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Pumpkin & Sage Grits

A quick side dish made in a matter of minutes. Great with a pork main course.

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Why it works: Pumpkin and sage work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 259 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep4 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Bring the water and iodized salt to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat.

  2. Slowly whisk in the regular grits, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 8 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes, until thick and tender.

  3. While the grits cook, stir the ground pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, nutmeg and finely chopped fresh sage together in a small bowl.

  4. Remove the grits from the heat. Stir in the sweet cream butter and the spice and sage mixture until the butter melts and the flavors are evenly combined.

  5. Stir in the shredded cheddar cheese until melted and smooth, then serve the grits hot.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pumpkin + sagetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Butter + cheddar cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,434 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs