This Is Iron Chef Marc Forgione's Ultimate Secret Ingredient

If there's one thing Marc Forgione knows, it's how to make a good meal. The chef, who began his cooking career at the mere age of 16 (per The Connect Group), has appeared on Food Network's "Iron Chef." He became the youngest winner in the show's history with his season 3 triumph. And while he saw plenty of success prior to participation on "Iron Chef" and "Iron Chef America," since then, he's seen even more.

With the popular chef busy running three top-rated restaurants, any advice that he's able to give in his limited time should be seen as legit. While insight and tips on running a successful business is top-tier advice that you should definitely be interested in hearing from him, if you're looking for something that's on a smaller scale — like his favorite ingredient to cook with — that's good knowledge to have, too. And lucky for you, you won't have to go far to find that.

According to Food Network, Forgione's ultimate ingredient to use in his recipes is sriracha sauce. Surprised? The reason why he uses sriacha is because it actually makes meals more flavorful. "When I was first testing my Bloody Mary recipe, I added some Sriracha, and it didn't just make it spicier, it made it more flavorful," he said.

So what can you eat that will taste delicious with sriracha? Men's Journal reveals that foods like tacos, pasta, chicken salad, and even mashed potatoes could stand to be improved with a bit of sriracha on top.

But don't think that means you should be eating sriracha on everything, every day. As a 2018 Refinery29 article notes, eating the spicy sauce every day isn't going to be too good for your health due to the high amount of sodium and the potential heartburn that the garlic and chilis could produce. An article by Elite Daily in 2016 seems to confirm that notion, as it stated that each teaspoon of sriracha sauce includes "about 1 gram of sugar and 100 milligrams of sodium." So while sriracha sauce is definitely a great ingredient to keep handy for your meals, just be sure that you don't overdo it.