It's Crunch Time!

It happens on the second bite. You're eating a steak. A bowl of oatmeal. A salad of soft arugula. The first bite was fine, but on the second bite, something goes wrong. Your teeth sail through the food too easily. You chew, but there's nothing to chew, really—the food has all the textural contrast of warm ice cream. You're bored now. You mind starts to wander.Why am I eating this gruel? What am I, a baby?

You're no baby. You're just crunchless. Your steak, it wasn't seared right. Your oatmeal, it had no almonds. Your salad was all arugula and dressing and avocado—soft on soft on soft. No wonder you got bored.

The treatment for Second Bite Sydrome: Crunchify. Crunchify your soup, your cake, your chicken, your yogurt. Crunchify every way you can—healthy ways, decadent ways, big ways and small ways (there are 10 ideas below to get you started). Crunchify every day.

Did I say every day? Make it three times a day.

David, you might be saying.This is overkill.Calm down.

Show me the soup that's not better with bacon-fat-fried croutons, and I'll calm down. You can't, of course. That's food for people without teeth. And even people without teeth get dentures. Why? Because everybody deserves the right to get down on some homemade potato chips.

Let's go, teeth. It's crunch time.

Photo by Tom Schierlitz, food styling by Brian Preston-Campbell

We often think of crunchy foods as fried, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the cool crunch of raw vegetables—batons of juicy jicama, sticks of sweet carrot—provides a fresh crispness that hot oil can’t match. If you have time, give the sliced vegetables a dunk in ice water just before using—you'll boost the crunch factor even more.A crunch to try:Top a hot steak with a crisp salad of thinly-sliced fennel.

Frying works—you can create a lot of crunch there, also. Capers burst in hot oil like little salt bombs, making them a poppy, zippy addition to everything they touch; same goes for shallots (though those big tubs of fried shallots you find at Vietnamese grocery stores do the trick, too).A crunch to try:Tear a few slices of prosciutto and fry them until crisp; cool and crumble over roasted chicken thighs.

Photo by Tom Schierlitz, food styling by Brian Preston-Campbell

Microcrunch is the handful of pomegranate seeds on your yogurt and the poppy seeds in your salad dressing. In other words, it’s the surprisingly powerful pop delivered by unassumingly small seeds. Big on texture and also flavor, microcrunch is a necessary accessory to salads and soups (sprinkle the microcrunch on top) but also fish (crust the skin) and cakes (a tablespoon of poppy seeds in the batter).A (micro)crunch to try:This all-purpose microcrunch from Epi Food Editor Rhoda Boone: Mix2 1/2 teaspoons each poppy and sesame seeds, and2 teaspoons each dried minced garlic and dried minced onion. Toast the spices and stir in1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt.

Photo by Tom Schierlitz, food styling by Brian Preston-Campbell

Odds are, your local supermarket already carries one of the crunchiest, porkiest substances ever to grace this green Earth—fried pork cracklings, akachicharron.It retains its crunch whether chopped into pieces or pulverized into a powder, so there’s almost nowhere it can’t go.A crunch to try:Douse your Caesar salads with choppedchicharroninstead of croutons.

Taquerias in Mexico City lovechicharronso much, they make a vegetarian version with cheese. And you should do the same. Set a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Evenly sprinkle 1/4 cup shredded cheese (we like Monterey Jack) into the pan to form a rough circle. Let the cheese melt, undisturbed, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using a spatula, lift the cheese out of the pan and drape it on a rounded surface, such as a wine bottle. Within seconds, the cheese will crisp into a crunchy, salty snack.A crunch to try:Sprinkle lightly-crushedchicharron de quesoover a bowl of tomato soup.

High-heat roasting gets all the press, but a 200°F oven is a beautiful thing, especially when you slide a sheet pan of de-stemmed leafy greens (kale, chard,cabbage) and keep it there for a few hours to get crisp and crumbly. Thinly sliced, skin-on apples or citrus work well with this treatment, too.A crunch to try:Use these crispy fruit and veg to crunchify a sandwich (apple/bacon/brie—are you feeling this?).

Preheat a baking stone, slap some dough on it, and you'll never have crunchless pizza or breads again; same goes for the heavy sheet pans you use for vegetables (heat them before laying the veg down).A crunch to try:Preheat a cast-iron skillet, slap an oiled, spatchcocked chicken on it and slid it into the oven—it'll turn as crispy as a potato chip.

Photo by Tom Schierlitz, food styling by Brian Preston-Campbell

No industry is more obsessed with crunch than the cereal industry (insert obligatory reference tothe Cap'nhere). And their obsession is your instant shortcut for sides, main dishes, even dessert.A crunch to try:For the ultimate in breakfast fusion, crush any and every cereal into French toast right before frying.

Bobby Flay—a man who actually trademarked the term "crunchify"—slides potato chips into his burgers. Take a cue from him and put bags of pretzels, tortilla chips, etc, to work.A crunch to try:Use crushed snacks to give soft foods new life—a quick roll in a plate of this stuff elevates soft cheeses and chocolate truffles to another plane.

Desserts are not absolved from crunch requirements. Even the softest cookie or most tender cake can benefit from contrasting crunch. So you make a brittle—a walnut brittle, apumpkin seed brittleor maybe you just make a brittle with nothing in it but glassy, melted sugar. Then, you start crunchifying.A crunch to try:Crush the brittle and sprinkle it between layers of cake and frosting.