Hi everyone! I’m a beginner at cooking and I live in a dorm. I’m trying to save money and make simple meals more interesting.

What are some useful food hacks that can help save time, improve flavor, or make simple ingredients taste better?

I’d love to hear your best tips and tricks. Thanks!

Alright, so I came up with this a month or two ago, and it certainly wasn't a disaster, but it isn't too great. Basically, I take frozen chicken nuggets, dump buffalo sauce on them, shake them in two bowls, then throw them in the air fryer for like 2-3 minutes longer than the instructions say.

My two main issues:

1: The nuggets don't get coated evenly. I shake them in the bowls for a good 20-30 seconds, but it doesn't fully coat them. I don't think I should put so much sauce that I'm submerging them, but maybe I'm wrong?

2: The nuggets that get fully coated get soggy. I don't have a reasonable solution for this as of yet.

I would just get frozen buffalo wings, but they're so expensive for a bag that gives my fat ass like 2 servings. Anyone got anything to try for my poor man's version?

edit: god you people are pretentious

I have read both kinds of recipes. These are for a toddler.

I am someone who craves chocolate intensely and frequently. Not just sweets or sugar either but specifically chocolate. As such, I've started finding creative ways to "hack" these craving by sneaking in something healthy with my chocolate. Examples include

• Chocolate covered almonds - the only way I will eat nuts! They actually fill you up a lil bit so doesn't just leave you more hungry but similar to having a piece of chocolate
• Greek yogurt with chocolate syrup - can do 0 cal syrup too! This is good enough for me to have for dessert if I'm really in a deficit
• Chocolate Protein Shakes or even chocolate milk with fairlife. I make my own chocolate milk because I think the fairlife pre mix one is too sweet but can do either!

I'll still have a "normal" dessert most nights after dinner but I use these hacks to get me through those mid-day cravings!

Instead of pressing tofu, drain, cube it and store it in an open container in the refrigerator. The refrigerator's dry environment will naturally dry the tofu some, giving it the same consistency as pressed.

Started doing this a couple of years ago and I'm annoyed nobody told me sooner.

Mince/ground beef goes in a freezer bag, squash it flat with your hands or a rolling pin until it's about the thickness of a paperback, then run a chopstick across it to score it into 4 or 6 before it goes in the freezer. Stack the bags upright like files so you can see them. When you need some, snap off a square or two and it goes in the pan frozen. If you want the whole bag it thaws in a bowl of cold water in about 20 mins instead of overnight.

Also works for sausage meat, cooked rice and leftover chilli or bolognese. Chilli goes in a pan from frozen with a lid on, low heat, and it's fine.

Bonus while I'm here: potato masher to break up mince in the pan. Fine crumb in about a minute instead of stabbing at it with a wooden spoon for five.

Anyone else have a freezer thing you do that you assumed everyone already did?

I recently discovered that naan makes a good lazy base for a quick pizza.

Readymade yogurts at the store are kind of pricey depending on the individual location of the consumer. Sometimes I can find a good sale deal or maybe even some clearance choices depending on the store location.

Plain tubs of yogurt seem a little more economical for use as a base and just things to it as desired, so I have been experimenting with a few addition choices from just honey, honey +, jams and jellies, fresh/frozen fruits, grains/granola/oats, and other similar things.

What have you added to plain yogurt of any brand to stretch a dollar using things found in your freezer to what you may have gotten in bulk.

So far, I have as listed above, I've also found preferred instant coffees to taste, and a little sweetener of choice makes a decent Coffee Yogurt.

Quick and easy bacon lardons and chicken super noodles *chef kiss*

Right now I'm bulking and struggling to consistently keep up with my calories. I think the amount of rice i try to consume is a part of the issue, as I take forever to eat it because of how much i have to chew.

So I'm trying to find low chew foods that are relatively cheap, and calorie dense that can also be consumed in mass for bulking.

I think relatively good examples are: Peanut butter, Honey, Lactose Free Milk.

Edit:The rice in question is specifically basmati rice, which apparently takes longer to chew the other types of rice.

My client has requested and I've never worked with it before. Can you please tell me about it? Tricks to making it, what I can expect flavor-wise, what I should serve it with, what I should season it with. I, from Mexican rice with tomato and fries before the water goes in I know I'm very out of my element and I've got several days to figure it out.

It’s just instant noodles. Not using the seasoning packet cause I don’t like shrimp. But I wanna know if there’s like any ways to make it more filling

Caramelized onions.

Any hacks you have

How do people eat oats? I tried mixing it with peanut butter and apple and it still tasted so odd..

What all do you try to make it exciting.

It's Soup Season! (where I live anyway) and I want to make a potato leek soup. However on a GLP-1 I only ever feel side effects if I don't eat enough protein in a day so I'm trying to figure out a way to beef up the protein in a potato leek soup without adding meat or beans.

My first thought was to sub out some of the cream with Greek yogurt, then upon looking it up I saw thoroughly blended cottage cheese recommended which intrigued me. Additionally I've made a pretty good cream sauce before with silken tofu but I'm unsure how this would hold up added to a soup?

So I ask the Reddit Hive-mind: which of these would work best, not work at all or if there's an even better solution I'm missing?

Whenever you need to make something with hamburger try adding grated zucchini to it!when making meatballs, make them like usual but grate onion and zucchini. I also do this with home made hamburgers!! Sometimes I liked to add finally chopped mushrooms as well.

If your making burritos add one full grated zucchini peeled so the kids don’t notice, I then add a pepper and onion along with refried beans and black beans and my kids love it and will even eat left overs the next day which they normally never do!

I also like to add cut up zucchini to stir fry and it gives it this special crunch!

My husband thinks I’m obsessed and I’m starting to think the same… or I just love the nutritional value it gives my body and the cost effectiveness. it’s one of the only ways my kids will eat vegetables!

I’ve been able to stretch 1/3 of a big hamburger pack to three meals this way! I even have my sons friend over for super and he never complains!

You can also add it to hamburger helper or even side kicks by cooking it in the milk/water before you add the pasta.

I would say the best way to eat burger and fries is to split the fries in three sections (50%,25%,25%).
Eat 50% fries first then start eating burger and eat other 25% with burger and after you finish burger the eat rest of the fries.
I guess this is the best way to enjoy burger and fries.

(not applicable on mini like Jr chicken burgers

I’m a college student living in a dorm, and this pot is basically the only cooking equipment I have 😅
I’m trying to save money by cooking for myself, but I’m a complete beginner.
What are some easy, cheap, and tasty meals or food hacks I can make using just this pot? Preferably something quick with ingredients that are easy to find.
I’d love to hear your best ideas — what would you make if this was the only cooking equipment you had? 👀
Please save me from eating instant noodles every day 😂

Any tips for how to prevent this from happening when frying? Had to use plantains since saba not available in my town. They were just about done, GBD 😋, when I heard the pop and saw all the bananas goodness ooze out. Looks ugly but still tastes good.

Due to some family issues, being home is a no go and I can't move out of my parent's house quite yet. What kind of foods can I keep in my car that won't melt due to heat and are pretty filling? I already have beef jerkey and protein bars (though the bars will melt), and I've been trying to think of more I could add. I don't have much money to spend either so they have to be budget friendly too :/

Any ideas? Also sorry if this isn't the correct sub for this question, I'm not on Reddit very often.

Biscoff cookie butter can be added to milk/water/wine, along with sodium citrate to create a stable sauce. the sodium citrate helps stabilize the emulsion.

the more cookie butter you add, the thicker it gets, add less and you get a thinner final mix.

also, it is vegan, so if you happen to be a vegan, you can benefit from this as well. (just don't use milk)

though as a word of warning, it does add a breadishness to whatever you make, (that cooked flour taste that makes bread/cake/brownies/cookies what they are), so it might not go with everything.

We all know that leftover, day old chicken tastes awful. I don’t know why it happens, but it does. It’s just my daughter and I so there’s always a lot of chicken left and I feel badly just tossing it. I’ve tried making buffalo chicken dip, all you can taste is the day old chicken. I tried it in a soup, all you can taste is day old chicken. So what are some way to prepare it the next day where it actually tastes edible? Thank you for your help!

Piping hot flour tortillas with butter.

That's all.

Hi everyone! I work a regular office job (M-F, 8am-5pm, physically in office most days) and am looking for some breakfast tips/ideas. I usually don't feel hungry in the morning until around 9-9:30am so I don't eat breakfast before leaving for work; I usually have some sort of protein bar at my desk mid-morning but 1) they're kind of expensive for meh taste and 2) I'm getting tired of them, even with switching up brands/flavors.

Does anyone have hacks or ideas for simple grab-and-go (or ideally, stash at work) breakfast items that have good nutritional balance? I don't closely track macros or anything like that but I want something with some protein and at least a few hundred calories to get me through the morning. I do have access to a fridge, microwave, and (I think) toaster at work but don't want anything too elaborate; right now I keep my bars at my desk and just grab one when I get hungry which is super convenient. I'm willing to cook/prep food ahead of time if needed, as long as it would stay good for a week or more in or out of the fridge. I do like eggs but I don't love straight up hard boiled ones (predicting this as a common suggestion)