10 Cooking tips that will help you become a better cook

My goals around the kitchen have always been to cook faster, smarter and better. The aim is to cook like a pro, to set up an efficient kitchen and to cook more healthfully. The kitchen is one of the places I spend the most time around the house and the more I stay in the kitchen the more I get accustomed to it. It comes with the constant practice for me to know my way around the kitchen. That is why I have decided to share this top 10 cooking tips that will help you in the kitchen.

Do I Need These Cooking Tips?

“No one knows it all” is a popular saying that also applies in cooking. Cooking is an everyday thing and everyone needs to be smart in and around the kitchen. Cooking tips are the things you need to know and understand when you want to commit yourself to cook in an easier and more enjoyable way.

Sometimes you can end up getting yourself worked up and you even get frustrated at the end of the whole cooking process. You might have been anticipating cooking a special meal and in the end, it all turns out to be a disaster. The truth is everyone faces this at one point or another, no one is perfect. Cooking is about creativity but that also comes with its struggle. 

Check out these cooking tips that will help you every time you need to cook. They just make life easier, better, and save time.  

READ ALSO: How To Cook Rice ( Long grain, Medium grain and Short grain)

1. Prep your ingredients before starting

You can prep some food items way before you even use them, you can do it days before you cook and store them. This helps to make cooking fast and easier. You will not even do much cleanup during cooking which is one of the things that makes cooking activities longer. There are some prepping you have to do during the cooking, however,  it will be less because you must have done the most tedious of the prepping before. You can invest in a good food storage container to store up prep veggies, meat, chicken, grains, or fish.

2. Have some basic kitchen tools

Tools like kitchen scissors, chopping board, freezer bags (Ziploc), paper towel, different cooking spoons, mixing bowls, food storage container, spice container, vegetable peeler, pots, pans, measuring cups, and spoons are some of the kitchen tools that can help to make cooking easy and fun. Many of these tools are inexpensive and are not scarce. They help to speed things up in the kitchen.

3. Be sure of the cooking procedure

Learn everything you need and get everything you need before starting. When you are confident of what you are doing around the kitchen, you move faster. it is not during cooking you are reading or checking what next to do. It is good you memorize the steps, ingredients, and the timing you are to use for the cooking before anything.  This will enable you to be fully ready and on time to pour in anything that is next after each ingredient. The cooking period will be smooth and the food will come out excellent.

4. Know your measurements

It is a wise investment to have measurement cups and spoons available in your kitchen. This will make you have a perfect meal preparation and when next you want to cook the exact meal, the taste will be the same and nothing different from the previous because there is no alteration in the number of ingredients used.

5. Don’t cook when you are extremely tired

Rest your mind first! Cooking when tired or when under pressure can turn out to be a disaster. Cooking needs to be done with energy and excitement. 

6. Place your spice/storage containers in an open and easily-accessible place

It is necessary to have a labelled spice container in the kitchen. You are to place all spices in the same place with different containers. Spices are very necessary for every meal and when they are well organized it makes work around the kitchen very fast and easy.

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7. Improvise any ingredient you don’t have

While cooking if you notice that an ingredient is missing especially minor ingredient, you can improvise it immediately with what is available. For example, you need vegetable oil for your cooking and you noticed the oil in the bottle has finished, you can use butter if that is available. Once you have the major ingredients for a meal every other minor ingredient can be changed and you will still get the same result or even a better result.

8. Have a meal plan: Plan yourself ahead

You can have a weekly meal plan at the end of the previous week to make things easy. This can even make you shop for everything at a go. No need to be going back and forth to the market just to have a meal prepared. It will also help you know what to prepare earlier before cooking.

9. Always use a sharp cooking knife and scissors

Cutting is a thing you cannot avoid in cooking. Making use of a dull knife and scissors during cooking wastes time in the kitchen. It’s good to have knife sets or get chef knife sets that come in different shapes and sizes. Even if there is a dull knife or scissors you can easily replace it and sharpen the dull one later before the next cooking.

10. Wash the storage containers, the tools, and equipment as you use them

Wash anything used immediately during cooking time so that once you are done cooking there will be no need to stay back in the kitchen or even pile up the used containers for long. Cleaning immediately makes the washing easier and faster because once left for a long time the ingredients will be dried on them making it difficult to wash and it will also make you ready on time for your next cooking or prepping. 

Hope you find these tips useful? Is there any cooking tip you feel I should have added for a hitch-free life in the kitchen, you can share it in the comment section?