Alex Guarnaschelli Reveals How to Grocery Shop and Cook Like a Pro

Chef Alex Guarnaschelli is a wiz in the kitchen and, fortunately for us, she’s willing to share some foundational tips about picking out produce, investing in quality grocery-store goods and more. According to the Supermarket Stakeout host, prepping quality food comes down to understanding your ingredients, stretching your budget and creating a pantry that works with your schedule and needs. With these 14 Alex-approved tips, your meals will start tasting professionally made.

"Like people, you've got some bad apples," Alex tells Food Network. To find the best-tasting apples, she recommends: "Give the apple a little squeeze. Don't mangle the apple … [just] give a little squeeze. You want a firm texture, no soft spots. You can almost feel if an apple is mealy." Alex also touts the benefits of understanding apple varieties. Her breakdown:

• Classic Granny Smith apples are ideal for cooking and snacking.
• Fuji and Gala apples are best raw.
• Red Delicious apples are great for snacking, as well as infusing desserts with classic Americana flavor.

According to Alex, red onions are best eaten raw — in salads or on sandwiches. They also taste great because “they’re milder and sweeter." Conversely, yellow onions "have a deep sweetness and richness," and are therefore delicious in slow-cooked recipes and braises. White onions are delicate, which makes them ideal for onion-forward dishes like onion rings or chili dogs. And there's one onion, Alex says, that can be enjoyed in any form (as is or cooked): Vidalias — sweet, mild yellow onions grown in Vidalia, Georgia.

“I think [tomatoes] are the best end of August, through September and into October,” says Alex. To find the perfect tomato from the produce section, she has a foolproof process. 1) Touch them, but be gentle! “There’s water in them, so you’ve got to be careful,” warns Alex. 2) Go for the heavy ones: "The heavier it is in your hand, the juicier it is inside.” Don’t be afraid to buy the big ones, but choose the tomatoes with the least blemishes and avoid soft spots. 3) Experiment: Different colors have different flavors. Transitioning colors mean different levels of ripeness and varying flavors, explains Alex. “I’ve discovered I’m never going to know all the [tomato varieties]." She recommends trying different ones to see what you like. "A very pale yellow one called the Great White tastes like melons and cucumber," says Alex. 4) Don’t judge a tomato by how it looks: “Some of the sexiest tomatoes come in these organic forms … when they say buy some ugly vegetables … I think that big-time applies for these fruits,” says Alex.

We're well acquainted with romaine and bibb lettuce, but there's a handful of other leafy greens worth working into your diet. If you're putting together a salad with protein, Alex recommends using peppery, slightly bitter greens like frisée, arugula or kale. Conversely, bitter greens — think: chicory, endive and radicchio — are delicious cut and grilled, or even oven-roasted. “[Bitter greens] can be served as side dishes," says Alex. "They’re [also] great on salads with blue cheese and roasted nuts."

One of Alex’s top tips for stretching a grocery budget? Don’t impulse shop in the grocery department. More specifically, she says that if you buy it, use it — don’t let anything go to waste. “You spend a lot of money on produce, and if it sits in your little crisper drawer at home for two weeks, that’s money you lose," she points out. "If you impulse shop in the produce department, you can really lose that money because those things go bad.”

Though Alex touts using all of the produce you buy, she also admits "your plans or your life shift" — which is why keeping some essential shelf-stable goods on hand is key. “If you can get more meals out of what you have at home, that means you’re also saving money,” she says. Alex’s must-have pantry goods include capers, whole olives, olive oil, pickles, mustard, rice vinegar, polenta, canned chickpeas, canned salmon, prunes, medjool dates and vanilla extract.

“If you spend a little extra money on something like a good bottle of olive oil or a good bottle of vanilla, those are things that are going to serve you time and time again,” says Alex. “It’s expensive, but it increases the quality of what you’re eating over a long period of time.”

The way Alex sees it, capers can instantly enrich a sauce thanks to their super-salty flavor profile. “I also love to fry capers and use them as a crunchy little ingredient,” she says.

Looking to replace bread and grains with more greens? Romaine is nature's taco shell, Alex says. "You can fill it with stuff and use it for lettuce cups," she says.

… and when to toss them aside. According to Alex, herbs fall into two categories. 1) Firm and sturdy — like rosemary, sage and thyme. 2) Fragile with a higher water content — like basil, mint and cilantro. Firm herbs are best used without stems. Fragile herbs should be used whole — stem and all. When it comes to firm herbs, harvesting flavor is key. "For rosemary, I either fry it a little bit and stem it to just have those little rosemary needles or take the rosemary sprig and stir something with it for a few minutes and discard it, because the stems of the rosemary are very medicinal," says Alex. As for sage, "It can be aggressive, so I put a little bit of oil in a pan, warm it and fry it until [the leaves] are crispy — and I salt them. The stems? … They are not your friend." Thyme is hard to stem, but, of course, Alex has a trick: "For me, warming thyme in a little oil and letting it crisp [does the trick]. The leaves flake right off the stems," she says.

Fresh firmer, sturdier herbs, like rosemary, sage and thyme, hold up well for a week or more in the fridge — often in the package they’re purchased in. Herbs with higher water content, like basil, mint, parsley and cilantro, need to be carefully stored. “I put [soft herbs] in a container with a lid and an egg inside,” Alex reveals. “The egg, because it's a selectively porous membrane … it will absorb the excess moisture of these more watery herbs, and they will keep longer." Alternatively, keep the stems wrapped in a damp towel or store them upright in individual containers partially filled with water and keep them in the fridge.

Have a hankering for a sweet and savory snack or side dish? Try Alex's go-to Brown Sugared Carrots recipe. "Carrots, like sweet potatoes, are versatile and can be seasoned into a sweet, cozy dish," Alex says.

Another easy way to spruce up a cooked dish — whether it's a braised short rib, classic potato skins or a simple salad — is with a sprinkle of scallions. "They're so great top to bottom," Alex says. "They have a deeper, raw onion taste for the white part, and then more mild with the green part."