People Are Sharing The Cooking Hacks They Swear By, Here Are The 50 Best Ones

If you're cutting up chicken or some other meat that will spoil, put the scraps into a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer until garbage day. That way they will not make your garbage smell and you're throwing out chicken ice cubes basically.

pretty much every soup can use a lil drop of lemon juice

Preheat. Preheat the oven every time. Let your pan heat up, and let the oil heat up.

When I sauté veggies, (chopped onions, bell peppers, etc.) I prep the veggies first, **add salt** to the prep bowl, and let it sit for 10-20 minutes before adding the veggies to the pan. The salt will penetrate the veggies, and drive water out. Veggies taste better, and take less time to sear and pick up color.

If your frozen food has instructions for cooking from *thawed*, move that food from the freezer to the fridge the day before and cook it from thawed. It will almost always be better.

Using almond extract in addition to vanilla when baking. It absolutely enhances the flavor.

Ice cube in the center of your leftover rice before you microwave it - makes the rice get soft and fluffy again

Something missing from your tomato pasta sauce? Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce. Makes it taste rich and fuller.

If your making a BLT or some kind of toasted sandwich, only toast one side of the bread and use that for the inside of the sandwich.

It stops you grating the roof of your mouth.

Steak.

1. Meat thermometers cost less than the steak you're about to ruin.

2. The whole "pinch this finger or that finger and that's rare or medium or whatever" thing when cooking steak is b******t. Everyone's hands are different as are our senses of touch.

3. 50⁰C is rare. 60⁰C is medium. 70⁰C is well done.

4. You don't need to bring steak up to temp before cooking unless it's very thick (like a rump). The inside warms and cooks slower than the rest because its insulated. If you're cooking a thick piece of meat straight from the fridge you're going to get an overdone outside and undercooked inside.

5. Never cook a wet steak. Pat it dry and season it with salt and pepper. The salt breaks the steak down and makes it more tender and forgiving in the cooking process. It releases more moisture so pat it dry again. The longer you leave it salted the more the protein gets broken down.

6. You lose 30-50% of your seasoning in a pan so always over do it.

7. Plain steak is nice, but cooking it with additional fats (like butter) and aromatics like garlic, rosemary etc. make it amazing.

8. Sticky burned stuff on the pan? Good. Stick it on a high heat and add any tasty liquid. Wine, sherry, port, whisky, bourbon, stock etc. will break down the protein left in the pan and remove it while creating what's called a pan-sauce. Add flour to thicken or cream or milk to add volume. This is the perfect thing to do while you..

9. Rest the meat after cooking I.e. stop cooking it and leave it alone for 5 minutes or longer.

If you don’t have cast iron pan, you are missing out on a lot.

- use an ice cream scoop with a sharp edge to spoon seeds out of a squash

- rub a raw clove of garlic on a piece of frozen bread to make quick garlic bread (the frozen texture of the bread kind of acts as a grater on the garlic)

- freeze left over tomato paste from a can into 1 table spoon chunks to use later - I also do this with freshly grated ginger to have it ready to go later

- keep grounded flax seeds in the freezer to use as an egg replacer in muffins (mix 1 table spoon of ground flax seeds with 3 table spoons of water)

- use a vege peeler to cut thin ribbons of vegetable (cucumber, carrots, etc.)

- use kitchen scissors to cut pizza

- get a bit more green onions out of your green onions if you don't need the bottom part, put the roots in water an the green part will regrow

Prep everything before you start cooking.

If it's "missing something" but you don't know what, then add a pinch of salt or a splash of acid.

Whoever didn't cook, cleans up afterwards.

Adding cacao powder to your beef stew for some extra depth

I use soy sauce in a lot of stews and soups to help bring out savory flavors. My minestrone, for instance, usually has some soy sauce in it.

Microwaving broccoli is not only ok to do, it can also preserve the most amount of nutrients than any other method of cooking it.

Dont fry bacon on a stove. Place the strips on a cookie sheet, throw in the oven at about 400 until the doneness you like. Use parchment paper or aluminum foil and there is virtually no clean up.

Leaving a potholder on the handle of a cleaned cast iron pan to let anyone who might put it away know it may be hot as it cools down.

Wear my contacts to cut onions. I’m unstoppable.

Put a damp paper towel under your cutting board to prevent it from sliding around when you are cutting.

Taste as ya cook.

Rinse your sauce jars with a bit of water to clean them out and not waste any sauce.
If you buy jarred pasta sauce, add just a few tablespoons of water to the jar after you dump it and put the lid back on - give it a few brisk shakes & dump it with the rest of the sauce.

Also on board with the clean while you cook crew. Far easier than having a ton of mess afterwards. And clean *everything* - don't just give the stovetop a swipe. If you have a gas stove, take the burner grates off and clean around the burners, etc - and if the grates are dirty, give those a wash as well. Grease & dirt build up FAST in these areas and that's how you end up with a crusty stovetop.