While not all of us are talented and experienced when it comes to home cooking, cooking is an important skill to have as an adult. To avoid eating too much in the way of processed foods, it’s essential that you spend time in the kitchen to practice your efforts as a chef in the home.
By getting better at cooking, you influence other household members to follow suit too, rather than just your partner but your kids too. With that being said, if you’re looking to elevate your home cooking this year, here are ten easy ways to do it.
Invest in quality ingredients
The ingredients you cook with when it comes to home cooking are highly important. From the meat to the vegetables, everything you shop for should be high-quality ingredients. Of course, not everyone can afford to shop at the more expensive grocery stores but you don’t need to.
There are lots of high-quality cuts of meat and types of vegetables that you can buy at an affordable price. It’s a good idea to do your research and to get a better understanding of what cuts are the best for each type of meat. You’ll also want to consider what types of ingredients fall into their best seasons.
The reason for this is that even with the best quality ingredients to hand, if some foods aren’t necessarily in season, they might not taste as good and that can impact the overall flavor of the dish. It’s always good to be mindful of this when shopping for your ingredients and planning your meals for the week.
Read through the entire recipe before you begin
Before you get started, you’ll want to read through the entire recipe before you get going. This is important because it helps to have some awareness of what you’ll be expected to do during the recipe.
It’s important to do this because you might need to preheat the oven, prep vegetables, or marinate the meat. These all often take a little bit more time and in some cases, where marinades are concerned, it may be something you need to do a day or so before cooking.
With that in mind, try to read through the entire recipe ahead of cooking so that you know what you’ll need before you get into the throws of cooking.
Make sure everything is in place and ready to go
Do you have everything you need to start cooking? In order to get yourself in the best position possible, you’ll want to do what’s called ‘mise en place’ which means putting in place.
Everything from your ingredients to the pots and pans you’ll need for cooking, all should be out on the kitchen counter ready to go.
It may help to get everything out, even the cutlery and serving plate or bowl for the end. Even if that’s a long way off, it’s good to have everything ready because you’ll soon come to complete the meal and need something to serve it on.
Being prepared in the kitchen is one of the best ways to make sure your cooking goes smoothly. With that being said, always be sure to do this first and foremost so that it’s all ready to go for your cooking time.
Don’t be afraid of seasoning
One of the things that people neglect to do when it comes to cooking is the seasoning of food. Seasoning is an important part of the process and many people are too scared of over-seasoning their dish. As a result, they end up with a bland meal that doesn’t really incentivize them to cook again or at least the same meal again.
With that being said, you should look at seasoning as an enhancement while cooking. Every bit of seasoning you add is going to add more to the flavor of the food, meaning you want to add a pinch of salt for every new component of the meal.
Consider mixing in a good, sizeable pinch or two of herbs whether that be thyme, basil or rosemary to infuse those dishes you’re cooking.
Try not to be delicate with your selection of seasoning. If you feel like you’ve not added enough, taste and then add a little more into it. Tasting your food as you cook it, is an important part of making sure the result you end up with, is a tasty one.
Understand cooking methods
An important part of cooking is knowing what cooking methods go well with the ingredients you have. For example, some vegetables benefit better from being steamed over being boiled or fried.
You might find that certain meats do well by sealing them first on a pan and then putting them into the oven at a certain temperature. There are certain dishes that will require a little more knowledge, like how to cook lobster tails without them going rubbery.
Every individual ingredient will have a preferred cooking method and it’s useful to do your research and figure out what works best for you and your tastebuds. Just because it is recommended to be cooked a certain way, doesn’t mean you’ll want to do it that way.
With that being said, find cooking methods that work for you and use these as opportunities to learn and grow from the experiences you have cooking in different ways.
Have a timer to avoid overcooking or burning food
A timer is your best friend in the kitchen and a great indicator of how long you have left for certain ingredients to be done cooking and to set other ones off in the oven or air fryer for example.
With a timer, it’s like a sous chef in the kitchen. It’s keeping time so that you don’t have to. The worst thing you can do is to try and guess when things are cooked or near to finishing. After a while, you might be able to do this as an experienced cook but when you’re just starting out, it’s important to ensure you have a timer available.
A good way of using a timer is through your smartphone or home devices like an Alexa. This will help greatly to set automatic timers without needing to faff around with setting a timer via your phone’s clock.
Create an ambiance with music in the kitchen
Ambiance is an important factor when it comes to elevating your home cooking. You want to make this an enjoyable process and rather not something that feels like you’re doing a chore.
The type of music you play could pair nicely with the type of food you’re cooking. For example, if you’re cooking French cuisine, turn on some French music. Even just having your local radio playing in the background is much better than cooking in silence.
If you’re not someone who necessarily enjoys cooking, then having music playing or listening to a podcast might be a great way to improve upon the enjoyment you do have.
Practice makes perfect
For home cooking, practice makes perfect. You’re not going to become a top chef overnight and that might not even be possible five or ten years down the line. However, if you get better at cooking food, you need to put it into practice, even when it goes wrong.
If you’re someone that doesn’t usually cook that often, perhaps let your partner cook for you, and take over the reins more often. Try to find more time to cook so that you’re learning more frequently. Try to do baking as well where you can. This all helps to improve your skillset and ultimately, make you a better cook.
Try out an in-person cooking course
An in-person cooking course is a great way to elevate your home cooking, especially if you find yourself making the same mistakes when cooking. Some people will have a natural flair for cooking, while others might struggle with even the basics of boiling water or knowing when pasta is cooked.
With an in-person cooking course, you have more hands-on experience than you would do just learning from a YouTube video at home. You’ll have more opportunities, especially 1-on-1 with the chef who is leading the course. It’s good to do these types of courses, particularly for the purpose of being up close and personal with a pro chef.
Don’t be afraid to fail – it will happen!
Finally, and most importantly, don’t be afraid to fail. As an at home cook, you’re going to make mistakes and even when you’ve done a recipe ten times over, there will be things that go wrong.
Try not to be afraid of failure because no doubt it will happen when you’re cooking at home. Instead, take every cooking session as it comes and learn from the mistakes you’re making.
Elevating your home cooking is important because not only does it make you a more confident cook, it makes your dishes taste better too. That’s highly important when it comes to enjoying your food more.