how water quality can affect your favorite foods.

• Steamed Vegetables: Cooking with wet heat, either by placing food in a hot liquid or exposing that food to steam is healthier but can also speed up the cooking process. When using steam to cook your vegetables, using quality water can change your finished product drastically. Using water that smells or tastes bad to steam or boil your vegetables can lead to food absorbing those unfavorable features. Additionally, hard water can create limescale in your water-using kitchen appliances (dishwasher, pressure cookers, etc.) that can cause real damage to your equipment.
• Sauces and Soups: When working over a pot or skillet to make the perfect sauce or soup, it’s not unlikely to have a cup of water next to your stove. When your recipes begins to thicken, water is always there to help you thin it out. Even on the other end, If the food becomes too watery, the surplus can often be evaporated by cooking it rapidly without a lid. This evaporation is also what creates what we call the reduction process in cooking, which can help leave behind a more concentrated flavor.
• Baked Goods: Whether you’re using a box mix or grandma’s old recipe, water can also play a major factor in many of your baked goods! When it comes to the art of baking bread, water is behind all the natural chemical reactions that happen during baking. Water also helps control the bread dough’s temperature and consistency.

Successful Sipping with Quality Water

Cooking, cleaning, and baking aren’t the only things that quality water can assist with in the kitchen. With all that delicious food, you’re going to need a beverage or two to wash it down. Think of all the drinks that rely heavily on water to make a final product. Lemonade, hot cocoa, Kool-aid, coffee, and tea, all wouldn’t exist without the help of water. All of these drinks require water as a base, meaning the quality, taste, and smell of the water used can make a big difference. In making hot drinks, heat can make some contaminants like chlorine more pronounced in the flavor profile. Ridding your water of hardness, chlorine, metals, calcium, and more, can leave your water tasteless, allowing the flavors of your beverage mixes and ingredients to come alive. 

 

Upgrade Your Holiday Dinner with Quality Water from Culligan

With Culligan Water of Topeka’s water filtration solutions, not only will you ensure the health and safety of your holiday feast, but you’ll also amplify the taste, texture, and overall enjoyment of your traditional holiday offerings! Reverse osmosis systems, water delivery, and whole home systems can all provide your home with quality water for cooking, baking, and just about everything else. 

A reverse osmosis system is a great choice for providing clean drinking water from your kitchen tap. These systems oftentimes require very little maintenance with their long-lasting filter life. With compact designs, Culligan Water offers RO systems that can fit in your kitchen cabinet below your sinks, saving you much-needed counter space.  

For homes requiring quality water throughout the whole floor plan, a whole home water system can remove most contaminants from all the faucets throughout your home rather than just one or two locations at a time. Never take a shower or cook with hard water ever again!

For renters, smaller homes, and businesses, water delivery from Culligan Water is the optimal choice. Adding your location to one of our delivery routes can save you time and effort at the grocery store. Not to mention keeping you indoors with quality water when the weather gets bad!

Culligan Water of Topeka is an expert at providing affordable solutions to quality water that can make a difference in every meal you make. Contact us today to find out how your Thanksgiving meal can be elevated with the help of quality water!