Whether you like to cook or not, chances are there will come a time in your life where you’ll have to do it. And for some of us, that means learning what to do and which tools in the kitchen to do it with.
Fortunately, there are people with a serious passion for and knowledge of cooking and who also happen to have no qualms with sharing their knowledge. And if you’re in the mood to learn something, cooking skills will be one of the few subjects that’s instantly gratifying.
Redditor u/jellysnake asked a question of chefs in the r/AskReddit subreddit and it got over 13k comments and over 30k upvotes. So, what was the question?
“Chefs: what’s your number one useful cooking tip?”
We collected 30+ of the best best answers on the list and are sharing them with you here today.
1. Time your taste tests
“When tasting something like soup or sauce here’s a guide to adding herbs and spices:
• Salt: You can taste instantly. After stirring it in, if it tastes bland, add more.
• Black pepper/dry herbs/most other seasonings: After adding more, don’t taste until at least 15 minutes have passed. These ingredients infuse and release over time and you can really overdo it.
• Beer/wine/alcohol: Alcohol should be added before the other ingredients and simmered. Taste it after 20 minutes. If it still tastes alcohol-y after this, remove the lid and let it cook off more.
• Fresh herbs: Add late and as close to serving as possible (in the last 15 minutes of cooking). These are full of flavor and are generally best added near serving time for best flavor.”
2. Stop playing with your meat
“In general, just leave your food alone while it’s cooking. Stirring and flipping it a lot might feel like you’re doing something but you’re only making it take longer. Just walk away and let it do its thing. For example, if your grilling or pan-frying a chicken breast, wait until it’s half-way cooked before flipping it to the other side. Flipping it more than once slows the cooking process and you won’t get that golden-brown coloring you’re looking for. You’ll also likely dry out the meat.”
3. It’s all about the process
“Don’t approach recipes like they’re magic spells in the Harry Potter universe. If you wiggle your nose wrong or put in a bit too much of some seasoning, you’re not going to end up with a completely different dish. Alton Brown does an incredible job of teaching a cooking technique and then showing you a recipe that applies that technique. If you learn a process instead of a rote recipe, you will know how to cook dozens of dishes, and it’s really the only way to develop skills in the kitchen.”
4. Cover your eggs
5. Don’t spend a fortune on fancy knives
“You don’t need 10 kitchen knives. Three good knives of different sizes, properly sharpened and cared for, should be all you need. Then, only buy other knives if you have a need for them (like one for peeling, etc.)”
6. If all else fails, keep it simple
7. Sharpen your knives
“I think about 95% of homes badly need to pack their knives up and take them to a professional sharpener.”
8. Pucker up
9. Read ahead
“Always always always read the recipe through before starting.”
10. Don’t chop off your finger
“Chop with the rear part of the blade, not the tip, in a rolling motion.”
11. Get your act together
“Mise en place. If you have everything out and organized before you cook, you have eliminated like 90% of your stress load.” u/echisholm
“Prepping ahead of time, getting everything ready like chopping up garlic or dicing onion. This will make cooking 80% stress-free as you won’t be racing against time / overcooking your food.” u/Krimzomk
12. Spice things up
13. But don’t spice it up too much
14. Deglaze and be amazed
“This one simple trick will change your life. Basically, sauté onions, garlic, etc and then pour in some boiling water from a kettle and stir vigorously. Not only will it pull all the beautiful caramelized flavor from the bottom of your pan but it will also be spotless when you go to clean it which will take all of about 5 seconds.”
15. Use different tactics for different meat cuts
“Think of where on the animal the meat came from. If it’s a muscle they use a lot (legs, butt, etc) it probably needs low and slow cooking, if it’s a muscle they use a little (back, tenderloin, etc), it probably needs high heat and a faster cook time. There are exceptions to that rule but that works more often than not.”
16. Give food its space
“One thing I see frequently done wrong is crowding the pan. If you want to brown your meat, don’t fill the pan to the brim. It will only boil in its own juices until it’s still pale but also tough. Just put a few pieces in at once, you can place them on a plate once they’re done and then do the next ones.”
17. Heat the plate
“Heat your plates before serving. Cold plates leech the heat right out of an otherwise tasty meal. This is especially true if you don’t have everything set to finish at the same time.”
18. You can never have too much garlic
“When you see a recipe that calls for X cloves of garlic, just cross out cloves and write in bulbs.”
19. Cold meat cuts cleaner
“If you are cooking a dish that asks for thinly sliced beef or pork, throw that meat in the freezer. Way easier to cut thin when semi-frozen.”
20. Cooking is art, baking is science
“Cooking is an experiment you can kind of play with. Baking is exact, or the result will not be good.”
21. Don’t dig in immediately
“Rest your meat! If you cut into it and the juices flow out, you are cutting too soon.”
22. Save your scraps for stock
“Save remnants from the veggies you don’t use while cooking (ends, tops, scraps, stuff that may be just past pretty) and chicken bones (the more bones, the better) in the freezer. When you have enough to fill a large pot you can make your own stock.”
23. Food holds heat, so don’t overcook it
“Heat will remain in your food after turning off the stove and it will continue to cook, so pay attention to your timing. For example, when you want to add cheese to your omelette, cheese should melt in a plate with heat of the eggs, otherwise you will have overdried omelette. Same thing with overcooked pasta.”
24. Assess your salt
“Make sure it’s seasoned. And different sizes of salt depending on what you are doing. Typically, seared meat is better with coarse salt. Fine salt us best used when you don’t want the texture of course salt or you are worried it won’t incorporate properly into the food.”
25. Clean while you’re waiting
“When you let food simmer, wash up while you wait. Bring to boil, wash up while you wait. Cook until softened/browned, wash up while you wait, etcetera etcetera.
26. Onions are the answer
27. Try vinegar as a finisher
“For sauces and gravies, a splash of apple cider vinegar gives a lot of complexity to an otherwise simple sauce.”
28. Wine down (with the good stuff)
“Only cook with wine you would actually drink yourself. This means, don’t use ‘cooking’ wine. As in, that garbage that is all salty from the grocery. Cheap wine is just fine, just stick to wines you’d find on the shelf that aren’t in the cooking aisle.”
29. Use good pans if you can
“A decent pan means everything. I was using old pans from goodwill for the longest time and couldn’t understand why everything stuck no matter how much olive oil I used. Got decent pans, changed my life. Everything cooks more evenly.”
30. Get creative
“Never be afraid to experiment, especially at home. It’s fun, and folks that don’t cook can and will mistake an experimental move for the better as a stroke of genius on your part.”
31. Respect your pasta by cooking it right
Furthermore, when making spaghetti try to use a proper pot, it shouldn’t be necessary to break the spaghetti in half in order to cook them.”
32. Don’t be gross
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