Advice From Chefs To Be Moderately Okay At Cooking

Author image for Eric Lund
Eric Lund
Aug 5, 2021 5:00 PM EDT

Sure, we could eat burnt toast and hot pockets until we die (sooner than later) but it's also a good idea to know sort of how cooking works if you want to be able to eat well without spending a hundred dollars on carrots. After all this great advice, we can all forget about it and go back to burning our meat to a crisp, forgetting to salt our food, putting our dull knives in the sink and grabbing hot pans with sopping wet towels. Here's some more cooking tips chefs shared with the masses.

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • 01
    Human body - Vexvertigo 4d 13 4 36 & 6 More A lot of the time when people add salt to a dish because they think it tastes flat, what it really needs is an acid like lemon juice or vinegar
    via AskReddit
  • 02
    Product - SuddenSenseOfSonder 4d 2 52 S Smell is very similar to taste, and if you're not sure about combining various spices, open the bottles and smell them all together.
    via AskReddit
  • 03
    Art - El_Duende666· 4d · edited 4d 7@2 3 3 You can always add, but you cannot take away.
    via AskReddit
  • 04
    Handwriting - LymphomaThrowaway 4d 4 Salt, pepper and acid will brighten up almost any dish. If an otherwise wonderful dish is just.. missing something, add salt, pepper and lemon juice, then reassess.
    via AskReddit
  • 05
    Smile - wooddog · 4d O 2 2 S E 4 Not really a cooking tip, but a law of the kitchen: A falling knife has no handle
    via AskReddit
  • 06
    Organism - Kolshdaddy - 4d 2 3 10 11 & 29 More When you grab a pair of tongs, click them a few times to make sure they are tongs. 19.5k Reply Share Report Save BigTimeBobbyB · 4d E People really overlook this one. You've gotta tong the tongs a minimum of 3 times to make sure they tong, or else it can ruin the whole dish.
    via AskReddit
  • 07
    Gesture - OAKRAIDER64 - 4d 9 e 32 Taste the food
    via AskReddit
  • 08
    Font - blay12 - 4d · edited 3d O This one's kind of common sense, but hotter doesn't mean faster - turning your burners up to 10 for everything will just lead to smoke and half-cooked food with a burned exterior.
    via AskReddit
  • 09
    Font - hyperkinetic27 - 4d Not a chef but I'm having a beer with one. I posed this question to him and he said. "You know the knob on the stove that makes the fire come out? There's a whole range of settings between off and all the way on. Temperature control. grabs my shoulder Temperature.. control."
    via AskReddit
  • 10
    Font - votemarvel - 4d e S Don't choose this as a career if you want a social life. I've seen so many talented people drop the job because they don't get to spend time with their friends and family. People plan gatherings and parties at the times restaurants are busiest, so you could end up cooking for the people you know but not getting to interact with them.
    via AskReddit
  • 11
    Font - Maxx130 · 4d please taste what you're cooking before serving it 11.0k LJ Reply Share Report Save DontSleep1131 · 4d · edited 3d I worked in a kitchen for a year and a line cook always tasted to make sure it was good, even if he cooked a dish a million times he would. Out foh manager had to manage the kitchen for one week. He comes in one day to our cook tasting food and loses his sh.t. Tells the guy to stop "stealing" company food and that he'll be fired if he does it again. Cook tries to
    via AskReddit
  • 12
    Font - Don't rely on a single recipe. If you want to try to make something you had at a restaurant and google "chicken alla whatever", don't just randomly pick one of the results to try. Read a few of them and cook the one that comes closest to being the average of all the others. Way too many internet recipes aren't actually tested by their authors, and professionals are actually worse than amateurs about it-- they're used to eyeballing measurements because they know what the right amount looks
    via AskReddit
  • 13
    Font - Measure by weight, not volume. This is more for baking than cooking. Baking is very sensitive to small changes in the ratio of different ingredients, and you'll have a lot easier time getting it right if you use a scale. Flour is especially problematic. If you scoop up a cup of freshly sifted flour and level it off, so you have exactly a cup, then spend a couple of minutes lightly tapping it on the countertop and shaking it from side to side, it'll settle and pack more tightly and the exa
    via AskReddit
  • 14
    Font - Font - waterloograd - 4d Not a chef, but no sharps left in the sink 5.6k Reply Share Report Save guiltycitizen - 4d My mom, god bless her, was always bad at this. I had to drive my dad to the hospital on Christmas to get stitched up after plunging into the sink to do dishes only to grab the blade of the carving knife. She doesn't do it anymore
    via AskReddit
  • 15
    Font - Font - redvelvetlookinass · 4d e 3 Don't use wet towels... learned there the hard way 5.6k Reply Share Report Save emilybohbemily · 4d Oof yeah. I didn't realize a pot holder was wet until I had the pan halfway out of the oven once. Burned the palm of my hand all the way across and nursed the blister for a week. Be careful where you place them!
    via AskReddit
  • 16
    Font - Font - bibBo · 4d Keep it simple. I see so many young chefs coming into the kitchen fresh out of the classroom going hell for leather to make some strange gels, jellies, dehydrated this and that. Yes it can taste great, but just chill out. Show me if you can make a proper Jus, properly cook a joint of meat, know how to bring the best out of a simple, humble vegetable. Just keep it simple. P.s. Salt, Acid, Fat, in the right balance can go a firlen long way. P.p.s. Watch out for that f..ing
    via AskReddit
  • 17
    Font - Font - RelativeOk578 - 4d Patience, planning, and good organization. Patience/planning: Brine your chicken. Let the rice dry before you make fried rice. Slow cook your meats. Overall the actual time you invest is about the same but it requires some foresight. Don't expect to just grab a chicken breast out of freezer and be able to make a delicious meal in 20 minutes. A lot of the best dishes take some time to let the flavors do their work. Organization: It's a lot more enjoyable when you
    via AskReddit
  • 18
    Font - Human body - Dawn__Amber__ - 4d 2 @2 3 Wear a tall hat to hide the rat.
    via AskReddit
  • 19
    Font - Smile - friendbuddyguypal · 4d S E Late af, but you're just going to enjoy cooking more if you have a SHARP knife. No clue how people can hack away at veggies and meat. No reason to go insane either, a $30 Victorinox and $5 sharpener will get you a very long way
    via AskReddit
  • 20
    Font - Font - JasonK87919 - 4d Really think about what size you're cutting your vegetables in relation to cook time. It's better to have a perfectly cooked larger vegetable that you have to use fork and knife a bit to eat at the table than a bunch of overcooked, mushy bite sized pieces. Generally speaking, the best simple preparation of cooking a vegetable is usually roasted on a sheet pan with olive oil, S&P. And for god's sakes, make your own salad dressings fresh. It takes no time, you likely
    via AskReddit
  • 21
    Font - Font - Empty-Refrigerator - 4d Pre heat your pan, its a simple trick but it will improve your cooking a small amount of oil will go a long long way when you take steak or pork or lamb off of the heat or out of the oven, always give it time to rest, usually half the amount of time you cooked them, and i tend to loosely cover them in tinfoil
    via AskReddit
  • 22
    Font - dirtymick - 4d I've had the great fortune of knowing some pro cooks in my life, and the most memorable piece of advice I've gotten was when there were several of them at my place during a housewarming and they had, of course, taken over the kitchen. One was searing a pork loin and was pissy because I had a liquor dispenser top on my olive oil and just a grinder for salt (no pig). After he ripped the top off the oil and found my box of kosher salt, he explained "dirtymick, do you know why
    via AskReddit
  • 23
    Font - guiltycitizen - 4d · edited 4d You don't need to buy pre-made spice rubs. Look at the ingredients and build a well stocked pantry Celebrity endorsed cookware isn't always good, a lot of it sucks Don't cheap out on knives, buy forged, not stamped. Store raw meat accordingly, don't cross contaminate your fridge Knife magnet strips are better than knife blocks This is obvious, but never put a cast iron in the dishwasher Don't boil the st.t out of potatoes to make mash Rinse raw rice before c
    via AskReddit
  • 24
    Font - boston_shua · 4d Learn how to properly store raw ingredients in a fridge (raw chicken on bottom). Understand times and temps. It's possible to stack times and ingredients so that your food is done at the same time. Drink heavily and get a neck tattoo of a pig or tomato, or no one will take you seriously.
    via AskReddit
  • 25
    Font - goodbye401k - 4d - edited 4d Not a prof chef- Mashed potatoes... NOT blended potatoes. Don't ever put potatoes in the blender, it will turn into glue For anyone wondering the science behind it: potatoes contain a lot of starch. Mashing cooked potatoes gently by hand or with a ricer leaves most of the starch molecules intact. The butter and dairy you add to the mashed potatoes are able to coat each individual particle, making the potatoes creamy.
    via AskReddit
  • 26
    Font - ajcranst · 4d Stop cooking with extra virgin olive oil; it is not some 'better' version of olive oil. Extra Virgin has an extremely low smoke point, so cooking with it often leads to burnt food and a smoky kitchen. It is intended for dressing and garnishing. Regular olive oil has a much higher smoke point and is meant for cooking. They are not the same.
    via AskReddit

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

tips cooking interesting helpful chef advice food
Scroll Down For The Next Article