Do bay leaves actually do anything?

Today we answer the question: do bay leaves actually do anything in cooking? Short answer, yes. Will it make or break the dish you add it to? Probably not, but it could make a fairly big difference.

RECIPE & SOURCES LINK:
📃 RECIPE:
📚 Videos & Sources mentioned:

---

INGREDIENTS LIST

CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL

---

USEFUL KITCHEN GEAR

---

0:00 Why you may think Bay Leaves don't do anything
0:30 How bay leaves work to impart flavor
2:02 Bay leaf experiment & common applications
2:52 Rice, probably where I use bay leaves most
3:37 Comparison of yellow rice with and without bay leaf

---

MISC. DETAILS
Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony a6600 & Sony A6400 w/ Sigma 16mm F1.4
Voice recorded on Zoom H4n with Behringer Mic
Edited in: Premiere Pro

Affiliate Disclosure:

[abhishekjiwankar]

There is a joke that gets shared in India...
(When working on a group project) Some people are like Bay leaves. They are thrown first in the hot oil but at the time of eating they are thrown out (get no credit)
Some people are like cilantro, they come in last (as garnish) and take all the credit..

I am sure I butchered it in translation..

[internetshaquille]

putting the answer at the beginning and in the description 🥲
what a world

[ZachInman]

It literally threw me off how you got directly to the point. Very rare with YouTubers nowadays. Good video :-)

[garypage]

As an adult, whenever I tried to make stew, using what was in my head as my mother's "recipe", it was always good but never tasted quite like I expected. Then one day it hit me! Mom always added bay leaf. When I added it, my stew came out like "what mom

[pantherax]

Told me the answer straight away, then went on to explain.
Taught me new things without being condescending.
Included named segments in the watch time bar at the bottom.
Really clean audio and visuals.

This is one of the best made youtube videos I've ever watched - good job!

[stonkr]

We've had a bay tree in our garden for the past 20 years, I've trimmed it back multiple times. It took me until last month to click that the bay leaves for cooking are from that tree. Yes I cook. Yes I'm stupid.

[SCSilk]

My mother wasn’t the greatest cook, but she added bay leaves to every pot of spaghetti. And now I add it to most tomato dishes and when cooking pasta. I can tell when it’s missing.

[BigStuffedRhino]

I really like this deep dive in a specific herb/spice

[rosieoutlook]

I had been taught that you used bay leaves in winter dishes heavy on root vegetables because it 'freshens' the taste of the vegetable. I was living in a convent of teachers (as a student in need of housing) and had to take my turns cooking for the residents. I complained one night while making stew that they did not have any bay leaves. A few weeks later, one of the sisters had made potato soup for dinner and threw in bay leaves, making sure that my bowl contained one and they waited for my response for tasting it themselves. The real payoff was THEIR facial expressions as they tasted the soup. It does make a difference.

[randomroughneck]

bay leaves: what every slavic mom uses when making any kind of soup-like food

[deveus]

I love this new food youtuber trend of answering the question at the beginning of the video. I'm still going to watch all the way to the end, but it feels a lot less clickbaity. Thanks Ethan!

[CHEFPKR]

Bay leaves work wonders with Onions. It's a way to help remove some of the harsh bite, at least from my experience.

[knockers]

To quote Chef John about Cayenne Pepper: "You might not notice its presence, but you will notice its absence."

[neilterry]

For split pea soup, bean soup, or any broth made with a ham bone or ham hock etc...if it tastes like it's a bit plain and missing something, the answer is usually bay leaf or thyme or both.

Great video, like some other commenters, I like the dive ito a single herb/spice. So mnay otherwise decent potential cooks seem to ignore a lot of this stuff.

[OscarScheepstra_Artemis_]

I live in Brazil, and we do use quite a lot of bay leafs (especially in beans). Something that people do - and I am not sure that this actually helps or not, but I also do the same - is to make a few cuts in the leaf (without chopping it - just slicing its sides, so they are still connected). From what I heard, this seems to release more flavor into the dish.

[akshay_]

Title : "Do bay leaves actually do anything?"
Indians and Slavs : Wait, there are people who think otherwise? (visible confusion)

Okay, I didn't expect this comment to start a literal war in the comments section lol. I mentioned Slavic and Indian cuisine (forgot about mediterranean cuisine) because I know for a fact they use bay leaves. Although both are different plant species, they DO IMPART flavor. The Indian bay leaves impart a different flavor compared to European/ Turkish bay leaves. The point of my comment was a lot of cultures have bay leaf in their cuisine because they actually do affect the dish!! It's nice to know many other countries use bay leaf as well.

[itallocampos]

You should try bay leaves when cooking beans! It makes a HUGE difference in flavor and also helps digestion by breaking some of its compounds that would make us feel bloated afterwards

[TitaT]

I am Zambian (southern Africa) so there's a Zambian recipe that you guys should try out with bay leaves and beans, thank me later.

Boil red kidney beans until very soft and the water around the beans starts to thicken. My mom taught me to start boiling beans with ½ a cup of oil, it ends up with a smoother texture
add 2 bay leaves
finely diced onions
Tomato puree
Tomato paste
salt
1tbs of sugar (the sugar cuts the acid in the beans and also gives it a really nice taste)
let it boil for like 30 minutes or until it fully thickens
it's DELICIOUS. it's optional, you can add fresh cilantro at the end, it will change the taste of the beans. depends on what you're in the mood for. also we usually cook this beans with some trotters (cow legs) or bones. just ask for bones from your butcher then boil the beans with the bones.

[damianphipps]

It surprises me that more people don’t have a bay tree in their garden. They grow really well in pots and provide so many fresh leaves that you’ll need to cut it back at times.

Even in cooler regions, they are perfectly fine throughout winter, and the leaves freeze really well, too.

The fresh leaves are so much better than dried. I often take one as I’m walking past and scrunch it up. The aroma is incredible!

Also worth mentioning that Indian bay leaves are different from the European variety. It’s fine to use either in most dishes, but there is definitely a difference between the two, meaning that where Indian recipes include bay leaves, they are referring to, you guessed it, the Indian variety.

[pfpublius]

Before I knew much about cooking, I learned from my grandmother that the bay leaf "brings everything else together." In my own unscientific experiments I find that it does in fact help to blend & add cohesion more than impart flavor of its own. Without it, all the flavors are there, but much more individually. With bay leaf, the flavors are identifiable, yet meld better.