Substitutions and safe products
Cooking without onions and garlic is, as I’m sure you’ve already learned or guessed, difficult. Onions and garlic also make it difficult to find broths and stocks. Everyone has their own preferences for their substitutes – these are the ones I found I must have in the kitchen.
I’ve made some extra notes about sauces and spice mixes that make quick meals a lot easier. Because there are some nights you do not have time or feel like making things from scratch.
I want to note that garlic and onion substitutes are a MUST, but one other product I use quite a bit and I think is well worth the buy is taco sauce.
Garlic & onion substitutes
- Garlic infused olive oil such as Texana, Fody or Colvita.
- Onion and Shallot infused olive oils such as Texana or Fody
- FreeFOD Garlic Replacer and Onion Replacer
- Smoke N Sanity Essence of Garlic Salt and Essence of Onion Salt
- Gourmend Garlic Chive Powder, Garlic Scrapes Powder and Green Onion Powder
For the oils, garlic olive oil is an absolute must in the kitchen, and I prefer having both the shallot and onion olive oils on hand.
For the onion and garlic replacers, Freefod and Smoke N Sanity products are similar and you can stock one brand and do not necessarily need to keep both in your pantry. Whatever brand you go with, I suggest you get a garlic replacer and an onion replacer.
Broths & Concentrates
- Savory Choice Chicken and Beef broth concentrates
- Massel 7’s Stock Cubes (Vegetable, Chicken and Beef)
- Gourmend Chicken and Beef Broths
Spice Mixes
Spice mixes are such a savior for a quick weeknight dinner. These are also helpful for the recipes you’ve been ignoring that call for taco, Italian, Cajun, and steak seasoning.
My favorites are Fody’s Taco and Lemon Herb and Smoke N Sanity’s Taco, Cajun and Italian.
I have not tried Foddies yet, but they have good reviews on Amazon!
Sauces, Dressings, Salsas & More
Fody Foods has sauces/marinades, BBQ sauces, salsas, ketchup, salad dressings, and pasta sauces.
Smoke N Sanity recently released salsas, BBQ sauce and ketchup. To date I’ve only tried the mild salsa and my boyfriend and I loved the taste. I will say it had more kick than I expected from a mild salsa (he loves spicy and said he did not notice).
I use Fody sauces, marinades and the salsa verde a lot. They are a weeknight go-to if I did not plan dinner. They also are a good way to add some flavor to a dressing for a salad or a grain bowl. The salsa verde (plus some spices) makes an easy Mexican shredded chicken in the slow cooker that can be used for tacos. My favorite Fody products are the Taco Sauce, Enchilada Sauce, Salsa Verde and Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce.
Snacks
Not related to cooking – I just have some snacks that I love.
To date I have tried three brands of low-Fodmap bars and two brands are breakfast every weekday morning: Fody and GoMacro.
The third was BelliWelli and I tried three different flavors and they were not good. Boyfriend seconded. We could barely finish them… but we did because they were expensive and I hate wasting money.
I see on their website all the reviews are great (which is why I purchased) but I suspect not all reviews are posted because my reviews were not posted. (Looking back, all products being 5 out of 5 stars does seem odd.) I emailed the company because not posting negative reviews is poor form, but the company never replied. If you want honest reviews go to Amazon or ThingTesting so you get a better idea of whether or not you’d like the product and if you want to purchase anything.