Cooking with Essential Oils

When cooking at home, many favorite recipes can contain essential ingredients — you know, those items that make or break a recipe with either their addition or subtraction.

Chef Greg Prososki faces the same issue as he prepares menu items for 500 to 600 people daily, except his indispensable ingredients are more often than not a variety of essential oils.

That’s because Prososki is the corporate chef at Cafe TERRA, the in-house restaurant at doTERRA’s global headquarters in Pleasant Grove.

“A lot of people ask me about recipes with oils,” Prososki said during a recent visit to Cafe TERRA. “I always ask, ‘What is your favorite recipe?’ Then you can add an appropriate oil (to that).”

Cafe TERRA serves breakfast and lunch five days a week — and as one might imagine, the smoothies, in all their varieties, are a favorite option.

“We go through 800 pounds of ice for a single day,” Prososki said.

Prososki offered a few tips. First take note of the concentrated nature of the oils — and the overall strength of the oil flavor itself.

“There can be a few drawbacks because of concentrations,” he said, especially when it comes to oils like oregano and cilantro. A few extra drops of lemon, for example, likely would not alter a recipe drastically. Too much oregano, however, would be a much different quandary.

Prososki, for example, cited one example where an employee added too much oregano to a smaller sauce recipe. They ended up having to turn it into a 10-gallon batch to get the oregano balance correct.

When adding stronger oils to smaller recipes, Prososki advised dipping a toothpick in the oil bottle first and then swirling the pick around in the recipe mixture. That will help prevent the oil from overpowering everything else.

The No. 1 favorite menu item at Cafe Terra? That would be the Teriyaki Chicken. Another favorite is Thai Basil Chicken.

“This morning we cooked 40 pounds of chicken just for one day,” Prososki said.

This brings up another preparation tip. When it comes to adding essential oil to a recipe, later is better.

“When cooking, you want to add it absolutely last,” Prososki said. “So that it’s in (the mixture) the least amount of time, so it has the most flavor.”

Those ready to begin experimenting at home with essential oils can do so in several different ways. First, there are general recipes online. Second, you can check out doTERRA-specific recipes at https://www.doterra.com/US/en/blog/recipes.

If you want to get a personal taste test before going your own route, then you might consider stopping by Cafe TERRA. It may primarily serve employees of the company, but it is also open to the public. The restaurant has been such a popular addition to the company’s headquarters, that it was also scheduled to undergo an expansion facelift this fall.

Contact Wellness Advocate Amy Snyder for more information at a_lynns2979@yahoo.com