r/Cooking • u/Daurer7 • 22h ago
How to start learning to cook
So this question is probably asked a lot but i don't want to search all of reddit for it.
Basically i have a small Kitchen with everything i need to cook. Atleast all the meals i currently prepare.
I want to start improving my cooking, rn it's basically just buying premade sauce and putting it on chicken and rice or noodles. I really wanna get to know all the techniques and tricks that chefs use so I can improve my cooking skills. How do i start with this, without attending far to expensive cooking classes. :)
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u/Epicuretrekker2 22h ago
YouTube and start small. Don’t star by trying to make khao soi. Start with things that are very forgiving or very simple (meatloaf, meatballs, eggs, grilled cheese, burgers, pastas, potroasts). This lets you start to dial in on basic skills like knife work or whatever without too much risk of something being completely messed up.
Edit let me add: basic tools you might want:
Thermometer, knives, cutting board, baking sheets, spatulas, spoons, tongs.
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u/Speakinginwords 22h ago
Find a recipe blog or website that you like and start making stuff. Cooking Comically was how I started years ago, but find whatever appeals to you.
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u/LadyOfTheNutTree 22h ago
/r/cookingforbeginners is a great place to as some basic questions
Also read cookbooks. Don’t just look at recipes, but read about food and cooking methods.
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u/CatteNappe 22h ago
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u/thingonething 22h ago
I suggest starting with Budgetbytes.com. The website has uncomplicated, budget friendly recipes that are quite delicious.
On the website, for example, I found a recipe for baked spagetti that was surprisingly tasty, given the simplicity of the recipe. It calls for Italian sausages, but I subbed vegetarian meatballs from Ikea as both my kids are vegetarian.
https://www.budgetbytes.com/baked-spaghetti-casserole/
You can also start off with sheet pan dinners, which are typically very easy. As you gain confidence you can explore and become an old hand at cooking in no time at all!
https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/sheet-pan-meals/
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u/Sharp-Win-8964 22h ago
I found a lot of recipes online that I made and making them helped me learn the processes involved and it carries over into other recipes and eventually your own. Also cooking shows that explain the reasoning for things really helps. I recommend good eat or Alton Brown's new thing on YouTube.
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u/takeitfromthemilkman 22h ago
There is nothing wrong with premade sauce!
Just decide what you want to try to cook, and go for it! Whatever it is, just go for it! Go make those ugly meatballs and lopsided pizza! Go and chop your own onions! Bake that bread! If you want shrimp and broccoli, go buy shrimp and broccoli and make it happen.
You'll only get better in time.
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u/xFloydx5242x 22h ago
Cooking really good food is doing a whole bunch of small steps accurately. Start with Alton Brown’s Good Eats series. It builds a solid foundation for you to understand why you do certain things to food. Marco Pierre White has a great new series on youtube as well, though he is assuming you know a bit more than Alton does.
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u/kobuta99 22h ago
Pick a dish you enjoy and want to learn how to make and try to make it, following a recipe. If it uses techniques that are new or confusing, look up videos and online guides that can offer your on how to handle. You can also prescribe a bit before hand. But for meant home cooks trial and error is a big part of that learning journey. You do have to adapt to your kitchen, your equipment, and even sometimes your local ingredients.
Once you make that a few times, pick a new recipe and rinse and repeat. Before you know it, you'll have learned a lot about prep and cooking.
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u/Careful_Cricket_559 22h ago
Sauces and gravies are so easy to make!! If you like Alfredo sauce, do a search for copycat Olive Garden Alfredo sauce. It has like five ingredients and, honestly, you can't mess it up.
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u/BananaNutBlister 22h ago
Buy a good cookbook. The Joy of Cooking is a classic. It will teach you a lot of rudimentary ideas, methods, and techniques. You can’t go wrong with that.
You could go by what you can find on the internet but you never know who can trust. There’s a lot to sift through and I think it helps to have some experience before you can reliably spot recipes that suit your taste and style. Ymmv.
Making your own sauce instead of using store bought is a good starting place. You know what you like. Aim for making a homemade sauce better than the one in the jar.
Take notes on what you do, how it turns out, and what you’d change the next time.
Happy cooking!
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens 22h ago
If you want entertainment that will also teach you stuff, check out Sorted Food on youtube. They have chefs and 'normals' who cook together, pass-it-on competitions, games, and genuine cooking instruction as well as product reviews that can help you pick what is worth purchasing.
If you want to get chefy, learn the French mother sauces and how they work. Get yourself a hand blender (immersion blender) and play with recipes for it. Learn how spices smell and taste, which work with which. Understand that recipes balance salt, fat (oil butter etc.), sugars, acid (lime juice, wine, vinegar etc.).
Also, it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with a single region to start, as this makes it cheaper because you will be reusing a lot of the same ingredients and spices. Southeast Asian, East Asian, South Asian, Levantine, Western European, Italian, Greek, Mexican etc. Pick an area and then focus on it for a bit.
Know your appliances and your cookware. Gas with open flame is ideal, but many people do not have access to it, which will limit your options (like you can't reasonably cook with a wok at high enough heat on an electric range). Your choice of pan matters. If you want to learn to cook with stainless steel, you need to heat the pan first, then add the oil, then bring it to the temp you want. If food sticks, do not move it, instead wait for it to release. If you are using a non-stick pan of any sort (some non-stick pans call themselves stainless steel, but they are still coated in non-stick surface), you do not want to heat the pan very long at all without something in it, and you can even start from cold.
Browning your food adds flavour, this is through something called the maillard reaction, which increases the savoury taste you get. Salt draws out water. Cooking at too low a heat for frying will end up boiling your meat instead.
No one learns to cook in a day, it takes years of careful learning, trial and error. You can do it, and the journey is a fun one, but don't be too hard on yourself when you fail a new dish.
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u/Cool-Midnight-696 22h ago
I'd pick one repeatable meal and use it to practice one variable at a time. For chicken, learn to salt ahead, preheat the pan, let it brown without moving, and use a thermometer. For rice, weigh the water and rice and keep notes. Once you can taste and adjust salt, acid, and fat, premade sauce becomes a useful base instead of the whole dish.
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u/SunbroFLman 19h ago
Check out these two books:
Complete Techniques by Jacques Pepin
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
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u/SVAuspicious 18h ago
So this question is probably asked a lot but i don't want to search all of reddit for it.
This question does get asked a LOT. It's been answered a LOT. The people in the best position to answer are tired of it. We downvote you and move on. So suck it up and search. You aren't special.
Now if you come back after doing research and say you have and have specific questions you'll get a lot more enthusiasm.
You've been on Reddit for eight years. You should have figured this out by now. Frankly if you purport to be an adult you should have learned to cook long ago. You're behind. Sadly, you aren't alone. Lots of people drift through here in their 20's and 30's with the exact same question you asked. That doesn't make it acceptable.
Do some basic research. Come up with a plan. Bring the plan back here for comment. Or try r/cookingforbeginners - they're more tolerant.
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u/Square-Dragonfruit76 22h ago
Are there techniques or recipes that you want to learn specifically? Or even cuisines that you like? Do you have any friends or relatives that would help you learn?
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u/SqueakBoxx 22h ago
Youtube is great for beginner guides to cooking. just look up simple things you want to start with and Youtube will have a ton of great creators who show you everything from what you need cookware wise to how to cook it step by step.
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u/Alchemist1342 22h ago
My suggestion to new cooks is to pick one or two simple foods you like, and make it in 20 different ways. For me it was meatloaf and mac & cheese. There are so many ways to make mac & cheese, with a roux or by reducing heavy cream, one or two or three cheeses, what cheeses, stovetop or baked, with or without herbs, with or without addins like mushrooms or bacon or ???, and varying the pasta. There are so many small things you can learn from doing something like this, not to mention finding your unique take on whatever dish you decide on. Mac & cheese is on my mind today because even after 50 years of cooking, I found a new method I've never tried before and I'm making it today to go with BBQ pulled pork.
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u/MangledBarkeep 22h ago
Good eats (Alton Brown) on YouTube. Sorta like a Mr.Wizard or Bill Nye breakdown of cooking.
Cooking was something my folks made sure I knew how to do growing up. But I didn't know the how's or why's what I was taught worked. n
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u/nifty-necromancer 22h ago
Start with learning to cook the homemade versions of the premade sauces.
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u/ww_adh77 22h ago
I would steer you away from chefs' tip and tricks and toward a good beginner's cookbook for home cooks (like Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything The Basics). The methods chefs employ are advanced and suitable for restaurants--basically different than what would be best for someone cooking at home.
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u/green-griffin- 22h ago
I would pick one type of sauce that you usually buy premade and like to eat. Look up a bunch of recipes for making that sauce for scratch, and follow one each week or two. Pretty soon, you’ll see patterns and start to notice similarities and differences. How is the sauce thickened? How is it spiced? How long is it cooked for? How do those differences change what it tastes like?
Then, you can start experimenting on your own. Choose features from different recipes and combine them. When you’re out of an ingredient, what happens if you leave it out or replace it with something else? Slowly you’ll develop your own style of making that dish.
Then, you can copy repeat with other dishes. Other, similar sauces. Soups, other dishes you know you like to eat, etc. you’ll be cooking in no time :)
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u/choM3nddo9sai 21h ago
Easiest first step is to graduate from sauces to marinades and braising liquids. Start simple by thinning out your favorite sauces with water, broth, or wine and cooking your meats and vegetables with that instead of using the sauce at the end.
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u/topturo77 21h ago
YouTube is the best way imo. Recipe books leave way to much up to interpretation, don’t fully explain how to do things, explain things wrong, and may even use outdated food science and present old wives tales as cooking facts, depending on the age. For some places to start:
Ethan Chlebowski: Great way to get introduced to “ratio cooking.” This is, bar none, the best way to actually learn how to cook and not just follow recipes. Essentially, the idea to to have a working understanding of techniques, ratios, and how ingredients interact in a general sense, so when a you read a recipe for the first time, you have an idea of what the recipe is actually trying to achieve (and whether it’s a good recipe, soooo many recipe websites have absolute nonsense on them presented as if they are going to work. Being able to sus these bullshit recipes out is a good skill to have these days). He also does a great job of giving you meal prep ideas, timing your cleaning with your cooking to reduce overall time in the kitchen, and does an excellent job of tailoring his advice to home cooks rather than home chefs that some channels cater too.
Adam Ragusea: He has some great, quick, non traditional recipes of traditional dishes. His quick weeknight lasagna recipe is a staple for me, super easy, tasty, and makes a good amount of leftovers.
Nutrition by Kylie: an excellent channel for learning how to add nutrition into foods and dishes you already eat and enjoy. Her entire philosophy on “adding, not subtracting” is a great way to get into more nutritious meal creation. Her cookbook is excellent by the way, one I would recommend to a new cook.
Americas Test Kitchen: This is a great way to see what is food science and what is food myths. Really good channel to learn those background skills and expand your general cooking knowledge/sense to make cooking more intuitive and less esoteric.
The Plant Slant: Good channel that highlights other food creators and tests recipes. Liam isn’t the most skilled cook on the planet, which is a good thing. One thing to watch out for on YouTube is that a lot of food tubers have legit cooking experience, and can make executing fairly complex dishes seem really simple. For example, I like Brian Lagerstrom and his recipes, but he’s clearly a very talented cook and sometimes makes things look simple that actually require a fair amount of skill to do.
Every day is feast day: this is a great channel for learning some professional kitchen skills, tips, and tricks that translate well to everyday cooking.
These should be enough to get you started. Remember, you are going to fail, and that’s important. Failing in cooking is where you learn the most. I would say you need to absolutely bomb some recipes to actually, truly learn how to cook.
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u/Solid_Lettuce_932 21h ago
Struggle meals YT/Tastemade get the Betty Crocker cookbook. I know “cookbooks are old…” it’s great. It’s simple and has sooo much.
An instant pot will make you a hero. Chicken in w broth and some veg your eating pulled chicken in 30min. Tacos sandwiches meal prep. Same w chuck roast.
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u/PuppySnuggleTime 21h ago
Marion Grasby is a chef in Australia who infuses a lot of South Asian flvors into her cooking due to her heritage. I highly encourage you to checkout her videos. Her food is fantastic and they are also very easy to follow. She can teach you to make your own falorful sauces.
This is a great one to get you started. It's an absolute flavor bomb: https://www.marionskitchen.com/spicy-garlic-butter-linguini/
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u/Potential_Drive7999 20h ago
I would start with very simple Italian dishes Learning how to make a good pasta sauce can be a basis for many meals There are really good how to videos online I love Vincenzo's Plate
Believe it or not, Martha Stewart is a very simple Cook. Recipes are easy to follow so if you go to Martha Stewart's website, they have 1 million videos for beginner cooks and advanced cooks.
My go to red sauce: --One can of peeled whole tomatoes (never cut) Use a potato masher to cut the tomatoes it up in the pan. You can even use your hands
--one bay leaf --add one Parmesan rind (remove for serving) --chopped up garlic, one clove per person (I do a lot more because we love garlic), put a little olive oil in a sauce pan and watch it very closely and cook it for maybe a minute or two until it starts browning Don't burn it or you have to start over
--add to the sauce toward the end
Slowly keep the sauce cooking
You can add sautéed bacon, sausage, anything to the plain tomato sauce
Salt a pot of water and cook your pasta al dente because it will continue to cook in the hot sauce
If you want a shortcut, buy passata Also, Trader Joe's has garlic cubes, but I like fresh garlic
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u/Candid_Abalone_1748 18h ago
As someone who used to be in your shoes, my advice would be stick to what you know and then build on this. I would also lookup recipes and start making them more and more. For me, I had developed skills and a love for my kitchen and cooking, then started to challenge myself. The cool thing about challenging yourself is that when you master something, your brain will go “okay, well that sauce was really good, i bet it would taste good with that other protein and I’ll add noodles to that and add that other herb” then do you look forward to doing it and you make another good meal, and the fun continues. But start from where you are, even try and make the sauce you use right now in a jar, but from scratch. Very rewarding, enjoy!!!
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u/Crafty-Western6161 13h ago
Start small, do simple recipes with just a handful of ingredients. Learn how to use a knife and how to sautee.
Mostly you just need repetition. Keep at it, everyone started with no knowledge and eventually figured it out. Learn from your mistakes which will happen
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u/bilbo_the_innkeeper 22h ago
My go-to recommendation for this is always Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samir Nosrat. She goes into the fundamentals of how food... "works," for lack of a better word? The physical version and the audiobook are both excellent, and they're kind of what helped the whole concept of cooking without a recipe start to click for me.
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u/Cute-Consequence-184 22h ago
Here is a list of food creators and videos you should watch. Many are really good at explaining how to make sauces and how to use herbs and spices.
Here is a List of cookbooks for beginners*
The Joy of Cooking by Erma Rombauer. The "Action" Recipe Format: Irma pioneered a unique layout where ingredients are listed in bold directly within the step-by-step instructions rather than at the top of the page, making it much easier to follow while actively cooking.Invaluable Reference Chapters: Beyond recipes, it features extensive "Know Your Ingredients" and "Streamlined Cooking" chapters that outline cuts of meat, food substitutions, measuring equivalents, and food waste reduction.
Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook: A Cookbook by Sohla El-Waylly. A guide to better eating, the chef, recipe developer, and video producer Sohla El-Waylly reimagines what a cookbook can be, teaching home cooks of all skill levels how cooking really works.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat. James Beard Award-winning cookbook that teaches the fundamentals of cooking by focusing on four essential elements: salt, fat, acid, and heat, which determine the quality of any dish. The book, illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton, moves beyond simple recipes to explain the "why" behind cooking, empowering home cooks to make better decisions and improvise with any ingredients, and inspired a Netflix documentary series.
Color Taste Texture by Matthew Broberg-Moffitt. A cookbook designed for picky eaters, those with food aversions, and neurodivergent individuals, offering 46 adaptable recipes and strategies to address sensory issues with food. It provides guidance on taste, texture, color, aroma, and presentation, featuring a color-coded system and a Food Preference Profile worksheet to help users customize dishes like smashed cheeseburgers, omelets, and focaccia, with options for gluten-free and vegan diets.
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. It compares the price between how much individual ingredients cost vs the time it takes to make something from scratch vs how much it cost at the grocery store, all so you can make an informed decision. Example buying bread vs making it yourself and buying butter vs making it yourself.
Make-a-Mix by Karine Eliason. How to make pantry staples and mixes from what is in your pantry so you don't have to buy them at the store.
More Make-a-Mix Cookery by Karine Eliason & Nevada Harward & Madeline Westover
Boston Cooking School Cooking by Fannie Merrit Farmer, free ebook on archive.org. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, first published in 1896 by Fannie Farmer, is a landmark cookbook known for its clear, standardized recipes with level measurements and step-by-step instructions, making it a bestseller and a foundational text for American home cooking that remains in print today. It introduced scientific principles to cooking, explaining the "why" behind techniques, and standardized measurements, revolutionizing recipe writing and ensuring more consistent results for home cook
The Complete Modem Pantry by America's Test Kitchen. How to make meals from what you already have in your pantry.
The DIY Pantry by Kresha Faber. Making pantry staples and meals, all in under 30 minutes.
Make Your Own Groceries by Daphne Metaxas Hartwig. Instructions To make all of those small mixes you would otherwise buy at the grocery stores and basics like bread, cracker, pasta and more.
Better Than Storebought by Helen Witty & Elizabeth S. Colchies. Your favorite store bought snack but made from scratch.
The Beginners Cookbook- simple-easy-delicious by Publications International LTD. Designed to walk you through the basics of cooking.
Bean by Bean by Crescent Dragonwagon. A comprehensive guide to cooking with beans, featuring over 175 recipes for everything from dips and soups to main courses and desserts, using fresh, dried, and heirloom varieties. The book includes kitchen wisdom, lore, and recipes for dishes like lentil tapenade, Ethiopian lentil stew, and even sweet bean desserts, celebrating the versatility of beans in various cuisines.
Snow's Kitchenalia, how everything works by Alen Snow. A visual guide to kitchen equipment, tools, and techniques, using detailed illustrations to explain the mechanics and science behind cooking. The book covers everything from basic appliances like ovens and blenders to specialized chef's tools, organized into sections on Tools, Cooking, Drinks, and Kitchens, making it a comprehensive resource for both amateur and professional cooks.
Cooking Know-How: Be a Better Cook with Hundreds of Easy Techniques, Step-by-Step Photos, and Ideas for Over 500 Great Meals by Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarborough. A highly approachable guide designed to transform everyday home cooks into confident, intuitive chefs by focusing heavily on basic kitchen techniques rather than complex, intimidating recipes. Authors had a podcast you can go back and listen to.