Any activity feels better when done with knowledge and cooking is no exception. A good cooking tip may contribute to one’s sense of clarity and efficiency, in turn allowing more control and creativity. Similarly, one can learn from example, catching some inspiration as the author of this online thread did when participating in a hostess’s spontaneous “workshop” where guests took fifteen minutes to wrap “grab and go” sandwiches and were made to look at salad differently. People shared more of their cooking tips and tricks answering this Redditor’s question: “What was a lesson from the kitchen you learned that you wish someone had told you years ago?”
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This sub taught me to keep fresh ginger root in my freezer and just grate it with a microplane whenever I need some. Lasts longer, and I haven't peeled or minced a piece of ginger in years.
Edit: omg this is my most-upvoted comment ever lol. To answer the most common questions, no, I never peel it. I throw the whole root in there with no packaging whatsoever. Idk how long it stays good, but based on my experience so far, at least 6 months.
Someone burned a 30+ portion pot of chili. Nasty char.
Was told not to mix it further, slowly pour it into another pot to keep the worse char at the bottom out. Then, add peanut butter. Completely neutralized the burnt flavor, returned the chili flavor. Was told it pretty much works for every sauce/stew.
if something tastes good but feels like it's missing something you can't put your finger on, add acidity. i can't count how many times a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar rounded out a dish perfectly. sometimes this also applies to sugar. just a dash. also, msg is a beautiful thing.
I was early in my cooking career when my chef asked me to make the Crew Meal. He walked me through what ingredients were available and suggested I make soup. I got flustered; I had never heard of a soup with those specific ingredients so I asked him a bunch of questions.
He cut me off and said "look, it's f****n soup. throw a bunch of s**t in a pot and it's gonna be delicious. Just think about when to add what and everything else will take care of itself." Since then, thanks to his advice I have made hundreds of delightful soups and zero s****y soups.
If you toast rustic bread on one side and make the toasted side inward facing on a sandwich, you still get all the crunch from the sandwich being toasted without it cutting the inside of your mouth.
You don’t have to prepare the entire meal in one go. I always underestimate the time it takes to chop vegetables, so these days if I’m making a soup on Sunday for instance and I find myself with a free thirty minutes on Friday, I’ll wash, peel and chop all the vegetables on the Friday and keep them in the fridge in easy-to-clean leftover yogurt tubs until I need them. Then when I’m ready to cook on Sunday I can just start tossing veggies into the pan right away. It saves me from having to find an uninterrupted 2-hour period to do the entire process at once. I started doing a similar thing with spices — if I need a half teaspoon each of five different spices that need to get added to a recipe at or around the same time, I’ll put them all in a little teacup together whenever I find a free moment. Saves me having to root around in the cupboard for five different spice containers in the middle of cooking. I call this strategy “meal prep prep.” (I know there’s some overlap with mise en place too.)
"Mise en place." Everything ready and in it's place. Cooking is easier. Cleaning is easier. Experimenting is more fun.
Salting the pasta water. I always thought it couldn't make that big a difference. I finally tried it. OMG. Pasta is like an entirely different food when boiled in salted water.
I would worry that the bread would be soggy next day. What I learned is that after egging and breadcrumbing chicken cutlets, to let them stay in fridge for at least a half an hour so the breading stays on more easily when frying. Twenty years too late.
When I make chocolate chip cookies, I keep the chocolate chips in the freezer and add them last in the dough. They don’t melt as fast in the oven and taste so good!
Salt and cold water to clean a cutting board used for onions. Learned it from Julia herself, watching an old episode of the French Chef on YouTube.
Salt and water or salt lemon juice and water is how you should be cleaning a cutting board
That you have to mix corn starch in cold water then add that to the boiling water/broth to make gravy.
Cornflour in the UK, but yes, mix it in cold water first until smooth, if you just chuck in a teaspoon of it dry, you'll get a nasty lumpy mess.
Bring eggs, butter, and other dairy to room temp before using. I don’t understand why it improves baked goods, but it does.
Smush garlic cloves with the side of your knife, THEN peel them.
I purée a can of chiles in adobo, then put the paste in a quart ziploc, spread it all out in a thin flat layer in the bag, and keep it in my freezer. Whenever I need some, just break a chunk off.
Editing to say: same thing for opening a can of tomato paste. Ziploc in the freezer. Break off what I need.
food continues cooking even after you’ve removed it from from the heat source, and this is especially noticeable with eggs. when boiling them you can put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking, but for scrambled/omelettes/etc you should remove from the pan when they still look a little underdone
add a little instant coffee to any chocolate thing you make for increased depth of flavor
add bacon to beef stews—i usually use a slow cooker for the stew itself but will sear the beef first. so i’ll fry the bacon, then sear the beef in the bacon fat, before assembling the rest of the stew in the slow cooker. learned this one from julia child’s beef bourguignon recipe
Please do not add coffee to chocolate things, unless you plan on telling people you have added it. So many people say "You can't taste it." - yes, yes I can! And I hate the taste of coffee. It totally ruins any chocolate cake for me. If you are going to add it to your cake, warn people who don't like coffee.
I once had a buddy tell me to put a tea towel under my cutting board to keep it from slipping. I've never looked back.
In a baking class one day, the teacher showed us that you can actually see how much lemon zest you have (instead of guessing and making a mess) if you flip the Microplane upside down and hold it above the lemon, rubbing the lemon against it from below. The zest just piles up into a tiny, tidy little heap neatly contained in the back of the blade instead of sprinkling all over a plate/cutting board/countertop. Blew my mind. It had honestly never even occurred to me that you could do it that way.
Using gelatin to clean cooking oil. I fry at home for like a week every few months. Trying to get the most out of that amount of oil before I gotta deal with it cuz we need the Dutch oven back.
Using gelatin to magically clean oil is some science experiment awesome stuff.
Remember, oil floats on water, so you mix in a bunch of jello (unflavored) and water to your frying oil, pop it in the fridge to make jello. By the time the gel has formed next day, everything nasty has settled to the bottom, into the water portion. And that water is now a gross puck of jello and burnt crud that you can just compost after pouring off your pristine cooking oil that you can use all over again another half dozen fries. It doesn't just clean the particulates, the way the jello forms acts as a filter as the oil slowly separates. It will even kinda take the taste of fish out of oil.
Look it up so you do the right ratio and do it safely, there are a few tricks to it.
That a big bowl of cold water is the trick to prepping both chickpeas and pomegranates in two minutes or less.
Chickpeas: rub them vigorously between your hands in the cold water and all the skins will come off and float to the top and can be poured off, leaving you with a bowl of peeled chickpeas.
Pomegranates: a circle scored around the crown and a couple of thin lines scored all the way around the fruit will allow you to rip it into 3-4 pieces. Hold the pieces underwater and scrape the arils free with your fingers. Any pith will float to the top and can be poured off, leaving you with a bowl of pomegranate arils.
I'm assuming OP is talking about chickpeas that were raw, unprocessed and soaked overnight then needing to be peeled, otherwise any chickpeas you buy are typically canned/jarred and already processed and ready to use once you've drained the liquid.
Probably the biggest "why haven't I known this all along" was a kitchen scale. What is one large potato? How many ounces in a cup of grated cheese? So, the secret to biscuits is *weighing* the flour? How do I know when I have one pound of diced chicken?
When I was learning, I was told to measure when baking, but to be creative when cooking. However, now that I've been doing both for 25+years, I can be creative with both. I measure cups, but I never use teaspoons or tablespoons. And I only stay strict to a recipe if I made it myself, anything I find online I need to meddle with.
Mustard is what is missing. Few savory foods can't be improved with mustard. Ramen, egg salad, grilled cheese, soup, grilled chicken, meatloaf, Mac and cheese, potato salad
I have been surprised at times. Another one is adding some chili pepper to non-hot dishes like New England clam chowder. Not enough to make it into a spicy dish. Just a hint adds - something. Makes it 'brighter' or whatever word. I lack the right words but I have taste compared and is true. Was taught this by a friend who used to own a restaurant.
I just discovered rolling out cookie dough on parchment paper before using cookie cutters. Total game changer
Shredding chicken in a kitchenaid mixer. Game changer and I can’t believe I didn’t know about it sooner.
You don't use the whisk attachment, you use the paddle. And yes, this works great for shredding cooked, boneless chicken for chicken salad, etc.
rinse rice, and let dairy stuff get room temperature before mixing.
ah, and the ice bath for hard-boiled eggs 🙂
Rinsing rice reduces the starch but it also reduces the arsenic. Rice naturally has more arsenic in it than some vegetables. Most of it is in the outer hull which is why for the same rice, brown rice has more than white since with white the outer hull is buffed off. Rinsing it before cooking removes some more. Some advice says to also cook it in excess water and drain off to remove even more but I don't care for my rice that way.
A roux could be made with others things then butter, bacon fat to my cheese sauces was stupidly mind opening
I’ve learned that brown sugar and/or all spice will cut the acidity in tomato based dishes. That’s been really helpful!
And a little bit of cinnamon in the coffee grounds when you’re making coffee will cut the acidity there as well! You won’t even taste the cinnamon if you don’t use too much, but I like the cinnamon taste, so I use about 1/4 tbs.
Sprinkling salt to garlic when chopping it helps the stickiness
Add iced water to eggs being whipped for omelets. I learned that reading a James Beard cookbook. It makes the egg thinner, but still strong enough. Also, use a good amount of butter in the pan first, wait till it is bubbling at the edges, then add the eggs, wait a minute, then add your fillings.
Precook garlic, onions, almost everything but cheese. Then add to omelette or just make veggie scramble, unless you want to eat something pretty and french with raw garlic and onion. Learned that in 70's
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I feel that 75% of this page could be substituted with "Use commercial kitchen practices."
Ya, but if you never worked in one, you gotta learn elsewhere
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Google 'Gordon Ramsay how to cut an onion.' It will change your life.
I feel that 75% of this page could be substituted with "Use commercial kitchen practices."
Ya, but if you never worked in one, you gotta learn elsewhere
Load More Replies... Google 'Gordon Ramsay how to cut an onion.' It will change your life.
