6 Food Styling Tricks I Use All The Time For Stunning Dishes
How many times have you made a dish from an online site and wondered why your food looks nothing like the photo? The broccoli florets in your copycat broccoli cheddar soup are significantly less green and vibrant. The chickpeas and asparagus in your pasta salad are completely covered with green goddess dressing, so the dish looks like a jumbled pile of unidentifiable green objects. And while you’re tasting all the chocolate in that chocolate chip cookie, the chips aren’t clearly visible on top of the cookies like the cookies in the photo—and the few chips you can see aren’t nearly as glossy. What did you do wrong?
First off, probably nothing. You followed the recipe and made something that (most likely) tastes amazing, and this is just fine if you’re planning to devour it with your family or friends. But in this social media heyday, everyone’s constantly posting photos of their food, so chances are you’re keen to make it look just as great as the photo that prompted you to cook it. And that’s where the magic of food styling comes in.
As someone who regularly styles both photos and videos for myself and for Delish, I’ve learned dozens of food styling tricks over the last several years. A few of these tricks render the food inedible (hello, tomato paste in pale store-bought pico de gallo!), but most are simple tricks that anyone can do at home to make their food more visually appealing—without compromising flavor. Here are six of my favorite easy food styling tips:
1. Smaller Is Better
Unless your personal aesthetic involves tons of negative space, your food will shine best on smaller serving platters and plates. When you use a larger vessel, you typically wind up with a lot of empty space between the food and the rim of the dish, which can take away from the food itself. Smaller dishes, on the other hand, allow the food to take center stage and dominate the focus of the image. For this reason, I typically prefer salad, appetizer, and dessert plates (no more than 9” in diameter), even when I’m styling a serving of dinner food. Skeptical? Try it. You’d be surprised by how much can fit on a “side” plate—and how much better your food looks.
2. Blanch & Shock
Those florets in that broccoli cheddar chickpea skillet that stayed so green? They were probably blanched in boiling salted water and then shocked in ice water to guarantee that brilliant color. This is definitely an extra step—one that most busy cooks rarely have time for—but it’s also a simple technique that will give you vibrant, crisp-tender veggies every time.
Two quick tips on blanching and shocking:
Make the water saltier than you think. My green bean salad recipe—which actually includes these directions in the instructions—calls for ¼ cup kosher salt to go into the water. You need that water saltier than salted pasta water to really season the veggies as well as maintain their color.
Don’t be shy on the ice. We recommend a 2:1 ratio of water to ice here at Delish. Ice water means actually visible ice cubes floating in the water, not just water that’s “really cold”.
3. Avoid The Cheese Blanket
Any time you’re sprinkling cheese on top of a dish—whether it’s pizza casserole, potato gratin, or even stuffed peppers—avoid completely blanketing the surface. More is not better here: if the cheese completely covers the top of the food, you won’t be able to see anything below it, and it’ll be impossible to tell if you’re looking at baked ziti or a Philly cheesesteak casserole.
Instead, opt for pockets of gooey cheese interspersed with slightly thinner spots, and make sure to leave moments for the important elements of the dish—slices of potato, a piece of ziti—to shine through the layer of cheese. It'll make the casserole even more appealing than if it boasted a full cheese blanket, I promise.
4. Top It Off
Whether you’re making a pasta salad, soup, or a chocolate chip cookie, it’s smart to save a few bits and pieces of the “mix-ins” to scatter on top. This trick is well-known in the cookie baking world—many bakers actually include optional instructions in their cookie recipes for stuffing additional chips or other mix-ins on top of the formed cookies before baking— but it’s equally important in the savory world. An abundance of green goddess dressing can easily hide chickpeas or chunks of feta in a pasta salad. Corn kernels can easily get lost in corn chowder. But if you save a few pieces to toss them on top, you can guarantee they’ll be present and clearly visible.
5. Spin & Tear Those Herbs
Supermarket herbs can wilt in a heartbeat, but a cold water bath and brisk spin in a salad spinner will perk them up in two seconds flat. Soaking them in cold water brightens their color and strengthens their stems, while the centrifugal force of a salad spinner simultaneously fluffs and dries them.
Also, unless you plan to sprinkle whole leaves on your dish, I highly recommend hand-tearing soft tender herbs instead of chopping. A knife compresses and can easily bruise a delicate basil or cilantro leaf, but hand-tearing will create a more organic look, as well as an additional layer of interesting texture. There's only one herb I recommend slicing with a knife every time: you can’t beat a confetti of finely sliced chives.
6. Flaky Salt For The Win
Flaky salt might seem like a bougie luxury that has no place on a plate of French fries, but many professional food stylists crush and sprinkle it over everything regardless of how high- or low-brow that food might be. Why? Well, the irregular texture of flaky salt brings extra dimension and presence to a dish that fine sea salt or kosher salt just can't. Don’t worry: it doesn’t have to necessarily read as “flaky salt.” If you lightly crush it as you sprinkle it on, the flakes will add that beautiful texture and dimension to the image. You’ll never be able to tell it came from a box labeled Maldon, unless, of course, you’re a stylist and are looking for it!
Food styling doesn't need to involve tweezers, glue, or crazy amounts of food dye. Whether you're an aspiring food stylist or just want prettier pictures of your food for the 'gram, these simple tweaks can help make your dinner more visually appealing—without altering the flavor.
What are your favorite food styling hacks? Let us know in the comments below.
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