Long a staple in plant-based cooking, where it’s often the star ingredient in making satisfying non-dairy cheese sauces, nooch deserves a place in anyone’s pantry — not just vegans’. Nutritional yeast is beloved and widely used in recipes for its surprisingly cheesy, umami flavor, but its nutritional profile is a serious added perk and a reason to start adding it to all your sauces. Just a two-tablespoon serving of fortified nooch provides around 20% of your recommended daily amount of fiber and 313% of the RDA for B12, the all-important vitamin that, for those following a plant-based lifestyle, can be challenging to get from diet alone. It also contains 8 grams of protein in just two tablespoons. This adds up and makes those carb-heavy dishes, like pizza, far more protein-rich. 

Whether you’re making a simple, quick tomato sauce, slow-cooking down homegrown tomatoes, or cooking a rich parmesan cheese-loaded sauce, a few shakes of nutritional yeast into your sauce will elevate any recipe and ensure you’ll never have a bland pizza. Of course, you can use this hack not just for traditional pizza sauces but also for your other tomato-based dishes like lasagna and pasta.