Butter is awesome, lets face the facts it makes everything smell and taste wonderful. It melts evenly, it’s easy to use, and 90% of your recipes that you use call for it (even in the smallest servings). Unfortunately, butter also mean raising your cholesterol. Here are a few alternatives for healthier options that can offer a blast of flavor without throwing away your health.

Stock: Stock is made primarily of water, meat, and vegetables, so you don’t have to worry to much about calculating those extra calories into your dish that you are making. You can simply add one to two tablespoons of stock to your pan right before adding your first ingredients (remember that stock will vaporize quickly). If you are not a fan of the meat stock, go ahead and use vegetable stock for some meatless flavors.

Vinegar: It’s not just for your salad. Adding vinegar to your cooking will help improve the quality of your meal not matter what you decided to make. What do I mean? Well if you add a little to your eggs it will keep the whites from losing form, especially when poaching. I would recommend the following for cooking, Rice, white, red, distilled white, and my wife’s favorite apple cider.

Broth: You can throw in a cube or a teaspoon into your pan and you’ve already started to season your amazing dish that you are about to make. This is typically a better alternative to chicken or vegetable broth, because you do not have to use as much to get that blast of flavor.

Wine: We all love having a glass while we cook or even eat our meals, instead of drinking it throw a small amount into your pan for some flavor. You can now bring out some rich and robust flavors from your meats, sauces, and even desserts. When cooking with wine never raise the temperature too high. Allow it to simmer just before adding your ingredients in. Just remember your pairing of the wines when using them to cook: White goes with fish and poultry, while red goes with red meat.