Cooking is a skill that many of us take for granted, but it's something that requires practice and attention to detail. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced chef, there's always room for improvement. That's probably why a recent Reddit thread asking users to share common cooking mistakes and how to avoid them was so popular.
A few days ago, a person who goes by the nickname DrippyHip365 on the platform made a post saying, "What is something that a lot of people typically make wrong or badly?" and people immediately started offering helpful cooking hacks, tips, and tricks for all kinds of specific foods. Now, the thread serves as a great resource for anyone looking to avoid pitfalls and take their kitchen skills to the next level. Bon appétit!
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Not people, but companies over roast their espresso beans. It's supposed to be light to medium roast, and multi-origin, because espresso can extract the complex flavour. Meanwhile every single espresso roast I've seem has been basically charred. Yes, espresso is dark and strong, but it's the method of brewing the coffee that's supposed to do that, and not the coffee beans.
Scrambled eggs. Most people/breakfast places in my experience cook them quickly in a hot pan, leaving you with big chunks of overcooked egg that taste nasty. You gotta do it low and slow while stirring constantly, with lots of butter and no milk.
This is definitely a preference thing, not a "one proper way" thing.
Mushrooms. Just plain old, white-button mushrooms.
A few years ago someone posted a video, maybe here, maybe in another sub, that opened my eyes. Cook them until all the liquid is boiled away (takes about 10 minutes if they're sliced) *then* add seasoning.
Even people who say they hate mushrooms love them cooked this way, because they taste like whatever you season them with and have a firm, chewy consistency.
Gravy
Most people lack the courage to make it from scratch and instant gravy is just awful and lacking most of what makes a gravy good.
Salmon, every salmon I’ve had at someone’s home has been cooked to oblivion and is dry and stringy.
If all the oil has escaped onto the dish, you may as well grab a tissue, sop it up, and then eat the tissue. It'll probably taste better.
Risotto. Everyone always serves it too tight/stiff/dry. Loosen it up with some more stock before serving so it is like rice coated in a thick emulsified sauce and settles flat on the plate. It's so often instead served as a standing mound of too-dry greasy rice because the moisture content got too low and the emulsion broke
There's a bunch of things I think a lot of very competent professional and home chefs make, not badly or wrong, but with excessive effort because of a lot of received wisdom. Many of these some of the better known food modernists have written many column inches on, but the message doesnt filter through.
Just as a single example, polenta, my god. If I see one more recipe that insists it must be drizzled in a thin stream into boiling water whilst constantly whisking for 40 minutes until cooked I'm going to start writing letters to the editor like a cranky red faced reactionary boomer
Oh yes! And my favourite pet peeve is roux. People behave as if a roux is as complicated as alchemy. But it's really so simple. A piece of butter, a flat tablespoon of flour, low heat. Let it fry slowly. Then let it sit on the very low heat and add your liquid, be it milk or broth or roast dripping, little by little and stir until the liquid is fully incorporated every time. Wait till the liquid is hot and everything is smooth before adding more liquid. As soon as the whole thing has the consistency of hot pudding, you can add as much liquid as you want until your desired consistency is reached. It will give you a perfectly smooth roux every time with no lumps. The lumps only form if you add too much liquid all at once and don't let it come together smoothly before you add more.
As someone who grew up near New Orleans…
Gumbo.
Proper gumbo has its roots in displaced Acadian and slave food. If you try to get fancy with it, you’ll ruin it. Gumbo (like most prized dishes today) was invented to make protein stretch. It’s how you get one chicken to serve 20 people.
Make a roux. Toss in trinity (and okra). Pour in stock, and put your protein in there. Let it slow cook for a few hours. Serve over rice.
That’s pretty much it. Season to taste, but don’t go crazy. I simply salt mine and let it be.
I’ve seen gumbo recipes with 50 ingredients (cough Emeril cough). That’s not gumbo.
Margaritas. F**k any margarita that doesn’t use fresh limes.
People over cook fish all the time. That’s why a lot of people say they don’t like fish because they’ve never been served properly cooked piece
Or they don't like pulling out all the clear bones that end up in a fish dish. I like fish, but prefer to buy boneless if possible!
Grilling and serving a steak. Do not constantly flip it or rotate it. Make sure you have a solid heat source and place on the grill. Only rotate it once for diamond marks and flip only once. Every time I see someone noodle around with a steak on a grill I die inside. Also, you have to let it rest unless you want a juice soup on the plate.
Read a book on cooking steak that has food science behind it. There are different cuts that have different proportions of connective tissue, fat and the myoglobin containing muscle tissue, each of which demand different approaches. Grain fed or grass fed? Fresh or dry aged? Bone in or bone out? Raw or marinated? Every time I see some generic pontification about how you’re supposed to cook steak, I just roll my eyes. Learn the science, not the folklore. D1205E3B-1...4-jpeg.jpg 
Meatloaf has an incredible upper ceiling but I feel like it's primarily associated with people who are bad at cooking. It can be so rich and tender and silky and complex. To most people though it's just depression-era food, or a weeknight staple akin to mom's famous boiled brussel sprouts. You can make it so juicy and packed with flavor but the world is sadly filled with dry drab bland meatloafs.
EDIT: Folks try adding some gochujang to your brown sugar ketchup glaze
Adding gochujang is solid advice every time! I sometimes use gochugaru instead of red pepper flakes too, and while not traditional, for the overwhelming majority of the dishes I make, it is excellent.
I find that a lot of people overcook their omelettes/scrambled eggs/fried eggs.
Some people just prefer their eggs more cooked, nothing wrong with that.
Max and cheese. You need to start with a roux and then add milk to it, add cheese and melt it into a sauce. Then you stir in the noodles. I’ve seen people just pour milk and cheese over pasta. Also don’t use preshredded cheese since it does not melt as easily due to an anti-caking agent they put on it.
What in the Cinnamon Toast f*ck is "cheese powder?
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You're all doing it wrong. To make Mac and Cheese is super simple. 1) spend 3 hours drinking cheap beer. 2) stumble into the pantry, dust off the blue box in the back. 3) find the thumb hole in the side, break off a nail trying to get it open, say screw it and just use your teeth. 4) dump the contents in to luke warm stove water while it waits to boil. 5) remember the foil packet and fish it out with a fork while slightly burning your fingers. 6) bring it to a boil and forget about it while your drinking another beer. 7) rediscover the pot of soggy noodles when it starts to smell funny. 8) add an indiscrete amount of butter, oil, milk or nothing depending oh what's closest 9) add contents of "cheese" packet, careful not to inhale dust fumes 10) salt and pepper to taste 11) take one bite, question life, throw in trash and order a pizza. 12) Enjoy! Seriously, it's like this generation doesn't even know how to cook.
No no no - cook the pasta al dente separately, and then make the cheese sauce (roux). Pop in an ovenproff dish, pour over sauce. Pop some more grated cheese (preferably English cheddar) on the top and maybe sliced cherry tomatoes and oven till top is bubbling. Don't cook the pasta in the roux.You will end up with a solid starch lump from both the pasta and the flour in the roux.
English Cheedar, or Irish cheddar (both are very sharp) and add some Gruyere. Gives depth.
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I thought macaroni cheese was made with pasta? Not noodles? Literally macaroni pasta. Who's putting noodles in?!
I've had too many people serve me Mac and Glue, lol! I also find that a bit of freshly grated parmesan really enhances the flavor of it.
Disagree. I came upon an easy peasy instant pot recipe that is incredible. Boil pasta in the instant pot with water and butter salt and pepper, then keep the water in and add cheese, milk/cream and stir, done. Whole thing takes about 10 minutes.
John Thorne's recipe is the ultimate mac and cheese IMO. It uses beaten egg as the binding agent rather than a roux. I make it with 3/4lb of freshly-grated sharp cheddar and 1/4lb of good quality American, like Boar's Head. Cheddar for the flavor, American for the melt. https://completerecipes.com/john-thornes-macaroni-and-cheese.html
I always use Martha Stewart’s “Max” and Cheese recipe. Never fails to impress. I’ve had many people tell me it’s the best they’ve ever had. I do tweak it and use scoobi-do pasta, add some Parmesan to the cheese mixture and make more bread topping.
My dad makes a delicious baked mac with shredded triple cheddar. Never had a problem melting.
Ohhh noooo. Try Patty Labelles' mac and cheese recipe!! Oh my word is it delicious!!! I only changed the seasoning and added white pepper, Lowery's season salt, mustard powder, garlic and onion powder. It is rich, but darned wonderful! No roux no flour anywhere in sight. This will now be my go to mac and cheese recipe from now on. Wow!!!!
yes eating max and cheese does not taste good, can confirm.
I know I'm in the minority, but I just don't like homemade mac n cheese. I'm a cheese fiend, but I can't stand it. Give me Velveeta Shells n Cheese any day. Especially with bacon bits in it.
I like to bake mine. That’s the really fancy way. I don’t use dairy cheese or cows milk though.
anyone eating that c**p from a box is out of their damn minds when it's easy to make.
Not browning onions for a curry slowly & properly. It should feel like you’re about to burn them.
Pot roast. It’s not supposed to be dry and stringy and minimally seasoned.
I feel like a lot of fried food isn’t cooked right. I want the crispy fried food not the soggy burnt kind
Shepard's Pie.
Everyone I know(including me at times) makes it with ground beef but that's wrong. It needs to be ground LAMB to be a proper Shepard's pie.
Apparently pork. Discovered last christmas that the minimum cooking temp that has been advised for a long time is actually wrong and results in dry, leathery meat. Had someone mention that wasn't needed, looked it up online and followed the recipe as intended. Who knew I actually did like pork tenderloin? Apparently 135°F is about the goal, not 180°F.
for those that do not speak or understand american, 135°F is about 57°C, and 180°F is about 82°C
Cookies. I have to restrain myself on cookie forums. The mistakes people make give me a twitchy eye and angry typing fingers, lol. Using butter substitutes and not understanding instructions like creamed and softened. Mix until incorporated does not mean beat the ever living life out of it. Then coming to a forum to ask what went wrong. What went wrong is you didn't follow the instructions! Baking cookies is simple but also technical. You have to know the terms and why you're doing them.
And people who refuse to add the PINCH of salt called for by the recipe because "Why would I add salt, I'm not making savoury cookies" or "salt is bad for you".
One of the worst that too many people make wrong... hamburgers. Look, they're supposed to be tender grinds of beef, not cooked to 400 degrees, left to cool to be used as drink coasters or table shims. Same thing goes with almost all ground meats. Ground beef is NOT supposed to be crunchy.
Fried plantains.
For green ones, first of all you have the people who don’t cook them enough on first fry. It’s the same concept as French fries. You are cooking through on the first fry and crisping on the second. If you do not let them cook enough they will break when smashed and come out greasy. The second thing is people smash them too much and they’re too thin. You want them thick enough that you have a fluffy interior to contrast the crisp exterior.
And now for sweet plantains, which are almost more egregious. One, plantains are often not ripe enough. They need to be streaked with black rather than bright yellow. Two, they’re cut into these huge hunks that give you tons of mushy innards that don’t get any exposure. The best fried plantains are made with thinly sliced planks about 1/4 inch thick. These have tons of surface area which caramelizes and you get these really crispy caramelized sugar edges. Three, they need to be cooked at moderate heat so that the sugar really caramelizes. Too high and they brown without that happening. Four, you need to go fairly dark to really take advantage of caramelization. Not burnt, but a slight bitterness gives complexity. Five, you don’t need a lot of oil to do this. Shallow fry is best! You could deep fry, but they’re fragile and would likely stick to each other tossed in oil.
Restaurants deep fry in a fryer where other items are fried. The heat is too high, they brown quickly, and often they’re not cooked on the inside since they’re thick hunks.
Lots of Latin restaurants serve terrible fried plantains. Pio Pio for example serves absolutely awful ones.
Bad homemade tostones tend to suffer from the sin of not cooking enough on first fry.
Browning meat. Most people over crowd the pan and grey the meat by boiling it in the meat water. The pink disappears and they think it’s done.
It’s cooked, but you get much more flavor from browning it. You can add less meat to the pan or wait for the water to boil off and the leftover fat will brown it.
"Meat water" is what happens when 70/30 or 80/20 ground beef if used. It's the drippings.
Eggplant seems to be something that can easily go bad for people when cooking.
New York bagels. People look for instructions online, which are either way off (most common), or they're in the ballpark but fail to emphasize the key points of how they're really made.
Whenever I go to restaurants, a huge pet peeve of mine is when people fiddle with a Cuban sandwich. Everyone is trying to add stuff like micro greens, chipotle aioli, pulled pork etc. it’s a simple, perfect sandwich people, you don’t need to mess with it.
A ton of cafes don't make a proper cappuccino
Agreed. What they call "cappuccino" is actually a too hot caffellatte with a bit of foam. Starbucks, Costa, etc... None of them gets it right.
Pad Thai. I've tried it from at least 6 different restaurants in different cities in Canada, and every single place has just ruined it.
I don't know why, but they all make Pad Thai with what I am 95% sure is Ketchup.
Over use of tamarind is the culprit for too sweet pad thai. But that was also a result of trying to cater to western palates.
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Almost half of these are just "I don't like it this way so other people shouldn't make it like that" again :/
For the vast majority of dishes there is no right way to make them. You make it how you like it. One person’s grandma may have the “definitive” bolognese recipe, but the woman next door claims hers is better. Recipes evolve over time to suit tastes and available ingredients. I wish people would quit worrying about whether it’s authentic and just cook what they like to eat.
I always read these posts hoping to pick up something actually useful. Unfortunately most of the time it's "do it my way or you're an uncouth peasant." I'll cook it my way and ignore the cooking snobs .
If you want to make proper humus, do not use olive oil when, but ice water when you ground the garbanzo beans. It is a widely common mistake that you need to put tons of olive oil it. You only use a bit of olive oil on top of it when you serve the humus. I got this trick from a documentary about Jerusalem. They visited the best place in town to eat Humus and the cool revealed his "trick" using ice water. Another cooking mistake is that you need to put cream into Risotto, do not to this. If you have a good type of risotto rice, you will only need, butter, wine, bouillon (always use warm bouillon to pour), onions, a bit of lemon juice, real Parmesan cheese and Time. Take it slow and it will turn out the best.
I know now never to order pasta or salads at restaurants. I can make far better at home with my middling skills.
I know a restaurant where they have penne Arrabiata with chicken. Kids loved it, but it's only in that restaurant and it's an hour by train. Now I found Vincenzo's plate on youtube and copied him. Kids love it.
Load More Replies... Almost half of these are just "I don't like it this way so other people shouldn't make it like that" again :/
For the vast majority of dishes there is no right way to make them. You make it how you like it. One person’s grandma may have the “definitive” bolognese recipe, but the woman next door claims hers is better. Recipes evolve over time to suit tastes and available ingredients. I wish people would quit worrying about whether it’s authentic and just cook what they like to eat.
I always read these posts hoping to pick up something actually useful. Unfortunately most of the time it's "do it my way or you're an uncouth peasant." I'll cook it my way and ignore the cooking snobs .
If you want to make proper humus, do not use olive oil when, but ice water when you ground the garbanzo beans. It is a widely common mistake that you need to put tons of olive oil it. You only use a bit of olive oil on top of it when you serve the humus. I got this trick from a documentary about Jerusalem. They visited the best place in town to eat Humus and the cool revealed his "trick" using ice water. Another cooking mistake is that you need to put cream into Risotto, do not to this. If you have a good type of risotto rice, you will only need, butter, wine, bouillon (always use warm bouillon to pour), onions, a bit of lemon juice, real Parmesan cheese and Time. Take it slow and it will turn out the best.
I know now never to order pasta or salads at restaurants. I can make far better at home with my middling skills.
I know a restaurant where they have penne Arrabiata with chicken. Kids loved it, but it's only in that restaurant and it's an hour by train. Now I found Vincenzo's plate on youtube and copied him. Kids love it.
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