1. Get Inspired

When it comes to cooking, engaging in the same, mundane, routine practices every day will take a toll on your creativity. Wander around and gaze upon beautiful scenery, try out some new foods, listen to different types of music, and see if it motivates you to create something inventive!

You never know, the imagery, colors, words, feelings, and sounds could provide just the spark needed to boost your originality. However, if these experiences don’t inspire you to create, we’ve heard of a great game to stimulate your cooking creativity called ‘Movie Munchies.’

This is how you play:

1. Pick a random alphabetical letter.
2. Think of a main cooking ingredient that starts with that letter.
3. Pick a random movie.
4. Use your movie as inspiration to create a dish using your main ingredient.

For example, we used an online random letter generator to decide a letter and got D. From there, we decided to use Duck as our main ingredient. We then used an online random movie generator to give us some movies to choose from and chose Spirited Away.

The movie is set in Japan and has a wide range of Asian influences. We used this as a deciding factor for the food style we would create. From there, we decided to make Japanese Yakitori-Styled Roasted Duck Breasts.

Here we can see that inspiration doesn’t have to just come from one place, there are endless ways to help inspire your creativity!

 

2. Switch It Up

Another sure-fire way to boost creativity in the kitchen is to mix up your normal recipes! Usually, we’re fixated on following our normal food routine – the same recipes, the same instructions, the same ingredients…what could we make if we switched it up a little?

We tend to create meals in the same categories that society has deemed acceptable. For example, we consider doughnuts, cheesecake, and fruits as ingredients for sweet dishes, while sushi, pizza, and fries are put into the savory category. Well, we’re here to show you – that doesn’t have to be the case!

There are tons of sweet recipes that can be transformed into savory dishes, and vice versa. Here are some examples below:

Sweet

• Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Fries
• Frozen Ice Cream Dessert Pizza
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Sushi

Savory

• Potato Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Cheeseburger Mini Muffins
• Candied Maple Bacon Sundae

To see more switched up recipes, click here!

3. Mash It Up

We couldn’t tell you new ways of inspiring creativity without showing you that – just like music – mashups are more than welcome in the kitchen. They’re necessary! Combining new ideas to create innovative recipes makes a better chef, a better meal, and happy taste buds.

Now, we know what you’re thinking. It’s easier said than done, right? It’s no sweat. If you can’t think of two recipes that’ll mesh well together, pick up a few recipe books!

Here’s how to do it:

1. Pick two random recipes from two different recipe books.
2. Think of creative ways to combine the two recipes.

You may be wondering how this may work for two items on very extreme scales. However, it doesn’t matter how similar or dissimilar the recipes are. The goal is to find an innovative way to combine the style of cooking, the recipe ingredients, or both.

Here are some examples of Mashup Recipes:

• Cheeseburger Pasta
• Meatloaf Spaghetti
• Pina Colada Snack Mix
• Strawberry Cheesecake Pops
• Beignet Ice Cream Sandwiches
• Ahi Tuna Poke Pizza
• Caramel Apple Dessert Tacos
• Grilled Cheeseburger Nachos

To see more mashup recipes, click here!

4. Bring the Extreme

What’s more mediocre than staying in the safe? Luckily, for you, we’ve got an idea to help you boost your cooking creativity – break the scale! Take your cooking inspirations past its limits to see what you create. You can go super small, insanely big, or downright extreme!

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you go hard or…go home!

Small

Make the most of limited ingredients and get super creative by making teeny-tiny snacks! Try to see how small you can go without the recipe being a fail. Take a look at some of these mini recipes below:

• Snickerdoodle Ice Cream Sandwich Minis
• Broccoli & Chive-Stuffed Mini Peppers
• Mini Lemon Cheesecake Tarts
• Mini Shepherd Pies

See more teeny tiny recipes here!

Big

Why waste time wishing your food was bigger when you could make the most of your time to do it yourself? Sneak a peek at some ginormous recipes below:

• Instant Pot Giant Pancake
• Giant Grilled Cheese
• Giant Oreo Cake
• Giant Party Sub

Check out more recipes big enough to feed a huge crowd or a tiny giant here!

Extreme

Extreme gusto! Extreme flavor! Extreme recipes! There’s no way we can tell you to break the scale without (quite literally) going beyond extremes! Try to break each category from the cheesiest to the spiciest, to the most chocolatey! The kitchen is your playground, might as well play ‘til the dough rolls off!

Living to eat encapsulates your entire environment. It means gaining inspiration from every person, place, or thing around you…and stimulating you to create something appetizing. Now that we’ve shown you how to be more creative in the kitchen, go make something great!

Keep up with our Live to Eat Campaign! Check out our blog on 10 different cultural cuisines you have to try!