New to cooking, or a pro, experimentation is a great way to investigate new flavor combinations. What's your favorite base food/dish to experiment on?

Myself, I'm a noob at cooking, so macaroni is my go-to for experimentation. It's simple to cook, and equally simple to experiment with seasonings. The ways I've seasoned it include-

My usual- Parmesan cheese base, Columbia seasoning, salt, and pepper Pork ramen seasoning and parmesan cheese Chicken tortilla ramen and parmesan cheese Taco seasoning and parmesan cheese, with salt

I don't cook very often, and wish I had more space to actually do it. Since I don't cook much I don't get the chance to really experiment... but I will say that I am always willing throw garlic into ANYTHING... ;)

Peanut butter, honey, green onions, nutritional yeast. Also homemade mac n cheese with cottage cheese, sour cream, and cheese. I played around until I got a perfect pizza like mac n cheese.

I think burgers are my go-to experimental food, honestly. Meat can be beef, but I've also used ground turkey, pork, lamb, and even venison (deer) before. Buns can be classic, whole wheat, multigrain, ect. I can pile veggies on as wanted/needed, even fruit in some cases (pineapple on a burger is heaven!) and condiments like mayo, mustard, ketchup and hot sauce plus the cheese. And the meat itself can be seasoned; a bit of dry spice mixed directly into the meat, or a more liquid marinade to brush on as they're cooking. Usually if I find something new I want to try adding to a dish, often a spice of some kind, I'll do burgers and play around with it until I find the right combo to make it tasty :)

I don't enjoy cooking but I guess you could say I experiment with it a lot just to figure out new ways to use up stuff I have laying around and to find lazier ways to prepare edible food (I'm very much not picky so even if it turns out objectively bad, I can usually still manage to eat it haha).

Tofu is great for this. It's super versatile and goes with pretty much any seasoning or sauce, which it needs because it doesn't taste like much otherwise. Curry, teriyaki, hot sauce, nutritional yeast, barbecue, creole, stir fry, baked, breaded, put it on a salad, make a sandwich, crumble it and make tacos, anything.

Rice cooker. Once I discovered they could cook more than rice, I started using mine for everything. All sorts of grains, pasta (you have to be careful though, it tends to overcook pasta if you don't turn it off early), soup, steamed veggies, bean stew, chili, potatoes, random pot of whatever was in the fridge.

Savory seasonings in things that are normally sweet. I don't care for foods that are served sweetened, like pancakes or oatmeal. So I've tried making them with garlic salt, pepper, basil, spinach, green onions, corn, salsa, etc. and while I can't say for sure that other people would enjoy them, I thought they turned out much better that way.

Edit: I thought of another one. Top Ramen. I only eat the Soy Sauce flavored one because it's the only flavor that's vegetarian. It gets pretty boring on its own after a while. But there are endless possibilities for stuff to add to it. You can go the soup route with it or just use the drained noodles in a stir fry. Add vegetables and other seasonings. I like using the noodles in a Thai peanut curry (peanut butter, coconut milk, curry paste, veggies). I've used nutritional yeast to make sort of like a macaroni and cheese sauce for it. I almost never eat it plain out of the package. (Btw, Asian stores have a ton of different types of ramen that are loads better than Top Ramen and are perfectly good straight out of the package. But sometimes Top Ramen is the only thing available and it just really needs some help.)

I'm experimenting with breads. I started with a failed attempt with pizza dough. And then with ready made doughs. At some point I began trying from scratch, and its good experiences so far. My first successful attempt was a Black forest Brownie, made from cake mix. mind you.

I want to make mint swirl brownies, my only obstacle is what to do about the marbling. Making the part that is mint flavored and whether to dye green or not. Really the only thing stopping me is timing, I usually only get to try once every other month.

This may have stemmed from a lifetime of fond memories of an uncle who was a panadero.

Food. In general. I just really like eating. looks down at stomach Too much honestly.

I'm more experimental when I go out to restaurants, rather than cooking. I like to try things that just look weird...like one of my new favorites, which is a grilled cheese made with swiss cheese and blackberry jam on sourdough bread. It's fucking delicious.

Because of a clearance priced machine, I'd like to explore making ice cream. I'll start with a classic vanilla.

I like to make different versions of soup, like vegetable barley, potato chowder, cabbage soup, gnocchi and kale, 3 bean chili, corn chowder, etc.

I have been on a keto diet and I have found that zucchini is really fun to try in a bunch of different ways.

I'm all about the slow cooker for exploration. Easiest thing in the world to just dump and leave. You'd be amazed how a crazy people go over a little Franks red hot & pulled chicken from the slowcooker. Throw it on some hawiann roles with some bleu cheese and walllah.

I did sunbasket meal delivery kit (same thing as hello fresh, blue apron etc.). They use some pretty exotic items that helped me get started in cooking - my typical go to was just ramen or ordering out so i've come a lonnng way over the past year or 2.

Pastas and cheeses as i have found there are many ways to prepare then

I've been really enjoying carrots lately! They're good roasted in the oven with some seasoning, or as toppings on a bbq pizza!

we like potatoes. potatoes in all the shapes lol and sometimes eggplants.

we're not expert but we like to cook at home. and we are 2 different people. lol

I have been working on making quality steamed buns! It is such a different dough than I am used to, and finding a great recipe is so difficult! I have absolutely had a few failed attempts, but recently I got a consistency that was really close to perfect!

Potatoes are super easy to experiment with just because there's so many different ways you can prepare them already. Baked potatoes, fries, soups, mashed, fried potatoes, boiled and fried, roasted, etc etc.

Rice has started to be something we use a lot because it's cheap. You can buy little pouches of Vigo brand saffron yellow rice for $1 at the dollar store and it tastes so good as it is. I'll prepare that and set it to the side to cool down. Then I'll cut meat into small chunks (pork chops, chicken, sausage, shrimp etc) and throw it in a hot skillet. When it's cooked through, I push all the cooked meat out of the center of the skillet so I can toss in handfuls of whatever veggies I'm feeling to cook up (typically frozen corn and peas, then some chopped onions), then when they're pretty much cooked up sometimes I'll scoot them out of the way and put some scrambled up egg in the center to cook. Then stir in the cooled down rice to warm back up (cooling the rice instead of adding it warm just keeps it a nice, rice-y texture... adding it fresh from being boiled can sometimes make it gummy.)

Whole milk and plain Greek yogurt, no question about it. I've always loved dairy but lately I've been spicing my breakfast and snacks up with either of those and the combos I make with them and savory/sweet food (mostly fruit and biscuits) are just sooo good.

I find sesame tahini and mashed avocado good with just about anything. I even combine the two of them from time to time in moderation.

Chicken, herbs and spices. I love trying and experimenting with chicken. A very versatile meat to cook with.

My girlfriend and I are both spicy people. I'm the cook in the relationship, but I'm also still a noob at it. I recently made my own creole seasoning based off of a recipe I found online and I am lovinggg it. I've used it in almost everything that I've cooked recently. I grew some anaheim peppers and made chicken and cheese stuffed peppers. I used a blend of chicken, cheese, onions, and garlic to stuff them and I added a bunch of the creole in there and they turned out really yummy.

I'm definitely an amateur and home cook, but I wouldn't consider myself a noob. The hubby, though...

Favorite spice to try in things: Cardamom. No question on of my favorites. Made a dark chocolate cardamom cake with earl grey frosting... mmmmm.

I think it depends. If I'm experimenting with a preconceived idea or a recipe, I'll try pretty much anything. If I'm more creating flavours, I like a base that tends to take on what it's in. Potato, chicken, tilapia, lentils... what I'm trying will decide the base I choose.

Interestingly, I don't experiment with pasta all that much. Partially because we don't usually eat it, but mostly because, IMO, if you're experimenting with a sauce, it "explores" better on a different medium.