“What Trick Did You Learn That Changed Everything?”: 30 People Share Their Best Cooking Hacks
Interview
How would you rank your cooking skills, pandas? On a scale of “somehow manages to burn cereal” to “can bake a flawless soufflé with your eyes closed”, where do you fall? Personally, I grew up watching way more Food Network than I would be proud to admit, but despite the fact that my child brain was supposed to be soaking up information like tres leches cake soaks up milk, many of the tips and tricks I heard went in one ear and right out the other. So as an adult, I’ve put in countless hours reading recipes, experimenting in the kitchen and studying videos to feel confident preparing a homemade meal. And I have to admit, it was totally worth it, because I love cooking now!
But there's always more to learn, especially for my fellow amateur cooks out there. So below, we’ve gathered a list of helpful tips and tricks Redditors have been sharing that might be the exact game-changers you need to feel more at home in the kitchen. From learning how to properly dice veggies to purchasing small appliances that will save you loads of time and energy, these tips might go a long way in elevating your culinary skills. Be sure to upvote the responses featuring hacks you plan to utilize the next time you're responsible for dinner, and then if you’re hungry for even more tips from Bored Panda that can improve your kitchen literacy, check out this delicious list next!
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Get all your ingredients out before you start and put them away as you use them. Saves you from realizing you’re out of something halfway through or forgetting if you added something already.
It’s silly but adding toasted sesame oil to any rice dish, but especially stir fry. Heck, even a simple chicken and rice dishes are a million times better with sesame oil added
Heavenly elixir indeed! Just make sure it's made from toasted sesame seeds, 'cause untoasted version also exists. Not hard to tell them apart, though, the former is very dark in colour, while the latter is light-golden.
Regardless of how well you currently know how to cook, I think it's safe to say that we're all interested in getting better. Being able to prepare meals that are even more delicious than what you would receive at your local restaurants can save time and money, and when you're in control of the ingredients, you can create even healthier dishes that perfectly fit your palate. Plus, being an excellent chef will allow you to create wonderful dishes for your friends and family members, and it might even help you find love. According to one survey from The Little Potato Company, 86% of Americans find cooking to be an attractive trait in potential partners, and two thirds of Americans reported that they would be more likely to go on a first date with someone who mentioned cooking on their dating profile. No matter what incentivizes you to upgrade your culinary skills, I'm sure you won't regret it!
To gain more insight on how this conversation started in the first place, we reached out to Reddit user Degofreak, who reached out asking for game-changing cooking tricks. "I love cooking. I'm the main cook for my family, and I'm psyched about anyone who takes an interest in cooking at home," they told Bored Panda. "The question was asked because I thought there are so many people who might be able to help each other. When I read an online recipe, I always read the comments. That's where the magic happens." Degofreak noted that they love crowdsourcing cooking tips online, and we have to agree! So that's what this list can be for all of you, pandas. Feel free to channel your inner Gordon Ramsay and share your best cooking tips and tricks in the comments.
Every recipe blog has a “jump to recipe” button somewhere near the top. Discovering that I could skip the backstory made me way more open to searching for new recipes.
Cooking is an art form, baking is science.
You can think of a recipe like a suggestion and improvise accordingly, but when you are baking, precise measurements and methods make all the difference.
-Cheers!
True, but just like any other skilled scientist, knowing exactly how the ingredients interact and their role in the process does allow for some experimentation in baking too, just less haphazard than cooking.
Start with a completely clean kitchen and empty sink(s) and a lot of the time you can serve dinner and have 80% of the cleanup completed as well.
Sure, in a perfect world where I'm not working for 8 hours, then slapping together dinner in 30 minutes, just to get back to work.
When adjusting seasoning at the end, if you've added salt and pepper and the dish still feels like it's 'missing something'. Add a splash of an acid.
White/apple cider Vinegar, lemon, lime etc. Use as appropriate for the dish.
Using good sharp knives.
Also, the magnetic knife rack that's pictured is a gamechanger. I love mine. It's a more clever use of space that a big knife block, and keeps the knives sharper for longer than a drawer. Plus, it's very safe.
Cook your rice in broth instead of plain water. Total game changer.
If you have lots of garlic, peel it then put it in a food processor or blender, then put it in ziplock bags and flatten it out before freezing it. Whenever you need garlic just break off however much you want from the sheet. Keeps forever and is much better than the stuff you get in the jar from the supermarket.
If you take a dry paper towel and place it in your bag of spinach or kayle it will last months instead of a week and the bag will always be dry instead of building condensation and wilting the leaf.
Sliced peppers and onions can go straight into the freezer fresh and come straight out and into the hot pan, no need for thawing.
I do this with celery, onions and carrots… mirepoix or some chefs call it the holy trinity. Lol
Turn the stove down. Not everything is better when cooked faster.
Getting and using a stick blender. I thought they were gimmicks until I got one (nearly 20 years ago). I've reached for that thing at least 20 times for every time I even thought about getting the full-sized blender out.
I keep a jar in the fridge which contains the drained oil from anchovies, I add mixed herbs and some smashed garlic cloves. A teaspoon full to sauces gives that umami kick, when you don't have anything else.
Big cutting board
Exactly. I've worked many years in professional kitchens, and my kitchen tools are tools, not a showcase of shiny things to impress guests. Use a great big board - one that is just small enough to still be convenient to wash. Mine fits one end in the sink; It's easy to wash. The other primary rule of cooking for me is Get a Bigger Bowl. We naturally glance at the food and glance at a bowl and without thinking our head says "yeah that'll fit in there". Get a bowl twice the size and you have complete convenience handling, stirring, mixing. Washup is almost the exact same effort anyway.
When making hard boiled eggs I switched to steaming them instead of boiling them in water a couple of years ago. I've not fought with a stubborn shell once since I made the switch.
We don't eat bacon that often. You can take parchment paper, put a slice on it, fold it over, add another slice, and keep going until you have a roll of individual slices of bacon. Put it in a large ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. Bacon survives freezing just fine, and this way you can remove as many pieces as you want.
EDIT: It is fascinating all the variations people have on dealing with bacon!
Wait!!!! People don't eat the entire package of bacon???? You monsters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The most important thing I learned, years ago from my mentor, was to be mindful of your energy and emotional state when cooking. Your energy goes into your food and people feel that. Never cook angry. Always cook with joy. I have my favorite music going, I'm singing and dancing in the kitchen and having fun, even when it is crunch time. Your food is an extension of you.
Don't blindly follow recipes, no matter how good the food blog looks. I'm convinced a lot of the recipes are untested, and their prep times, cook temperatures, and cook times are often not the ideal amounts. Monitor your cooking and improvise as needed.
How a recipe turns out can depend on your altitude. Recipes developed at sea level cook differently at higher altitude, and visa versa. I tried to make my shortbread recipe, which works wonderfully in my higher, drier altitude, when visiting family on the west coast. It took longer to cook due to humidity and altitude.
When you need to remove the pit from an avocado, just give the back of the half holding the pit a little push with your thumbs. It falls right out and you don't have to do the slippery knife twist maneuver. Ngl was kind of pissed at how easy it was when I learned it.
Food processors are underrated. I've just started using mine (after using the blender for years) and behold! Nice tomatillo salsa or chimichurri, no problem. But then I saw that you can use it for pie crusts and biscuits and OH MY GOD WHAT A GAME CHANGER FOR CUTTING IN MY BUTTER. Pre chunk the butter, throw it in, and a few pulses later youre in business.
1. I now freeze my left over tomato paste. I can cut off the amount I need for a recipe and throw it back in the freezer.
2. If you store asparagus in a mason jar of water, standing up with the heads out of the water, it can stay fresh for weeks.
For snacking on veggies instead of spending all that time chopping, getting a Mandolin slicer and cutting up cucumber, bell peppers, carrots etc is so much easier and they look great too.
Also, baking bacon on foil in the oven instead of standing stove side the entire time.
Putting a damp paper towel underneath the cutting board so it doesn't slide around while chopping!!
Exact measurements are not essential in 99% of things(not counting baking.) Cook to taste, and taste as you cook.
Realising I can make hollandaise sauce without having to use a bain-marie was a wonderful discovery for me.
Just slowly whisk in 50g of melted butter to one egg yolk, then add lemon juice and season. The consistency’s ever so slightly different, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad difference.
Speaking of Bain-Marie , this is bar none the best way to bake a cheesecake without cracks in it. Keep the temp low to moderate, don’t open the oven, and let it cool off in the oven after baking with the oven door opened a crack. Perfect every time!
Keeping a lemon in fridge, adds freshness to many things. A little acid into soups, gravy, on veggies...
I guess this counts: when I need minced garlic, I just smash the garlic with the flat of my knife and then give it a quick rocking cut for a few seconds. That's almost always good enough- I'm not spending minutes mincing garlic.
Either that, or I'll microplane it
Yes. I told my dad to just use a chef's knife. Then for years he was on a garlic press trip, obsessed with finding the right garlic press. Then he told me he asked the guy in a fancy store what's the best garlic press, and the guy told him to use the flat of a chef's knife. - Give it a crush, then remove the peel which will come away easily. Then mince the result. To get the most out the clove you can sprinkle a pinch of salt on it and mash it across the board to make a paste if you want.
Don’t add food to the pan until it’s the right temperature and hot. But cook bacon from a cold pan.
I feel like no matter what I do I never get my bacon quite right. It's either too undercooked or too burned. I thought maybe the pan was too hot but turning it down ends up taking forever to cook and even then it can go from under to burned in the span of a minute. I've tried cooking in the oven and it just ends up being a huge mess and it feels dried out when I've baked it.
Heavier seasoning and learning (or looking up) good seasoning blends. Also making my own salad dressing (so much better!)
1. For more intense garlic flavor, cook your garlic less. So instead of sauteing your garlic with your onions at the beginning add it in like during the last 3-5 minutes of simmering. And you'll only need to add in like 1 clove instead of 10.
2. Don't just add salt when cooking. Add something salty and umami at the same time. I hardly ever use plain salt (major exception is when I'm baking bread), but I go through lots of powdered chicken boullion, soy sauce, miso paste, maggi seasoning, and anchovies.
Knife skills in general, but learning how to chop onions properly was a game-changer.
Add on, to prevent from getting teary eyed chopping onion, just refrigerate your onion for at least an hour before chopping. Idk why it works, but cold onion doesn't make you cry while room temp onion will.
Not quite a trick but learning how to use salt properly has made the biggest difference in my cooking. I don’t know who said it originally (it could have been the author but idk) but I read in Anne Burrell s cookbook “taste your food. If it needs something, it’s probably salt.” And keeping that mindset has really helped my cooking without a recipe.
Putting eggs in a sieve to strain away any especially loose egg white for perfect and effortless poached eggs.
No whirlpool, no vinegar, no prayers to the poached egg lords - just crack your eggs into a sieve and let em drain for a minute and lightly slide them into gently simmering water for a couple minutes.
Also soft/medium/hard boiled eggs in the air fryer has been pretty awesome too.
Upvote for no prayers to the poached egg lord's, NGL I laughed out loud 🤣
Better Knife skills. Makes prep work a breeze.
And then in the picture you have the wrong knife for the job, wrong grip on the cucumber, and a poor knife technique...
It may seem silly but using a whisk to make a rue
Slow cook your onions, fry in olive oil on a low heat for about an hour. Add spices at the beginning (salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic granules) maybe some fish sauce or anchovy oil OR something bacon related. This will be the most delicious base for so many dishes: chilli con carne, Bolognese, curry (without the bacon and with extra spices), stews, really anything hearty. Honestly, it will make any dish that involves onions amazing.
Stock cubes are your friend, but are just a helping hand. The more layers of flavour you add, the less need you have for stock cubes, but I do like OXO cubes beef and chicken. Brit here.
I became a better cook when I went vegetarian. Not being able to rely on meat for adding fat and flavor changed my relationship with every other ingredient and radically increased my appreciation for the process of developing flavors. When you can turn a block of tofu into something that you can crave, you've really improved your cookery. Even if you don't stick with it, give it a try.
If it's creating original recipe without animal proteins, I'm OK. Not vegan, but open minded and curious, I ate at a vegan restaurant in my city. Very good original dishes. But I hate when vegan cooking tries to mimick and imitate classic cooking, like ''vegan burger'', ''vegan cheese etc... Always a failure, often unhealthy ingredients used. You want a burger, it's made with meat and nothing else. I want a dhal curry or a biryani, I don't ask for meat on it
Dry the chicken before cooking
Don't cook cold meat. Get it out of the fridge at least one hour before. Tenderness garanteed
Pizza dough – Measure by weight and let the refrigerator do its magic for 2-3 days to build a proper flavor profile.
Poached eggs – As another noted, this one baffled me for years until I finally found this tip. Using a fine mesh strainer to remove the wispy whites that cloud the poaching water works incredibly well and results in perfectly poached eggs every time.
I freeze lemon juice in those ice “cube” bags.
Now I always have easy and fresh already portioned lemon juice on hand.
Also buy pre cut frozen onions. For a lot of dishes it doesn’t matter what type of onions you use and it saves a lot of time.
First tip is very good, I disagree with second one. White, red, pink, grelot, saucier, fresh, Roscoff onions really taste different
Dry brining. Totally changed my roast chicken game and whenever people make chicken without brining it first I can taste the difference
Put mashed potato into ovenproof dishes, before cooking drizzle with olive oil. Makes a really nice crisp top.
Handy if you have extra or want to save time when cooking a meal
Cookie dough scoops are an easy way to get an exact tablespoon of anything solid that's annoying to scrape out and level off. Also they're great for stuffing inarizushi/yubuchobap.
I've stopped sauteing things and started baking them on a sheet in the oven with grease. Results are the same with less work. Bacon, too. Pretty much anything that isn't an egg that used to go in a skillet now goes into the oven.
I say that even if you get pre-made food, try to make it your own. I add my own flavors to ramen noodles instead of those dinky little powder packets they come with.
The devour brand white cheese pasta with bacon, i absolutelt freaking love those goddamn things, i had multiple steps to microwaving them and adding a few subtle things here and there to get it perfect, you can be really precise with microwaves with a time conversion chart for wattage Some broccoli on the side and some garlic bread, damn damn good.
Load More Replies... I've stopped sauteing things and started baking them on a sheet in the oven with grease. Results are the same with less work. Bacon, too. Pretty much anything that isn't an egg that used to go in a skillet now goes into the oven.
I say that even if you get pre-made food, try to make it your own. I add my own flavors to ramen noodles instead of those dinky little powder packets they come with.
The devour brand white cheese pasta with bacon, i absolutelt freaking love those goddamn things, i had multiple steps to microwaving them and adding a few subtle things here and there to get it perfect, you can be really precise with microwaves with a time conversion chart for wattage Some broccoli on the side and some garlic bread, damn damn good.
Load More Replies... 