You Should Consider Cooking With Vermouth Instead Of Wine. Here's Why

While you might know why vermouth is a great addition to a home bar, this alcohol is much more versatile than you think. While it's delicious in a gin martini, you can also use it in your cooking. There are plenty of substitutes for cooking wine, and there are some people who think that you should swap out your wine for vermouth.

Smitten Kitchen brings up a few reasons for why you should switch from cooking with wine to using vermouth. One big reason is that vermouth has a longer shelf life, so if you just need a bit of wine, you don't need to think about when to finish the bottle. According to Smitten Kitchen, dry vermouth lasts anywhere from three to six months in the fridge, while you can keep sweet vermouth in the fridge for about a year. Smitten Kitchen also mentions that vermouth is cheaper than many drinking wines, so if you're on a budget, vermouth will be better for your wallet.

Vermouth can also affect the flavor of what you're cooking, and you may prefer it to wine. According to Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, you can swap out white wine for vermouth, and "Dry vermouth adds a herbal flavor to whatever dish you're serving, and sweet vermouth makes whatever you're cooking just a tiny bit sweeter." The website also mentions that vermouth is generally stronger than cooking wine, so you don't need to add quite as much.

Since there's a difference between sweet and dry vermouth, which lend different flavors to a dish, depending, just be mindful of which one you're planning to cook with. Liquor.com compiled a short list of recipes, and they specify whether to use dry or sweet vermouth in the dish.

MyRecipes mentions that dry vermouth tends to be able to be used in more dishes when cooking, and the website suggests using vermouth in braised meat and vegetables, with fish, and in stew. Epicurious offers a collection with a variety of ways to use dry vermouth in cocktails and dishes. Ultimately, Feast And West says that savory dishes work best with dry vermouth, but sweet vermouth goes better with — you guessed it — sweet recipes. 

But if you don't enjoy the flavor of vermouth and would rather stick to cooking with wine, make sure you do a little research to learn how to choose the right red wine for cooking.