OK all you recipe guru's

What kind of wine do you use when cooking? In the past I have bought what was labeled as cooking wine. Is this what you all use? Or just reqular wine? I have never been much of a drinker, and the liquor store has thousnads and thousands of varities. Thanks for your help!

I have always used what I would drink. We are not drinkers at all either so one bottle lasts forever. I have always gone by the policy that if you would not drink it (ie cooking wine) then do not cook with it. Especially now that I get so little I want the best flavor possible. Around the holidays someone always gives us a bottle or two of wine and I jsut save it till I need it in a recipe and open it. Then for the next month or so I try and find a few recipes to try it out in. If I don;t use it all I just chuck it. You can get a nice drinking wine for $6 even these days so it is not a huge expense anyway. That is just my opinion though. I think they make a difference but some don;t. Hope that helps. Melissa

Cooking wine has a TON of salt in it...too much to make it drinkable - we don't need the added sodium in our lives. I use what ever the bf has in his fridge. This weekend we are going to enjoy sirloin tips in a mushroom wine sauce (recipe found on a diabetic website) - he (the boy) usually has a box o' wine in his fridge (he has a glass every night w/ dinner) this week it is red - so the wine sauce will be made w/ red wine.

ACK... Step AWAY from the cooking wine.... *grin* Its evil and should be boycotted from ALL grocery store shelves. I do NOT like the taste of wine to drink. Which of course poses the problem of how do you pick a wine with out taste it lol. (Actually I wouldn't know a wine was good or not if I tasted it cuz I think they are nasty. ) Ok so how did I pick? I bought them and tried them lol. In the recipe that is. It actually didn't take many bottles ( and they are not expensive you can get some super good wines for $10 or less ). But when you cook them I find they are completely different then when they are fresh. Concentrated way down more. Once I found one I LOVED thats what I buy and use. I use from the Cavit Collection : Pinot Grigio . I don't really worry about the year as so far I have not gotten a bad Pinot Grigio bottle lol. Oh and this one is 1.5 liters for around $11 @ Costco. Oh and I do not cook with red wine EVEN if the dish calls for it. Not because I don't like red wine lol but 90% of the recipes I use call for white so why have a bottle of red sitting here for EVER if you aren't going to use it. I find the taste is about the same anyways once its cooked. BUT If you have a great wine store USE IT! They know their stuff. Tell them what you are doing with the wine and have them pick something out for you. They are going to know what goes paired with what. Tell them you want something that covers a variety of meats and dishes ( example: fish, chicken AND pork). My only advice is if it costs allot DO NOT BUY IT! The fact is that there are amazing wines out there for around $10 and if they are trying to sell you a $30 bottle of wine KNOWING you are going to cook with it...RUN! Once you cook with wine you will NEVER go back to cooking with out it. I can hardly cook chicken with out it lolol. And fish! YUMMMM they just talk to each other. Experiment. Play. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!! My 2 cents on this of course. I am not an expert in cooking OR wine lmaoo *grin* *huggles* Felicia