One of the compounds that researchers are studying for its anti-aging effects is quercetin. It’s an anti-inflammatory compound that is found in a variety of fruits and vegetables. According to lifespan.io, the vegetable that contains the most quercetin is capers. These are plant buds that are stored in brine and used in a lot of Italian and Mediterranean dishes. So if you’d like to eat a meal that could help you live a longer and healthier life, you might want to pick an entree or side dish that uses this ingredient. Here are a few recipes that include capers.
Salad Dressing With Capers
Some salad dressing recipes use anchovies, a type of small fish, as an ingredient. This gives the dressing a salty seafood flavor. But this recipe uses capers to replace anchovies. While the reason for this ingredient substitution is to make the salad dressing vegetarian for diners who don’t eat fish, it could also be good for your health. By adding capers to this recipe, you’re also adding quercetin to it. Of course, many people may also want to know how to add a salty, fishy flavor to a vegan salad and using capers is also a way to do that. Capers aren’t a dairy product either, they’re plant buds so they’re vegan by themselves.
Angel Hair Pasta Salad
You can also use capers in a pasta salad. This recipe uses capellini, which is a type of thin pasta noodle that’s very similar to angel hair pasta noodles. So if you don’t see capellini at your local grocery store you can just use angel hair pasta noodles to make this salad instead. Anyway, capers are also used as an ingredient in this dish along with other herbs like garlic. And while the capers are there to add a pungent flavor to the pasta salad, once again they contain quercetin that provides other benefits.
Capers as a Pizza Topping
Another way to add capers to a meal is by using them as a pizza topping. One way to do that is by making a pizza with capers and mushrooms. If you’re making pizza with capers, you can use them as a replacement for olives because olives also have a salty, briny flavor. I haven’t seen many pizzerias that offer capers as a topping but if you’re making a pizza at home you can switch out these ingredients. Anchovies are also a common pizza topping so you could also replace them with capers as well.
Pizza With Capers And Anchovies
Many pizza makers also like to use anchovies and capers together because they like the combination of flavors. There are several recipes for pizza with anchovies and capers and some of these recipes also include olives. So you don’t have to use capers as a substitute for another ingredient and you can combine them with another ingredient that has a salty, briny flavor such as anchovies or olives as well. This is another way to add quercetin to your meal. Again, though, I usually do not see capers on the menu at restaurants so it’s likely that you’ll need to prepare your own pizza if you’re using this ingredient.
Spaghetti and Capers
There are many other pasta dishes you can make with capers, including spaghetti. By combining capers with spaghetti, you can add a salty taste that’s similar to the effect you’d get by adding olives or anchovies. Of course, you could add these ingredients to your spaghetti along with the capers as well. Spaghetti’s easy to prepare and easy to find at grocery stores so this might also be one of the most convenient meals to make with capers. There’s no need to use an exotic type of pasta noodles to prepare your meal if the main reason why you’re making it is to obtain the health benefits of capers.
Remoulade Sauce
A popular French and Cajun sauce, remoulade sauce uses capers as an ingredient along with mayonnaise and mustard. Adding capers to the sauce gives it a unique flavor in comparison with other sauces that use these ingredients. You can also add more Cajun spices to make the sauce more flavorful. As you might expect, this is a popular dipping sauce for seafood in states like Louisiana and it would go well with another seafood entree like lobsters, crayfish, or shrimp. Many of the recipes that use capers as a flavoring are seafood recipes.
Cauliflower Steaks
It’s also possible to add capers to the vegan versions of steak and seafood recipes. For example, vegans can prepare cauliflower steaks with capers. I’d say this is a good idea because cauliflower doesn’t have a strong flavor by itself so vegans are probably using it as a replacement for steak because of its texture. That does make it relatively easy to change the flavor of the cauliflower steaks, though, and using capers is one way to do that. This also seems like it could serve as a plant-based seafood dish.
Salmon With Caper Butter
While you can roast meat or vegetables with capers, it’s also possible to roast them separately and then use capers as an ingredient for your sauce. This salmon recipe uses caper butter to season the salmon. So while salmon with caper butter could be considered a seafood recipe, you could also use the caper butter as a sauce for fried or grilled fish as well as vegetables like cauliflower or mushrooms. Once again, this is another way to add quercetin to your meals.
Tomato Caper Pasta
This recipe uses an uncommon ingredient, Italian parsley, but you can substitute it with other herbs. But once again this is another recipe that shows that you can make a relatively simple and easy to prepare spaghetti dish with capers and a few other ingredients such as tomatoes. If you’re making a meal with capers because your main goal is adding quercetin to your diet, adding capers to a spaghetti recipe is one of the simplest ways to do that.
Pizza With Artichokes and Capers
Here’s another pizza recipe that shows that you can combine multiple toppings with capers to customize the taste of your pizza. This recipe also includes onions, which I like to add to pizzas as well. Onions are also one of the vegetables that contain quercetin, although capers contain much more of it. So if you’re looking for recipes that will add this compound to your diet you should also consider that capers aren’t the only way to do that.
Smoked Salmon Bagels
Many people also like to add toppings to their bagels. While salmon and cream cheese are popular bagel toppings, you can also add capers to your bagel, and this recipe uses all three of these ingredients. This is another simple recipe because it doesn’t take a lot of effort to add toppings to a bagel sandwich and you can also select a bagel made with the type of bread you prefer. You can also add other vegetables that contain quercetin as bagel toppings and some types of bagels may even have these ingredients baked into the bread already. I have had onion bagels before.
Caper Bread
You can also make your own caper bagels or caper bread to add more quercetin to your diet. Here’s a caper bread recipe that also includes olives. Again, while it’s possible to use capers as a substitute for olives you may want to add both ingredients to a meal as well. And while you can serve caper bread as a side dish or an appetizer, you could also serve a larger portion of it and make it a meal. I have had bread for meals before because it’s filling if you eat a lot of it.