Anyone who’s ever set foot in a kitchen can tell you that cooking is a learning process. Whether you effortlessly whip up Michelin-worthy plates in no time or, on the contrary, hesitantly swirl around and manage to burn everything you come in contact with, it’s a skill that takes time to master. But it’s oh-so-rewarding when you prepare a mouth-watering dish that makes everyone squeal in excitement. And while you need proper practice and techniques to do it well, you can always benefit from the handy little tricks of others.
If you want to up your culinary game right away, this thread posted on the ‘Cooking’ subreddit has got you covered. “What is the single greatest cooking tip you ever got?” asked Redditor profligateclarity and invited hundreds of cooking enthusiasts to share their helpful advice.
People immediately typed out the things that changed and improved the way they approach food. We’ve gone through the thread and hand-picked some of the best responses to help you impress everyone at your next dinner party. So scroll down for some delicious nuggets of wisdom and upvote the ones you agree with most. Be sure to let us know which kitchen tips and tricks you find most useful in the comments, we’d love to hear them!
#1
Gather all your ingredients before you begin. Read all the directions before you begin.
Don’t begin until you know what you’re doing.
Advice from my grandmother
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#2
Season, season, season.
I am gobsmacked at how people will sometimes proudly proclaim to me that they cook with no salt. Aah, that’s why your food tastes like cardboard.
Image credits: Ineffable7980x
#3
Use freshly grind pepper and not the powder. It’s true in general that freshly grind spices taste better (and/or smell better) but for pepper it is a difference between night and day.
Image credits: morelbolete
#4
Use a scale to measure things. It’s even easier if you set the scale to grams, not ounces. Much easier to scale a recipe up and down that way.
Image credits: RLS30076
#5
You can’t take salt out of a dish. Potatoes really don’t do the trick. Or coconut. Either accept a salty dish or start over
Image credits: Tim Martin
#6
Don’t whisk eggs in a circle, whisk them in a back and forth motion. I can still hear chef saying “You’re chasing the eggs around the bowl!” when we did it wrong.
Image credits: HelpImOverthinking
#7
If you want the best fried mushrooms, fry them without any butter or oil.
There is so much liquid in mushrooms, that the won’t burn for quite some time. Frying them like that, makes them sort of hyper concentrated. Once all the water has cooked of, add butter. They will suck up all that flavor.
Image credits: maszah
#8
When I was 19, the grandmother of a friend taught me that it’s easier to brown flour without any fat, just all by itself in the pan.
Brown the flour, let it cool, put it in a jar, add your liquid, cap and shake the hell out of it. Return to the pan, bring up to temp, THEN add your butter.
Life changing! I really used to struggle with fat coated raw flour trying to brown it.
Image credits: endorrawitch
#9
The thing I learned it, a good sharp kitchen knife makes cooking more fun and even if you think your knife is sharp enough it probably isnt. Made all the difference for me.
#10
Wear an apron. So many cool t-shirts ruined.
Image credits: AtlJayhawk
#11
Taste as you go, even when for instance making meatballs: season them and cook a tiny simple then adjust if needed.
Image credits: RandomAsianGuy
#12
But know that things change as they cook. The amount of salt you put in at the beginning may be hard to taste, but reducing it down a lot really makes the salt and other flavors show up.
Some ingredients change flavor as they cook (like wine in stews) if you’re following a good recipe, trust it the first time, but taste it a bunch, so you can learn how it changes
#13
Buy quality pans and pots. I spent almost 400 on my steel pots. It makes a complete difference in cooking. I fried chicken today the first time using my brand new pot and it cut cooking time in half. Usually im frying chicken for an hour . Its a lot of chicken, not just 1 piece.
I learned when something is done it smells differently. From my mom. She never had a timer or kept checking anything she was cooking.
#14
Don’t crowd the pan.
Image credits: crankygerbil
#15
READ THE COMMENTS of the recipe if you find it online. Of course you have to sift through the people who think half n half is spicy, buuuut there’s usually a lot of good feedback.
Image credits: DrewbieBrothers
#16
Sometimes when a dish is missing something, it’s not more salt but something acidic like lemon juice. Vinegar can also add a lot
#17
Cooking you can pretty much do with your heart, but baking recipes are architectural plans and every ingredient is a load bearing structure. You can make changes, but you better know what you are doing
#18
Let the stainless heat up before putting ANYTHING in it.
Image credits: SnarkyJabberwocky
#19
It’s a baking tip:
If you’re going to be cutting butter into some kind of pastry (scones, pie crust, etc) **freeze the stick of butter and grate it**. It makes everything SO much easier. I’ll never ever go back to the older method of cubing the butter and then endlessly trying to cut it into smaller pieces etc. Plus doing that takes so long half the butter melts. Using the grated butter means I only have to spend about a minute mixing everything together so it’s much easier to avoid overworking the dough. Puffy scones, flaky crusts.
Image credits: overduebook
#20
Just because you chopped all those onions (garlic, herbs, etc.), doesn’t mean they all have to go into the dish.
Image credits: lensupthere
#21
Clean as you go. Nothing worse than cooking a lovely meal and having a giant sink of dishes w waiting for you. I make sure I have an empty dishwasher before I start cooking and then every dish I dirty while cooking goes straight into the dishwasher. Once we are done eating the only plates to clean are the ones we ate off and any pots that need a scrub. It takes so much pressure off to clean as you go.
Image credits: gamergirl007
#22
To use block cheese and grate it myself rather than buying pre shredded cheese.
To use fresh garlic and mince it myself instead of using the jarred stuff.
Yes this is two tips but a former boss of mine was totally justified in her horror of my terrible ways and she set me straight on noth of these points. I am so glad she did.
#23
Never cook something for the first time for an event. Try that new recipe out ahead of time.
#24
I was surprised that I had to teach my husband the stove had settings other than high, and things WILL cook on lower settings !
#25
You can always add extra garlic but be careful of adding extra onion. It releases a lot of water when cooked
#26
Steak, chicken, eggs, etc. I always overcook everything to death. Max flame, both sides.
At 2:40, Gordon says the food is still cooking, even when not on the heat. Mind was blown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0
I now turn the flame off, flip it over, and let the food sit in the pan for a few minutes, no flame. Total gamechanger in terms of not overcooking everything.
#27
Brown your ground beef like you’re frying a giant burger. Get it nice and charred on both sides and only THEN break up the meat.
Image credits: diz408808
#28
If an avocado looks like it could be ripe but still feels hard, roll it with gentle pressure on the counter. It’s likely ripe and this will break it up a bit and make it completely usable.
Similarly, for limes, always roll them (with lots of pressure) before slicing into it, you get 10x more juice that way.
Edit: forgot the word “avocado” ??♀️
#29
Dry the surface of your food if you want it to sear well.
Salt your meat (a lot) more than you think is necessary.
If your food is at the right level of sear but undercooked use the oven to finish it off (or just do the reverse sear method to begin with).
Get heavy baking sheets and preheat them in the oven when making roasted vegetables (great for Brussels sprouts).
Image credits: Bizzmarc
#30
I wear nitrile gloves in the kitchen most of the time when cooking but especially when washing dishes. I started because I wore them in lab when doing grad research, but eventually it just felt better. Especially necessary for chopping peppers, but basically useful most of the time except when trying to peel garlic, in my opinion.
My hands are less chapped and irritated by the constant wet/dry and I’m more likely to cook, win win. Latex works fine too. They’re usually $ 10-20 a box and I will often reuse the gloves for several days so they last a really long time.
#31
Smash the garlic. It makes peeling and cuting it way easier/faster. Plus you get to smash the garlic. 10/10
Image credits: ElNolec
#32
If it’s bland, add something fermented! A spoonful of miso will add so much depth and flavor to even a western style stew, and alcohol can save a sauce.
#33
Oven controls are wildly inaccurate. Get an oven thermometer and figure out how hot it really gets.
#34
I grew up in Southern California and have owned a catering business. My greatest failure in the kitchen was always that I simply could NOT make corn tortillas. They were awful no matter what I tried. Then I found an article online that mentioned the masa being the consistency of play-doh. 80’s kid lightbulb went off in my brain, and now I make tortillas better than my Mexican mother in law.
#35
1) Clean as you go.
2) If you’re breading anything, always keep one hand dry at all times.
3) Always lay a protein away from you in a pan to prevent any splash back on you.
4) Wear gloves when you handle hot peppers. I don’t care how high your tolerance is for spice, you do NOT want to touch your eyes later or, god forbid, go to bed with your partner later and remember when it’s too late “oh yeah, I chopped a bunch of Serranos earlier.”
#36
Season a day in advance on a wire rack in the fridge.
The salt penetrates the food. The salt denatures the protein to hold water better so its not dry. The salt also dries the surface. AND the fridge dries the surface.
I can serve my wife a salt and pepper skin on chicken thigh and she’ll think its resturaunt quality.
Also to render anything fatty start in a cold pan.
#37
Alton Brown said it best when it comes to scrambled eggs (and the same is 100% true for bacon); if it looks cooked in the pan, it will be over cooked on the plate. That was a huge one for me.
#38
If you’re baking something bready, just use bread flour. Plenty of online recipes say you can use all purpose, but your homemade pizza crust isn’t going to taste “real” until you find a good bread flour and stop buying the cheapest all purpose flour in the store.
Image credits: SpuzzLovely
#39
Taste whatever you’re making. Do it all the time. Even if you’re pretty sure you seasoned something right, dip a spoon in there and taste (finger if nobody is looking).
Not only does it help correct mistakes, it gives you a whole other level of understanding of how seasonings interact. My wife thinks I’m a magician because I can taste a sauce and go “needs something a little tart and a decent amount of sweetness” but really I’ve just tasted a thousand sauces a thousand times.
I even do it for stuff like meat seasoning, I’ll dab a finger and taste to see if it’s missing something.
Image credits: arkain123
#40
Mis-en-place, including an empty plastic container to collect garbage, peels, and other scraps. Even though it’s only a few steps to the trash can it cuts down so much on mess.
Image credits: Farewellandadieu
#41
A falling knife has no handle.
Something that is hot enough to give you 3rd degree burns looks the same as it would at room temperature.
If you have to walk with a knife, do not change directions in the stabby direction (counterclockwise for right handed people).
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
#42
Get everything ready before you begin. Cook by temp not time. I smoke alot of food, and learned that time means nothing when smoking.
#43
Even easier, blitz butter + dry ingredients in a food processor quickly. You get extremely even distribution and it doesn’t overwork anything. Butter stays pretty ice cold too instead of starting to melt in
#44
Mis en place is sorely underrated. It sounds obvious but I see people rushing to cut veggies while other stuff is in the pot. This is home cooking not some time trial or competition against no one
#45
a falling knife has no handle
#46
“Authentic” doesn’t mean better.
Sometimes the best pizza dough, tomato soup, chilli, or whatever is a completely different flavour or ingredient list to what is used traditionally.
I personally prefer a New York style pizza dough to neopolitan or romano for example.
#47
Use a meat thermometer.
#48
Put a little bit of cornstarch slurry (cornflour and water) in your scrambled eggs (or any dish where you mix up the eggs) to stop them going dry and losing moisture. When you cook eggs at a high temp, the protein forms bonds which expels water from the eggs. The cornflour stops these bonds from forming as regularly, thus retaining more moisture!
#49
Buy a flat whisk and a potato ricer. They’ll change your life for under $50
#50
1. Microwave garlic 5 – 10 seconds to peel it.
2. Instant pot.
3. Cast iron cooking.
4. Shred meat with a stand up mixer .
5. A new large toaster oven.
#51
Season through your recipe. Not just at the end. In other words, season all your ingredients along the way as you prepare and cook.
#52
The difference between good food and great food is in a pinch of salt. Just use a little more than you usually do and your food will be tastier.
#53
I don’t think this is the single greatest tip, but it’s something I’ve only been doing for a few years and have no idea why I didn’t start earlier – I add notes to my recipes saying *exactly* which bowls and pans I use. I just made some Pots de Creme and discovered I didn’t have bowl notes. Then discovered that I pulled too small a bowl – lots of splashing. Now I’ll never do that again – even if I don’t make it for another year!
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