3. Red Wine
Tomato sauce is the key to your Chicken Parmesan, and red wine is an exceptional ingredient to make your tomato sauce bursting with flavor. Red wine will enhance the flavor of your sauce because the compounds found in wine, including alcohol, improve the flavor of the cooked dishes.
The alcohol in the wine is not there to get you drunk; in fact, the alcohol itself will evaporate when heated. The alcohol is there to help release flavor molecules in foods that assist in dissolving facts, allowing ingredients to reveal their own unique flavors that broths or oils and fats cannot. When adding wine to a sauce, just make sure you allow most of the alcohol to cook off so it does not leave behind a buzzy taste.
After adding the wine, heat and cook the sauce until it reduces to about half. The more the sauce concentrates, the more delicious it becomes. When you cook with red wine, make sure to use a nonreactive pan or skillet. We recommend using a cast-iron skillet to avoid any discoloration when the acid hits the pan. Also, make sure to choose a red wine that is meant for cooking. Save the good stuff to actually pair with your meal!