Cooking is a skill that many of us take for granted, but it’s something that requires practice and attention to detail. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced chef, there’s always room for improvement. That’s probably why a recent Reddit thread asking users to share common cooking mistakes and how to avoid them was so popular.

A few days ago, a person who goes by the nickname DrippyHip365 on the platform made a post saying, “What is something that a lot of people typically make wrong or badly?” and people immediately started offering helpful cooking hacks, tips, and tricks for all kinds of specific foods. Now, the thread serves as a great resource for anyone looking to avoid pitfalls and take their kitchen skills to the next level. Bon appétit!

#1

Spaghetti. You’re supposed to reserve some of the starchy water for the sauce so it sticks to the noodles. Then you cook the noodles with the sauce on high heat hard and fast for a few minutes before serving.

Sooooo much better then how it’s usually made. Follow Kenji’s recipe for the full guide.

Image credits: tastyprolapse

#2

Apparently a lot of people struggle to make rice

Image credits: MargoHuxley

#3

Salmon, every salmon I’ve had at someone’s home has been cooked to oblivion and is dry and stringy.

Image credits: ns0

#4

Fried plantains.
For green ones, first of all you have the people who don’t cook them enough on first fry. It’s the same concept as French fries. You are cooking through on the first fry and crisping on the second. If you do not let them cook enough they will break when smashed and come out greasy. The second thing is people smash them too much and they’re too thin. You want them thick enough that you have a fluffy interior to contrast the crisp exterior.

And now for sweet plantains, which are almost more egregious. One, plantains are often not ripe enough. They need to be streaked with black rather than bright yellow. Two, they’re cut into these huge hunks that give you tons of mushy innards that don’t get any exposure. The best fried plantains are made with thinly sliced planks about 1/4 inch thick. These have tons of surface area which caramelizes and you get these really crispy caramelized sugar edges. Three, they need to be cooked at moderate heat so that the sugar really caramelizes. Too high and they brown without that happening. Four, you need to go fairly dark to really take advantage of caramelization. Not burnt, but a slight bitterness gives complexity. Five, you don’t need a lot of oil to do this. Shallow fry is best! You could deep fry, but they’re fragile and would likely stick to each other tossed in oil.
Restaurants deep fry in a fryer where other items are fried. The heat is too high, they brown quickly, and often they’re not cooked on the inside since they’re thick hunks.

Lots of Latin restaurants serve terrible fried plantains. Pio Pio for example serves absolutely awful ones.
Bad homemade tostones tend to suffer from the sin of not cooking enough on first fry.

Image credits: SMN27

#5

Scrambled eggs. Most people/breakfast places in my experience cook them quickly in a hot pan, leaving you with big chunks of overcooked egg that taste nasty. You gotta do it low and slow while stirring constantly, with lots of butter and no milk.

Image credits: elchinguito

#6

A lot of people don’t know how to properly measure or mix their ingredients for baking, especially flour and brown sugars. It’s not that it necessarily turns out bad, but it’s not as good as it could be.

Image credits: Trantacular

#7

Mashed potatoes. Every time I’ve ever been served mashed potatoes at a friend or family members house it’s been unseasoned and paste-like.

Alternatively, I think people struggle a lot with any bread. Whether it’s not weighing ingredients or being intimidated by the process. I see more myths thrown around when it comes to bread making than any other sub-category of food.

Image credits: RacingRaindrops

#8

Risotto. Everyone always serves it too tight/stiff/dry. Loosen it up with some more stock before serving so it is like rice coated in a thick emulsified sauce and settles flat on the plate. It’s so often instead served as a standing mound of too-dry greasy rice because the moisture content got too low and the emulsion broke

Image credits: orbtl

#9

Grilling and serving a steak. Do not constantly flip it or rotate it. Make sure you have a solid heat source and place on the grill. Only rotate it once for diamond marks and flip only once. Every time I see someone noodle around with a steak on a grill I die inside. Also, you have to let it rest unless you want a juice soup on the plate.

Image credits: notjawn

#10

Not people, but companies over roast their espresso beans. It’s supposed to be light to medium roast, and multi-origin, because espresso can extract the complex flavour. Meanwhile every single espresso roast I’ve seem has been basically charred. Yes, espresso is dark and strong, but it’s the method of brewing the coffee that’s supposed to do that, and not the coffee beans.

Image credits: maesterbae

#11

I think Chicken breast is almost always overcooked by someone who doesn’t take food seriously. It’s easy to understand why. Unlike other proteins, Chicken breast really cannot be eaten undercooked so overcooking is preferred, except overcooked chicken breast has no fat and thus has nowhere to hide.

It’s one of the reasons, among many, why I hate chicken breast. Requires precise cooking for almost 0 payoff

Image credits: Think-Culture-4740

#12

Browning meat. Most people over crowd the pan and grey the meat by boiling it in the meat water. The pink disappears and they think it’s done.

It’s cooked, but you get much more flavor from browning it. You can add less meat to the pan or wait for the water to boil off and the leftover fat will brown it.

Image credits: Dalton387

#13

With mashed potatoes, a lot of people just drain the potatoes and then start mashing right away. That’s leaves a lot of water in the potatoes so I would recommend dehydrating them over high heat for an extra minute before adding your additional ingredients.

Image credits: HugoSimpsonJr

#14

As someone who grew up near New Orleans…

Gumbo.

Proper gumbo has its roots in displaced Acadian and slave food. If you try to get fancy with it, you’ll ruin it. Gumbo (like most prized dishes today) was invented to make protein stretch. It’s how you get one chicken to serve 20 people.

Make a roux. Toss in trinity (and okra). Pour in stock, and put your protein in there. Let it slow cook for a few hours. Serve over rice.

That’s pretty much it. Season to taste, but don’t go crazy. I simply salt mine and let it be.

I’ve seen gumbo recipes with 50 ingredients (cough Emeril cough). That’s not gumbo.

Image credits: ilikemrrogers

#15

Margaritas. F**k any margarita that doesn’t use fresh limes.

Image credits: the_jean_genie83

#16

Mushrooms. Just plain old, white-button mushrooms.

A few years ago someone posted a video, maybe here, maybe in another sub, that opened my eyes. Cook them until all the liquid is boiled away (takes about 10 minutes if they’re sliced) *then* add seasoning.

Even people who say they hate mushrooms love them cooked this way, because they taste like whatever you season them with and have a firm, chewy consistency.

Image credits: neodiogenes

#17

People over cook fish all the time. That’s why a lot of people say they don’t like fish because they’ve never been served properly cooked piece

Image credits: camlaw63

#18

Meatloaf has an incredible upper ceiling but I feel like it’s primarily associated with people who are bad at cooking. It can be so rich and tender and silky and complex. To most people though it’s just depression-era food, or a weeknight staple akin to mom’s famous boiled brussel sprouts. You can make it so juicy and packed with flavor but the world is sadly filled with dry drab bland meatloafs.

EDIT: Folks try adding some gochujang to your brown sugar ketchup glaze

Image credits: rawlingstones

#19

Shepard’s Pie.

Everyone I know(including me at times) makes it with ground beef but that’s wrong. It needs to be ground LAMB to be a proper Shepard’s pie.

#20

Gravy

Most people lack the courage to make it from scratch and instant gravy is just awful and lacking most of what makes a gravy good.

Image credits: CaptainPoset

#21

I find that a lot of people overcook their omelettes/scrambled eggs/fried eggs.

Image credits: cruditat

#22

Hard boiled eggs. I’m not sure if some people like the yolks chalky and gray or they just forget to set a timer.

#23

Eggplant seems to be something that can easily go bad for people when cooking.

#24

I had a friend that thought she could sub mayonnaise in an egg salad with GREEK YOGURT!!!

#25

PIZZA! I leave this to the pros for a reason.
Crust is too thin or too thick, too much or too little sauce, soggy crusts, thick border crusts, bland sauce, strong sauce, too much cheese, and many more! Share your pizza fail stories!

#26

I feel like a lot of fried food isn’t cooked right. I want the crispy fried food not the soggy burnt kind

#27

Sauerkraut. And I don’t mean actually making it from cabbage. But most people think you just need to open the jar and heat.

#28

Pancakes. Your batter is most likely too thin.

#29

One of the worst that too many people make wrong… hamburgers. Look, they’re supposed to be tender grinds of beef, not cooked to 400 degrees, left to cool to be used as drink coasters or table shims. Same thing goes with almost all ground meats. Ground beef is NOT supposed to be crunchy.

Image credits: Peacemkr45

#30

Carbonara

DocAtDuq added:

Yeah, the key is to have the sauce mixture in a separate bowl and to add the hot noodles with tongs. This helps heat up the eggs. You should add about half the pasta to the egg mixture bowl then stir and add the second half. Some times if I make too much sauce I return it to the empty pasta pot and heat it some more until it comes together.

As far as the top salty guanciale you shouldn’t be adding salt to anything when you make carbonara. The salt in the guanciale and its fat you pour into the mixture should salt the entire mixture. If it’s still too salty use a good bit of water in the guanciale pan and heat from cold then dump half of the after when the guanciale starts to render. You’ll lose some fat but it should pull a good bit of salt out

Image credits: Longjumping-Limit827

#31

Pot roast. It’s not supposed to be dry and stringy and minimally seasoned.

Image credits: Rough_Elk_3952

#32

New York bagels. People look for instructions online, which are either way off (most common), or they’re in the ballpark but fail to emphasize the key points of how they’re really made.

Image credits: aero_kitten

#33

Apparently pork. Discovered last christmas that the minimum cooking temp that has been advised for a long time is actually wrong and results in dry, leathery meat. Had someone mention that wasn’t needed, looked it up online and followed the recipe as intended. Who knew I actually did like pork tenderloin? Apparently 135°F is about the goal, not 180°F.

Image credits: Cinderredditella

#34

Whenever I go to restaurants, a huge pet peeve of mine is when people fiddle with a Cuban sandwich. Everyone is trying to add stuff like micro greens, chipotle aioli, pulled pork etc. it’s a simple, perfect sandwich people, you don’t need to mess with it.

Image credits: tress011

#35

Cookies. I have to restrain myself on cookie forums. The mistakes people make give me a twitchy eye and angry typing fingers, lol. Using butter substitutes and not understanding instructions like creamed and softened. Mix until incorporated does not mean beat the ever living life out of it. Then coming to a forum to ask what went wrong. What went wrong is you didn’t follow the instructions! Baking cookies is simple but also technical. You have to know the terms and why you’re doing them.

Image credits: Purple_Pansy_Orange

#36

Grits!! I can’t tell you how many watery, crunchy grits I’ve had, even in the South!

Image credits: SirWilliamBruce

#37

Not browning onions for a curry slowly & properly. It should feel like you’re about to burn them.

Image credits: PinkCup80

#38

In Britain, more or less all foreign cuisines that have been adopted as staples have been hilariously garbled and made wrong. But often if well prepared are just as delicious, but should probably have a different name. Indeed, some arguably have developed new names.

Carbonara, for example, in Britain should change it’s name, but still exist. A well made cream based pasta dish is a thing of joy, but it isn’t a Carbonara.

Bolognese is a key one that has been effectively renamed. Spag Bog, or Spag bol, are distinct entities from bolognese, and traditionally include mostly tinned tomatoes and tomato puree, beef mince, onions and whatever else you happen to have lying around. Those blessed with a joy for cooking may begin with a mirepoix base and introduce “fancy” elements, but the key thing here is how the dish is served as a strongly umami (by way of marmite) and tomato flavoured pile of red sauce on pasta.

Image credits: jimthewanderer

#39

A ton of cafes don’t make a proper cappuccino

#40

Brussel sprouts, they are so good when made right

#41

Pad Thai. I’ve tried it from at least 6 different restaurants in different cities in Canada, and every single place has just ruined it.

I don’t know why, but they all make Pad Thai with what I am 95% sure is Ketchup.

#42

Venison. I’ve slain a majestic woodland beast to provide peak nutrition, but I’m not eating it until it’s soaked in Italian Dressing.

#43

Max and cheese. You need to start with a roux and then add milk to it, add cheese and melt it into a sauce. Then you stir in the noodles. I’ve seen people just pour milk and cheese over pasta. Also don’t use preshredded cheese since it does not melt as easily due to an anti-caking agent they put on it.

#44

I’ve seen poached eggs gone very, very wrong… Not the easiest thing to make though, there is a skill to it!

Smoothies are another one – Too thick or too liquidy with no flavour (too much water??).

#45

South Louisiana here. The vast majority of jambalaya recipes floating around out there (or served in “Cajun” restaurants not in Louisiana) are not the way anyone here eats jambalaya.

That’s really the case for most Louisiana recipes you see on major platforms, but jambalaya seems to be bastardized the most dramatically.

#46

There’s a bunch of things I think a lot of very competent professional and home chefs make, not badly or wrong, but with excessive effort because of a lot of received wisdom. Many of these some of the better known food modernists have written many column inches on, but the message doesnt filter through.

Just as a single example, polenta, my god. If I see one more recipe that insists it must be drizzled in a thin stream into boiling water whilst constantly whisking for 40 minutes until cooked I’m going to start writing letters to the editor like a cranky red faced reactionary boomer

#47

Spaghetti. They don’t take the time necessary to make the sauce correctly. They take shortcuts. They don’t salt their pasta water. I could go on and on, but people typically don’t make it correctly.

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