Episode 79: Fun Summer Recipes with Essential Oils

doTERRA: You've probably tried using essential oils in a few different ways: topically, aromatically. You may have even tried them internally. But have you ever used essential oils in your cooking? It may sound intimidating at first, but we're here to show you just how easy it can be.

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA, the podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful, and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. If you like what you hear today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. We always appreciate hearing from you.

Today, we're excited to talk to Kati Falzone about using essential oils in your cooking, as well as a few of her favorite recipes

Kati, thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us today.

Kati Falzone: Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

doTERRA: So a big question that gets asked a lot in the essential oil world is: Can I use essential oils in cooking?

Kati: Yes! Absolutely you can, and it's one of my favorite ways to use them. Many people don't realize that so many of the doTERRA essential oils are safe to ingest, but they are. And they are great replacements for many of our typical herbs and spices that we use in cooking. And this is especially convenient for me when I'm out of fresh or dried herbs, which is often.

So for example, just a couple of ways we like to use ours. We love to add things like Oregano oil and Basil oil to our spaghetti sauce. We get the added health benefits of ingesting the oils, and we're really boosting the flavor.

Another example of a way we love to use them in a recipe we use often is our egg roll bowls. We love to replace fresh ginger. We love to replace it with our Ginger essential oil because I never seem to have ginger in the house. And this turns out beautifully.

doTERRA: I love all of those suggestions, and you're so right. We always seem to be out of the exact herb or whatever we might need for a recipe. So it's so convenient to have these essential oils on hand as a backup or as our primary source for these recipes.

Kati: Absolutely.

doTERRA: What are the biggest things that we need to remember when we're cooking with essential oils?

Safety and Purity

Kati: That's a great question. I think there's really two major points that I consider when I'm cooking. First is really about safety. We want to ensure that the oil we're using is actually safe for internal use. So we only want to cook with the oils that have a Supplement Facts label on the bottle. And doTERRA does a beautiful job of putting these supplement back labels on every bottle that's safe to ingest. Oils without a Supplement Facts label are really better suited for aromatic or topical use.

Because of the intense level of testing that doTERRA does, I know that there are no fillers, contaminants, pesticides, etc. in my oils. I would never use oils from a big box store in my food for this reason.

Start Small

The second tip I have is a little bit goes a long way. So I think we already know that essential oils are incredibly potent. It's been said that they are more potent than traditional herbs and spices, which means that you may use a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in a recipe, but you would never use a teaspoon of Cinnamon essential oil in a recipe. So if you're unsure how much you should use, it's best to just start small and work your way up.

So you could start by up to the dipping a toothpick into the bottle and then swirling it around into your recipe until you get that flavor that you desire. The citrus oils tend to be lighter. You may want more of those. But some of the stronger herbs and spices—such as Oregano, Thyme, and Cinnamon—can be very powerful, even with just one toothpick dip. So those are the two things that I think about that I always want to remember when I'm cooking with essential oils.

doTERRA: That's excellent advice. I know it can be a little intimidating to try and substitute essential oils if you don't exactly know the conversion but starting small I think is key.

Kati: Yes.

doTERRA: So Kati, to wrap us up today, can you share some of your favorite summer recipes that use essential oils?

Kati: Absolutely! I have two categories here: drinks and food. And I'll just break a couple down.

Citrus Sparkling Water

The first is really simple, and I think this is where a lot of us get started with using oils internally. I gave up soda years ago, but I really, really love the carbonation and bubbles that come with soda. But I don't want the, you know, the added sugars and things like that. So now I have sort of a daily practice of adding my citrus oils to sparkling water. And I'm sort of on a quest to find the most bubbly out there. And I think I found—Topo Chico is incredibly bubbly and SanPellegrino is another favorite. But I love to add Lime; it's my favorite. But also, Wild Orange, Grapefruit, those are great as well.

Fruit and Veggie Smoothie

Another drink that we use often, I have two small children, and a great way for me to get fruits and veggies into their diet is with smoothies. So these are perfect in the summer because they're nice and cold, and we can fill them with all sorts of fruits and veggies. I love to throw in a handful of spinach, a little bit of—you know—almond milk or oat milk, maybe some nut butter. And then add some citrus oils like Wild Orange or Grapefruit, again, Lime. And then another bonus that I love is to add in a teaspoon of doTERRA’s children's omega supplement. This is a great way to get a little bit of those healthy omegas into their diet as well.

And then if we have any leftovers, I love to throw it in one of those plastic popsicle molds. And we can pop those right in the freezer, and then we have leftover smoothie pops for later for the perfect summer treat.

Lemonade

Another thing you can do with drinks is a lemonade bar. So we love lemonade in our family, but it's great to sort of amp it up. You can take your normal lemonade and add some different oils to amp up the flavor. For example, you can add in a toothpick swirl of Lavender or Ginger or maybe even a couple of drops of Lime and then throw in some fresh frozen berries or some citrus wedges to make it kind of fun and exciting.

Iced Coffee

The last drink I had in mind was iced coffee. So I'm a coffee drinker. I love coffee in the morning. And in the summer months, it's a little hot, so you could do an iced coffee. And I love to add a drop of Peppermint oil and some cacao powder to get sort of a peppermint mocha flavor in my coffee.

If you love fall flavors, which a lot of us do, we love the pumpkin spice and things like that—adding in some Cinnamon oil gives it a whole new flavor as well. And the bonus tip here is to get an inexpensive sort of handheld frother that you can blend all these flavors together. And it just adds a whole new level of deliciousness.

And then if you want a little sweet, you could add maybe a little organic stevia or something like that. I typically just do mine unsweetened, but you can definitely make it sweeter with that. So those are the drink things that came to mind.

Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

Some of my favorite foods—I really love to make my own salad dressing at home, particularly the vinaigrettes. So I have a go-to recipe that's about three parts of either olive or avocado oil, two parts of balsamic red wine or white wine vinegar—whichever you have on hand—and then one part like Dijon mustard. But you can add in to amp up that flavor, add in some Lemon, add in some Wild Orange. This is especially delicious over like a spinach salad with some fresh strawberries and some toasted pecans. It's a great summer salad.

Roasted Potatoes and Vegetables

Another recipe I love, I have to say if I had to live on one food for the rest of my life, it would probably be potatoes. I love them any way, but especially roasted. So just this weekend I made these, a roasted potato with a Lemon and Rosemary oil—sort of tossed them in some olive oil with Lemon and Rosemary, added sort of tossed the veggies in that mixture. And then roast them in the oven until they're brown, and these are just delicious. If you've ever done fresh rosemary on your potatoes, you know how good those flavors are combined. So that's one of my favorites. And those can really be eaten warm or cold.

Chicken Salad

And then I think lastly—if you if you couldn't tell from my accent—I live in the southeast United States in Georgia. And I don't know about the rest of the country or the world, but we really love chicken salad around here and all the different flavors and varieties of chicken salad. It's one of my favorite foods. But when I make my own, I love to add—you know—all sorts of different things to it, like sliced grapes, toasted pecans, chopped celery. But I've discovered there's quite a few oils you can add to chicken salad to make it so delicious.

So I'd love to take my mayonnaise, I usually use like an avocado oil-based mayonnaise, and I'll add in a couple of drops of Celery Seed oil, Black Pepper, Lemon, and—one of my favorites that I really hope doTERRA brings back—Dill. It was a special a few years ago, and I seem to hoard it just for this purpose so I can make my chicken salads. But those four really just give this chicken salad a whole new level of flavor.

And then if you like different varieties, like we do here, you can do like a buffalo chicken style chicken salad. So you can swap out some of that mayo for a buffalo sauce. And then, again, use that Dill and that Lemon and that Black Pepper in there as well. And it's so delicious served with like celery and carrot sticks, just like you would eat maybe your buffalo wings.

So those are my favorite recipes, drinks and food, that we love to use our oils with.

doTERRA: And those all sounds so delicious. I know I am getting hungry just sitting here listening to that.

Kati, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your tips, your tricks, and—of course—your incredible recipes.

Kati: Awesome! You're so welcome. Thank you so much for having me. This is a blast.

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Also, if you want to try any of the products you learned about, go to doterra.com or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.