7 Different Types of Vinegar and How to Cook With Them

There are several reasons you should keep distilled white vinegar on hand at all times. First, it's inexpensive. Second, it's incredibly versatile. Distilled white vinegar is perfect for pickling vegetables and mixing into salad dressings, but it's also a great non-toxic household cleaner. Heck, Ree Drummond has even used it as a hair rinse to keep her longs red locks nice and shiny! Distilled white vinegar has a sharp, very acidic taste, but it's a perfect blank canvas for incorporating other flavorful ingredients.

Made with apples, sugar, and yeast, this vinegar is tart but with a certain apple aroma to it. Use it to brighten up the best baked beans ever or balance out a sweet glaze for a ham. You can even use it to make a DIY trap for fruit flies! There are two varieties you'll find—filtered and unfiltered. If it's health benefits you're after, buy unfiltered. This cloudy variety is filled with what's called "mother culture" which is good bacteria that serves as a probiotic and aids in digestion. That bacteria has been killed off in the clear, filtered kind.

Dark, bold, and slightly sweet, balsamic vinegar is the perfect pairing with many foods. One of Ree Drummond's favorite tricks is to reduce balsamic vinegar on the stove to create a heavenly glaze to top caprese salad or autumn Brussels sprouts. Made from grape must and aged, balsamic vinegar is one that can greatly range in price depending on how and where it's made.

Milder than distilled white vinegar and apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar is perfect paired with lighter foods (skip it for red meat recipes). You can use it to deglaze pans in place of white wine and to make a buttery sauce to top chicken and fish. It's a splendid addition to dressings for delicate salads and is a good choice for pickling because it won't impart any color.

Made similarly to white wine vinegar, just with different grapes, red wine vinegar has a bit of a punchier, fruitier flavor. There's a reason it's used to dress Italian pasta salad and a key ingredient in stacked-high Italian subs. It's flavor cuts through some of the richness of cured meats and cheeses and gives dishes the perfect zing.

An Asian cooking essential, this vinegar is mildly acidic and subtly sweet. It's important to know which variety to buy, though. Rice wine vinegar (also simply called rice vinegar) comes unseasoned and seasoned. Unseasoned or regular rice wine vinegar has the snappiness you'd expect from vinegar, with a cleaner taste. Unless a recipe you're making specifically calls for the seasoned variety, buy regular rice wine vinegar. The seasoned kind has sugar and salted added for flavor.

This might not be the most used vinegar in your pantry, but if you're a big fan of crispy fried foods, it's worth keeping on hand. Made from malted barley, this vinegar is a bit mild and ever so slightly sweet with a nutty, complex taste. There's a reason it's everyone's favorite accompaniment to fish and chips—the vinegar's tartness helps cut the greasiness of fried foods.