Cooking is an art form, and with proper practice, knowledge, and skill, anyone can master it. But whether you’re a true food aficionado who can whip up Michelin-worthy meals at the drop of a hat or a passionate novice with a burning desire (or, more often, burnt pots or pans) to take your game to the next level, your inner chef can always use some tips and tricks that can help elevate your dishes.
Thankfully, friendly 'Ask Reddit' cooks are here to lend a helping hand. They have gathered in one popular thread to assist us, lost souls, looking for ways to make our home-cooked meals better, and instantly offered some of their best kitchen hacks that actually work.
Below, we’ve wrapped up an illuminating collection of advice from people who know what they’re talking about. So continue scrolling to learn all about the cooking know-how, and get ready to create mouth-watering feasts that’ll make everyone squeal in excitement! Be sure to upvote the responses you found particularly useful, and then share your own tips with us in the comments.
Psst! For more pearls of wisdom from experienced cooks, check out Bored Panda’s earlier piece right here.
Something I call laddering.
Cook too much of one thing (eg.rice). Not that's your base for tomorrow's dinner (fried rice, or curry and rice) half as much cooking and you can always freeze any left overs.
Yesterday I cooked twice the chicken so tonight I just had to make a salad and put the chicken on top. Tomorrow I have left over salad and I'll make tacos. The following day I've got left over taco stuff that I'm make huevos with and so on.
Half the cooking, super healthy, and you don't get tired of leftovers.
Get your pan and oil hot before you put anything in it. The oil just absorbs into the food if it's not hot. People coming out of culinary school make this mistake all the time.
Salt your water for boiling pasta or potatoes... And not just a pinch either, it should taste almost (but not quite) as salty as sea water.
Mis en place: everything in its place. Prep, chop, measure out, peel, organize everything before you begin assembly. With a bit of prep the day before I can put a full turkey dinner onto plates in a couple of hours...all from scratch. Because everything is out and measured/weighed.
Try to let your refrigerated ingredients warm up a bit before cooking, if possible. Take them out and leave them on the counter for a little bit.
Also, soups taste soooo much better after they have cooled and had time to rest. Make it on Sunday and eat it the rest of the week.
Fresh cracked black pepper is 100x better than pre-ground. Buy a cheap pepper grinder, they're disposable in the spice aisle, and use that.
Don't just fry something in oil. Chop up some onions, a bit of garlic (not too much), and use butter instead of oil. Cook until the onions are golden, then add anything.
Learn to use salt properly. Properly used salt should never make a dish "salty" but should enhance the flavors within the dish and bring them to the surface better. Start by adding a little salt, taste, add a little more, taste. You will quickly learn to tell the difference between something that is over or under salted, and something that is just right. Salt content can make or break any dish, even sweets.
There is a cookbook called Sauces. Get it, read it, and use it. A good sauce can take a mediocre dish, to a really nice dinner.
Disclaimer: not all sauces are easy to make.
Be clean. Wash hands, work surface, and knives (and change cutting boards) between working on foods that will be cooked and those that will be served raw. Don't even have them out at the same time. Nothing will turn you away from doing it yourself harder than making yourself (and others) sick.
Don't crowd your food. One of the major reasons restaurant meals turn out so well and taste so good is the larger pots, pans, cooking surfaces allow the food to saute, bake, broil, etc without steaming/stewing itself to death.
Get a crock pot, or better yet a pressure cooker.
Seriously, a digital pressure cooker lets you do all those crock pot recipes in 1/10th of the time. You can basically make the most awesome stews in less time than it would take you to heat up the oven.
The best advice I've gotten was from Roberto Rodriguez's 10 minute Cooking School. (can find on YouTube). He recommends picking just 5 of your favorite dishes and learn to cook those 5 dishes really well. Just keep making them over and over until you can do them perfectly. Then always have those ingredients on hand and if you have someone over you can wow them with your amazing skills.
The best and easiest improvements everyone can make are:
Season your food.
Let all meat rest after cooking.
These 2 alone will make a drastic difference.
Follow recipes, but not to a T. Cooking is an art, not a science (baking, however, is a science). After your first recipe or two, stop measuring out 1/4 teaspoons of stuff, and start eyeballing it.
If your garlic tastes bitter, you're probably adding it too early. It can be easy to burn garlic - try adding it later next time.
Also, if your garlic has a bright green stem in the middle, take that s**t out. That part will ALWAYS be bitter.
Work in a 5 star kitchen, get some olive oil in a pan and cook some garlic (a lot) and rosemary in the oil until its cooked to a point it will melt in your mouth. Strain the oil and you have a cooking oil that has an amazing flavor that will add to whatever you are cooking with it.
After years of being a professional chef, my main advice to anyone;
Cookings not about eating, its aboot sharing experiences. No matter how bad you goof it up, its still a good time. Just go for it, cook and eat anything. "Oh whats that weird looking thing!?" yeah, buy that. "Chicken feet for 0.40 a lb" guess we're googling chicken feet.
Put yourself outside those lasagne wednesday routine and you'll be impressing your friends in no time.
Have fun :)
* Buy more produce and meat, less prepackaged food
* If the ingredients list includes sugar, try to avoid buying it
* Always have on hand: garlic, onions, lemons, limes
* Remember to use plenty of salt, and if it still tastes flat, squeeze a little lemon or lime on there
Use fresh whole spices (not ground spices that's been sitting in your cupboard for years). I use a mortar and pestle to grind up the spices. Learn which spice needs toasting to release the flavor first before grinding. I love The Flavor Bible to see if there are combinations of flavors I have not tried before; it's helpful especially if you are new to cooking. It's by no means an exhaustive list but it's great and does include some exotic ingredients.
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2022-10-24 17:30:38Z
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