But a culinary torch has numerous other uses in the kitchen, for preparing both sweet and savory dishes. Here are 14 ways to use your torch, with thanks to Williams-Sonoma for some of these ideas.

BREAKFAST

1. Breakfast or dessert grapefruit brûlée. Cut a grapefruit in half and pat the cut surface dry. Sprinkle a thin layer of brown or white sugar and some optional cinnamon and/or nutmeg. Heat with the torch until the sugar bubbles.

2. Brûlée your oatmeal. Sprinkle cooked oatmeal or other porridge with a thin layer of brown or white sugar; heat with a torch until it gets crisp.
 
LUNCH/DINNER

3. Caramelize beef and other meat.

Meat that’s served rare, like roast beef, is best cooked at a lower temperature. But this technique doesn’t produce a caramelized crust. Chef Thomas Keller shares his technique for prime rib: Before popping the roast into the oven, char the outside with a blowtorch. You can also do this with lamb. And, it makes any bacon wrap (like bacon-wrapped shrimp) crisper: just torch the bacon before putting the appetizers in the oven.

4. Char bell peppers. Instead of holding them over the stove, use your torch. You can also use the torch to roast small chiles (jalapeños, e.g.).

5. Cook a pizza, no oven required! Your torch will brown a ready-to-eat crust, melt the cheese, even roast the veggies.

6. Glaze a ham or a pork roast. Brush with chutney, honey mustard, preserves etc. If you’re adding fruit, lay the pineapple slices or other fruit over the ham. (If you need to use toothpicks, first soak them in water.) Sprinkle with brown sugar. Heat with the torch until the sugar caramelizes.

7. Melt cheese. Add a finishing touch to the cheese atop onion soup gratinée, chili or any hot dish with grated cheese, including mac and cheese.

8. Peel tomatoes. When making sauces, chili, etc., you can blanch the whole tomatoes in boiling water, or use your torch to sear and easily peel the skin. When skin starts to crack, set the tomato aside to cool, then peel.

9. Sear fish. You may have seen a sushi chef use a torch to sear the outside of a raw piece of tuna or other fish. Try it at home for an appetizer, atop a bed of frisée, mesclun or seaweed salad; replace some of the olive oil in your vinaigrette with sesame oil, and garnish with toasted sesame seeds. For a more cooked alternative, use the torch to crisp the skin and of the fish that hasn’t gotten it crisp enough in the pan (how to crisp fish skin).

10. Singe the pin feathers off poultry. Easy peasy!

DESSERT

12. Brown meringue. Use the torch to brown the meringue atop Baked Alaska, fruit tarts, meringue pies and other desserts.

13. Create burnt sugar garnishes. Place a greased cookie cutter on a Silpat liner and sprinkle a thin layer of sugar inside the cutter. Heat with a torch until crisp, then lift off the cutter. Use the burnt sugar decoration to garnish desserts such as frosted cakes, ice cream or pudding.

14. Make s’mores. Do this in the kitchen; or if your guests are handy adults, place graham crackers, chocolate bars and marshmallows on a platter and invite them to spear marshmallows with fondue forks and toast and assemble their own.

15. Flambé your food. Make delicious, festive desserts: Bananas Foster, Cherries Jubilee, dessert crêpes, fruit compote, etc. Pour Grand Marnier or other liqueur into a metal measuring cup and heat with the torch. Pour the warmed liqueur over the dessert and then use the torch or a long match to ignite. How to flambé.

16. Unmold frozen desserts. If they resist popping out of metal molds, the torch is neater and quicker than hot water.

17. And of course, crème brûlée.
 
Have other suggestions? Let us know!

But how about kale salad?

Here are three recipes from Laura Pensiero, executive chef of Just Salad and a Certified Dietician. For salads, young, tender leaves are best. Remove the stem and rib and tear the leaf into pieces.

Chef Pensiero also provides her recipe for Kale Pesto Dressing, which can be used on these or any salad.

RECIPE: WINTER VEGGIE SUPERFOOD SALAD

Ingredients

Dressing: Lowfat horseradish chive dressing is used at Just Salad. You can stir a bit of horseradish and some minced chives into a vinaigrette, to taste.
 
RECIPE: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION SALAS

Ingredients

 
Dressing: Balsamic vinaigrette

Ingredients

 
Dressing: Lemon vinaigrette (substitute lemon juice for half or all of the vinegar in your vinaigrette)

RECIPE: KALE PESTO DRESSING

Ingredients For 2 Cups

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the blanched and raw kale, garlic, mustard, lemon juice and stock in a food processor; pulse until chopped.

2. ADD the cheese and nuts. Pulse again to combine. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil.
3. TASTE the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Add a touch more stock or water if necessary to thin to desired dressing consistency.

 
*Blanching kale reduces bitterness and softens thick greens. Stir the leaves into boiling salted water for a minute or two, drain, then immediately run under cold water.

**To toast nuts: Heat a nonstick skillet to medium, add nuts and cook over medium heat. Toss nuts/shake the pan often, until nuts are lightly browned and fragrant.

 
KALE NUTRITION

Kale and its close relative, collards, are winter crops and among the earliest vegetables cultivated by man. Native to the Mediterranean region, they were popular in ancient Egypt and Rome. The Romans and Greeks introduced them throughout Europe.

Early British settlers brought kale and collards to America, probably in the late 1600s. But although they’re delicious, nutritious and low in calories, both vegetables became unfashionable over the past century, finally experiencing a renaissance in recent years.

If you have a home garden they’re easy to grow.

As far as nutrition goes, kale is known as “the queen of greens.” As members of the cruciferous group of vegetables, it has potent anti-carcinogens. One cup of chopped kale contains 33 calories and 9% of the daily value of calcium, 206% of vitamin A, 134% of vitamin C, and 684% of vitamin K. It is also a good source of minerals copper, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus.

Here’s more about kale nutrition and health benefits.

[1] Margherita with a chiffonade of basil, which spreads the basil flavor far better than sprinkling leaves of basil atop the pie (photo: The Nibble).

[2] You can use as little garnish as you like, or a heavier garnish as with the pizza above (photo: The Nibble).

Updated June 2026

We so often recommend a chiffonade (shif-oh-NOD) garnish that we’re devoting this brief article to it.

Chiffonade is a French slicing technique in which leafy herbs or greens (basil, sage and spinach, for example) are cut into thin, ribbon-like strips.

The name translates to “made of rags”—although we think a more attractive reference might have been chosen. See the section below for how the luxurious, sheer fabric, chiffon, evolved from those rags.

It’s the perfect technique for slicing delicate herbs that can be bruised by chopping. Equally as important, it helps to release the flavor and aroma of the herb.

Use the chiffonade as an elegant garnish, or stir the ribbons into eggs, risottos, salads, soups, stews, etc.

Below:

> How to chiffonade.

> The best herbs and greens to chiffonade, and where to use them.

> The history of the chiffonade technique.

> Why the fancy sheer silk fabric chiffon is named after chiffonade.
 
 
HOW TO CHIFFONADE

Start With Large Leaves

Large, stackable leaves are needed—the technique doesn’t work with small leaves such as parsley, rosemary, or thyme.

The chiffonade technique is used to slice leafy greens and herbs into long, thin, ribbon-like strips. It is best suited for flat, broad leaves that can be neatly stacked and rolled into a tight cylinder.

The word comes from the French chiffon, “little rag,” and refers to the shreds that this technique produces. It is also used to slice other foods (such as crêpes or thin omelets) into strips.

Vegetables and herbs perfectly suited for a chiffonade include: >Leafy greens and herbs: basil, cabbage (green, red, or Savoy), collard greens (remove the tough stems), kale (strip the tough central rib first), lettuce (butterhead, iceberg, romaine), mint, sage, shiso, spinach, Swiss chard.

The technique, shown in the photo, is easy:

1. STACK the leaves.

2. ROLL them tightly.

3. SLICE perpendicular to the roll.

Basil

 
Mint

 
Sage

 
Shiso (Perilla)

 
Spinach & Other Leafy Greens

 
 
THE HISTORY OF CHIFFONADE

Chiffonade belongs to the vocabulary of French brigade-style cooking that was codified in the 19th century, largely through the influence of figures like Escoffier and Carême. It was one of those techniques that simply was part of the accumulated practical knowledge of professional French kitchens.

The technique appears in classical French culinary texts as a standard preparation, particularly for sorrel and lettuce, which were often used as a base or garnish in soups and sauces.

Chiffonade was originally more about cooking than garnishing. In classical French cuisine, a chiffonade of sorrel was a common addition to cream soups and egg dishes: The fine ribbons would wilt quickly and melt into the dish.

The modern use as a fresh herb garnish is a more contemporary application.

But our imagination harkens back to a 17th century chef deciding to slice very thin ribbons, looking at those little green slices, and thinking “little rags.”
 
What About The Luxury Fabric?

How did the same word—chiffon—come to mean both rags and luxury fabric? The word, a rag or scrap of cloth—something worn, tattered, or worthless—comes from the word chiffe, meaning a flimsy or poor-quality piece of fabric. It’s humble, even dismissive reference.

The upgrade in status happened gradually through the logic of the material itself. Chiffon the fabric, a sheer, lightweight, plainly woven silk (in the mid-20th century also made from nylon or polyester) was given the name somewhat ironically yet descriptively: It was so thin and wispy it was almost like a scrap, a mere wisp of cloth. But because it was made of silk and required considerable skill to weave, it was actually expensive and associated with haute couture and evening wear. The name stuck even as the connotations flipped entirely.

A parallel word in English is gossamer, originally referring to something insubstantially thin, almost nothing. Yet it became associated with delicacy, elegance, and beauty rather than flimsiness.

In the culinary context, chiffonade preserves the older, humbler sense perfectly: Those thin ribbons of basil or mint really do look like little green scraps or rags. The technique was named before “chiffonade” had fully shed its raggy origins in the culinary world.
 

[4] Sheer chiffon fabric, here beautifully embroidered (photo © Pretty Lace Shop | Etsy).
 

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