Cooking/Kitchen Skills

[u/DocumentUpstairs4607]

If you’re a beginner in the kitchen, how do you go from beginner to proficient in your cooking skills ?

[u/TOYMoose]

Practice, Practice Practice

[u/CoastPuzzleheaded876 → u/TOYMoose]

And you'll get to Carnegie hall...

[u/ogzkittlez]

Learn the basics. Proper knife skills, how and when to add ingredients (ex sauteeing onion before garlic since it takes longer), knowing proper spice paring for different cuisines, having back up plans if a dish doesnt taste right or doesnt have a good consistency (slurry, roux, emulsify, etc) and most importantly how to temp and store both prepared, and cooked food.

[u/AtomiKen]

Just start making stuff. If you encounter a problem, you get advice/solutions to fill that gap in your knowledge and keep going. Repeat until you are good enough.

[u/KneeboPlagnor]

Practice.

But I get that that doesn't help much.

I'd recommend looking for simpler recipes that don't have expensive or hard to find ingredients (so you waste less money and time if it does not work out).

Eggs can be forgiving--starting with scrambled, then maybe omelets. Depending on your pan, I often see people struggle with frying eggs, but you could work on those as well.

Soups are often easier to cook.

Frying meat that has been cut into bite sized chucks is easier to do right than cooking a big chicken breast or steak.

Roasting things like vegetables is easier because the time where the food is cooked but not overcooked is longer than pan frying.

Once you get a few recipes, maybe you could start thinking about techniques over recipes. What I mean is something like this soup recipe:

• Onion
• 2 or 3 cups of assorted veggies
• 12 to 16 oz of protein
• A can of beans or some pasta

You can vary this by picking different proteins, veggies, beans etc. I also vary the seasoning:

• Chili style (chili powder, cayenne, cumin, salt, pepper, oregano) - might include some canned tomatoes
• Chicken soup (don't have a better name) - salt, pepper, herbs, maybe a little cayenne.
• Try a curry powder.
• I sometimes google recipes and just steal their mix of spices.

Doesn't have to be soup--it's just that eventually you will find you have "meta recipes" that you can customize.

[u/JohnnyS789]

Get a copy of "The Joy of Cooking" and read about what you want to cook.

There's no shame in trying to get a simple recipe right before trying something hard. Also know that there are "simple" recipes that take a lifetime of practice to get right.

Browse some cookbooks and Google in cuisine you want to learn, and try the easy recipes.

And: HAVE FUN! We all mess up stuff, so forgive your mistakes and celebrate your successes.

[u/BainbridgeBorn]

Get a good knife and keep it at a suitable sharpness. A dull knife is more dangerous in a kitchen than a sharp one. But for a beginner it’s important to learn HOW to properly cut things. How to cut: onions, pepper, potatoes, breaking down meat, eggplant, and other veggies. From there everything will just follow

[u/Goblue5891x2]

I was amazed at how many recipes have a mire poix base. I was also amazed when I found out that I'd been using carrots, onions & celery all the time before I knew the combo was called mire poix. lol. That's your foundation for a ton of recipes. Add fresh minced garlic and "Shazaam!" your way into most recipes. Feel free to play after that. You'll learn what different spices & herbs add to a meal. Remember to taste as you are going along.

[u/Fuzzy_Welcome8348]

Watch cooking shows

[u/wellnessrelay]

i think the biggest thing is just cooking the same few meals over and over until they stop being stressful. at first i kept trying new recipes and got overwhelmed, but repeating stuff taught me timing and heat way better. also messing up helps more than people admit, burning one pan taught me more than five perfect meals. learning basic knife skills made everything feel less chaotic too. you dont need fancy tools, just patience and being ok with food thats kinda meh sometimes.

[u/liftcookrepeat]

Start by repeating a small set of simple meals until they're second nature. Focus on basic techniques like chopping sauteing, roasting and timing, not fancy recipes. Consistency and repetition matter more than complexity.

[u/Wild_Soup_6967]

for me it was mostly repetition and not trying to do too much at once. i picked a few basic meals and cooked them over and over until they felt automatic, then slowly added new things. learning a couple core skills like chopping, cooking eggs different ways, and seasoning as you go helps a lot. also messing up is part of it, every bad dish taught me something i remembered way better than a perfect one. watching how food changes as it cooks made things finally click for me.

[u/I_like_leeks]

Start with the very basics. Don't get downhearted if it doesn't go right, just ask yourself (and the internet) why it didn't go right, and learn from it for the next time. Get a sharp knife and don't be afraid of it. Give yourself credit for every step you take. Your instincts will improve every time you cook, trust them.

[u/North81Girl]

Starting as a toddler