Folks Didn’t Realize How Helpful These 30 Simple Cooking Tips Can Be Until They Tried Them

ALWAYS use real butter, not margarine.

- Boil your rice like pasta to get wonderfully fluffy rice

- Rest your food before eating (meat, casserole, lasagna, pizza, etc)

- A $4 meat thermometer is how you test, not cutting and releasing all the juices

- Understand the Maillard reaction to get flavor into food esp meat

- Under-salt your pasta sauce, over-salt the water when you boil the pasta

- Buy only high-quality oil. Not only for taste/freshness, but higher smoke point

- Fat has been wrongly maligned, save it and use it

- A touch of acidity (lemon juice, dry citric acid, pickle juice, etc) is required in nearly all dishes

- A pinch of cane sugar takes the funkiness out of many sauces

- Pressure cookers turn the cheapest cuts of meat into succulent, tender morsels

- Good food is mostly technique and appropriate seasoning, not expensive ingredients

Don’t fry naked.

There might be such a thing as "too much garlic", but I haven't found it yet

The MOST important tip I can give to anyone is to setup all of your ingredients before you even turn the stove on. Also known as 'mise en place' in the culinary world.

Everything. Salts, spices, veggies, proteins. Everything should be on your counter and easy to reach.

It's seriously probably the biggest thing keeping someone from becoming a 'meh' cook into a good one.

Ex. If you want to put chives into your omelet, you obviously dont want to start cutting them when your eggs are already on the pan. You'll overcook your omelet.

This isn't a secret or anything, but I think a lot of folks don't realize how important acid is in a lot of cooking. When you've seasoned something perfectly but it still tastes like it's missing something, it's usually acid. A bit of citrus juice or vinegar will take it to the next level.

People who don't know how to cook think cooking is extremely difficult and that you need to rigorously "study" cooking.

Not true. Just follow a few simple recipes to learn the basics. After a couple of tries, you can wing a lot of your cooking.

Always use cold water to mix with flour or cornstarch to make your gravy. It won't get lumpy. My dad was a chef & he always stressed this. He hated lumpy gravy.

Courtesy of great-grandma to mom:

To get the smell of garlic off your hands, grab your (stainless steel) faucet like it was your man.

:-D

**F**k up.**

Burn food. Overseason. Have a pot boil over. Make flatbread on accident. Make soggy latkas. Spice that curry up to lava temps. Just learn from it. Don't be afraid to ruin a meal. Be willing to ruin a meal so it ensures you'll make a better one in the future.

Nobody bakes a flawless souffle the first time. Pretty much everyone will forget to put eggs in brownies once or twice. I'm sure most people have put too much salt in their eggs, or cooked a steak to a brick. Don't let mistakes stop you from learning new things, and don't let the fear of f*****g up a meal prevent you from trying new recipes.

Edit: I don't even know what reddit silver does but thank you kind internet stranger. Keep cooking and making mistakes!

When using a pan with a handle on a stove top, turn the handle inwards to avoid accidentally walking/knocking into it and causing disaster

If you’re young learn to cook before you leave home. You should be able to take care of yourself on your own. I knew so many people in college that had no clue how to function, like laundry, cooking and cleaning.

If you can smell anything bad jn your meat at all. Throw it out.

Think about what you're throwing away. People discard so much when it can be repurposed.

Got a dried out lump of cheese? Make mac and cheese with it. Dont throw it away.

The stem from a head of broccoli, once that gnarly bit at the very end has been removed, is great if finely diced or sliced in soups or stir fries.

Bones and carcass can be made into stock with no effort. Just a bit of salt and water, dont be intimidated by recipes that ask for $20 worth of other stuff.

Pies and stews are great for sad looking veggies and bits of meat that are close to being off.

Even potato skins can be fried into delicious treats. Cold rice is perfect for egg fried rice. Old bread is good for breadcrumbs. Dont have a blender? Grate them instead.

It frustrates me when I see how much good food goes to waste, food that can be re-used and cooked into recipes that even a total amateur can cook.

Also, people need to stop frying food on maximum heat, if your stove dials go to 8 for example, frying an egg should be on 5-6.

Wash your hands before preparing ready to eat foods and after handling raw meats, especially chicken.

Residual heat will continue cooking more than you imagine. That hot pan doesn’t stop cooking just because ou turned the stove off, and meat can cook internally as well once already hot.

Don’t pour water on a grease fire.

There is no such thing as cooking chicken "rare". Beef and pork have some granularity in how "done" the meat is, but chicken is either "done", "overdone" or "salmonella".

Edit -
Yes, sous vide changes these rules somewhat, and all ground meats should generally be cooked through.

If you’re searing a bunch of little things in a pan, like scallops, set them in the pan in a clock-like circular pattern. That way, you’ll be able to easily keep track of where to start flipping, and then you can just move clockwise down the line.

Seems obvious, but I was just haphazardly throwing pieces of meat or seafood in a pan prior to seeing this done on a cooking show.

Dont crowd the pan.