Do sweat the small stuff

Oftentimes, it’s the pinches, teaspoons, and dashes of ingredients that matter most in recipes: the salt to bring out the sweetness in cookies, the acid to provide contrast to a sauce, or the tamari to add umami to a stir-fry. If you’re going to swap one of the seasonings, it may impact the final result. Though counterintuitive, it’s usually less risky to swap out major ingredients (see the next tip for more on that) than it is to mess with the small stuff.