You might not be a master chef, but it's important to always do your best when you're cooking anything. Many of us make mistakes in the kitchen—the good news is we're not alone in our struggle.
Here are some common kitchen mistakes that you can eliminate to level up your next at-home date night...
Cooking Frozen Meats
Cooking cut meats from a frozen state will NOT save you time in the long run. As a matter of fact, you're only guaranteeing that your food will be both over AND undercooked. In addition to that, you're putting yourself in danger by not allowing the meat to properly temper to give the cooking temperatures time to kill any bacteria that may have cultivated on it before it froze.
You're Not Reading the Recipe in Full
It's extremely important to read the ENTIRE recipe before you hop into attempting it. Sometimes, people don't necessarily make the best order of operations decisions in recipes. Sometimes you have to split the amounts of ingredients for different parts of the recipe. It's best to know what you're getting into before you dive in.
You're Using a Liquid Measuring Cup to Measure Dry Ingredients
If you have a pyrex liquid measuring cup, you shouldn't measure dry ingredients in it. You will not be able to do the "pack and level" trick, which is extremely important if you want to get your measurements as accurate as possible without weighing them.
Always Cook With Wine You Like
For some reason, the idea of using inexpensive wine to cook with has become the norm. In some people's eyes, if they're not drinking it, then what's the point of buying good wine? Well, it's still a key ingredient in the food you're cooking, and you should focus on good ingredients exclusively.
You Haven't Organized Your Fridge
You should know where everything is in your fridge, but you should also know where the coldest spots are. You might not want your produce to get as cold as your beers. Keep that in mind when figuring out what goes where in there.
You're Using Dried Herbs Instead of Fresh Herbs
For certain dishes, it is imperative to use fresh herbs. Think about a beautiful margarita pizza getting topped with dried, not fresh basil. It's just not the same. Dried herbs lose essential oils and they concentrate their flavors. In the end, it's basically like using a different ingredient altogether.
You're Putting Too Much Stuff in Your Fridge
You might know that you don't have to put eggs or butter in your fridge, but there is much more that you wouldn't want to put in there. Certain produce retains more nutritional benefits when it's not thrown in the fridge. Such as, broccoli, kale, brussles sprouts, avocado, and carrots. You just don't have to refrigerate those until they start to get a little old.
You're Only Seasoning At the End
If you want to make a truly delicious meal, you need to season each individual ingredient independently from the dish itself. Salt interacts differently with different types of food. So, when you consistently salt and learn how each ingredient cooks with the astringent, you can start understanding food chemistry a bit better.
You Don't Know Essential Knife Techniques
One of the most important parts of cooking is learning the essential basics that will follow you through your cooking career. Research "basic cutting techniques" and you'll learn how to cut absolutely anything.
You Need to Adjust the Amount of Liquid in Your Cook Pot
It's difficult to truly figure out exactly how much liquid you need to put in a cookpot when you're just starting to use one. Different recipes call for different textures. But, there is a certain exact amount of fluid that you must use in order to actually cook something without burning it. Do yourself a favor and figure out a few questions you might have before you get nuts making a recipe.
Following Directions EXACTLY
Listen, if you're cooking something for the first time that you don't feel confident about and you're following a recipe, follow that recipe. But, there will come a point in your cooking experience where you will have to make adjustments based on your own judgment. Use your eyes and your nose to make decisions while cooking.
Make Sure You Brown Your Meats First
When you place ingredients into an instant pot, crockpot, slow cooker, or whatever pressurized cooking device you like, it's important to recognize that the flavor that you put into it is the flavor that you are going to get out of it. Do not expect your chicken legs to come out browned and crispy. If anything, expect the opposite. You need to brown your meat before you place it in any slow or pressure cooker if you want that flavor in there.
You're Improperly Storing Your Knives
Placing your knives on a surface or in a drawer for storage is absolutely not a good decision for the longevity of your knives. If you're going to have nice tools in your kitchen, you need to take care of them. Get a magnet strip to store your knives on, it'll be the best thing that will happen to your kitchen.
Always Measure While Baking
Cooking is one of those beautiful art forms that people have to engage in at least once a day to live a happy, healthy life. Baking, on the other hand, does not function the same way. While you can simply throw ingredients in a pan without a second thought to make a palatable meal, one wrong step while baking anything can be a death sentence for the hours of work you spend slaving over your chocolate lava cakes. Buy a baking scale and follow recipes by the gram. You will thank us.
You're Overcooking Your Veggies
Keeping your veggies nice and crunchy through the cooking process both makes them tastier and keeps them more nutritionally dense. Start by just doing trial and error with your veggies. There is really no such thing as undercooking your common household vegetables.
Dry Your Veggies Before You Cook Them
Just like you should never eat a wet salad, you should always dry your veggies before you put them in a hot pan or oven. This is especially important if you're using veggies that soak up a lot of water like broccoli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and fragile leafy greens. If there is more water in the vegetable, you need to adjust your cooking time based on how you want your recipe to turn out.
You're Not Prepping Your Ingredients
It is an expert level move to prep all of your ingredients before you even start cooking. While this completely depends based on what recipe you're making, it's always best to focus on your "mise en place," which is what the real chefs do.
You Need to Spin Your Salad
A wet salad is a sad salad. That's a fact. It's great that you figured out that you're supposed to wash your greens before you eat them. It's even more important to recognize that they must be dried as well. Water does not impart flavor, and you should know that by now.
You're Getting Distracted
You need to stand in front of your stove as long as it's on. Even when there's something in the oven, you should be regularly checking it (through the looking-glass) to make sure that there's no funny business going down. If you made a mistake with temperature, it's best to catch it before it goes bad.
You're Cooking Meat Right Out of the Package
You don't want all of that sitting juice and blood to stick to your ingredients before you cook them. Do NOT ever wash meat, but softly dabbing it with a paper towel will make it pan ready. Get rid of the nasty liquid and dry the outside to build a crispy crust and proper flavor.
Using the Same Pan for Everything
You do not want to use a nonstick pan to cook a steak. Just like you don't want to use cast iron to cook tomatoes, the type of pan you decide to use is just as important as the food you put into it. Do a little research about your ingredients before you fire them and make an educated decision from then on.
You're Adding Oil to Your Pasta Water
Some people think that adding olive oil to your pasta water helps your pasta not stick. This is wrong. Even if your grandmother does it, this is just a waste of perfectly good olive oil. You do not need to put anything in a pasta pot except for salt and water.
You're Not Sharpening Your Knives
People need to know that you need to sharpen your knives in order to be a good cook. This is just something that people don't want to do for whatever reason. A sharp knife will make your cooking process much SAFER (believe it or not, sharp knives are statistically safer than dull knives) and more enjoyable. You'll start to take more pride in your cooking if your knives are sharp.
You're Not Letting Meat Rest
Some people pull beef (and other "steaklike" proteins) off of the pan and they immediately slice into it while the outside is still sizzling. This is a super "no-no" in the cooking world. That big juicy cut that you were so excited to eat is going to be strangely cooked, dry, and boring by the time it hits the table. Cutting meats too early will make the juices and fats run out of the finished product. Make sure you at least rest your meats for one or two minutes before you slice into them.
You Don't Know the Difference Between a Boil and a Simmer
A simmer may have a few bubbles. A boil will have a lot of bubbles that travel to the surface rapidly in a violent manner. You will know the difference if you google it. As a matter of fact, just look at this photo.
Don't Overmix Your Doughs
If you've started your journey into the alchemy of baking during quarantine, then you've probably run into either an overmixed or an undermixed dough. It's extremely difficult to reach a master level of dough consistency, but it's important to recognize what you're going to be looking for to determine whether you're improving or not. Based on the dough you're trying to make, you will be able to tell what your mistakes were based on feel and look alone. The internet is your best friend in the baking department.
You're Not Tasting Along the Way
Taste. Your. Food. At. Every. Stage. Of. Cooking. Make sure you get your seasoning right, your textures proper, and your heat spot on. The only way you will be able to tell that you're going to like the way something tastes is by tasting it.
You're Not Saving Your Pasta Water
Pasta water, to some, is murky, scary uncertainty juice that does not feel connected to food whatsoever. To chefs, however, pasta water is miraculous and delicious. It can act as a binder for all sauces, not just ones that go on pasta. The starch in pasta water is the reason this happens. The protein molecules in the starch bind with the fat molecules in most sauces, and it makes the sauces penetrate the pasta better than it would have if you didn't incorporate the pasta water.
You Haven't Built a Proper Kitchen Tool Collection
Let's face it. Better knives help you cut things better (better does not necessarily mean more expensive). It's a lot easier to mince ingredients on a larger, taller cutting board. You need tools to cook. You can wing it to a certain degree, but there's nothing that can replace a good cast iron pan, a chef's knife that you like, and a baking scale that you trust.
You're Not Preheating Your Pan
No matter what you're cooking, you should never put anything into a cold pan or onto a cold cooking surface. If you do not preheat your pan, you pretty much guarantee that you will overcook your food and you won't be able to establish the proper amount of flavor. Make sure that your pan is the temperature that you want it to be before you start cooking. This is an essential piece of the process that doesn't strike as many people as it should.
You're Not Saving Your Chicken Bones
When you cook a full chicken, wings, or anything else of the sort, you should be saving the bones. Each of those bones is loaded with collagen and flavor that can be extracted for soups and stocks down the line. If you really want to get the most out of your culinary endeavors, you need to start saving your bones.
You're Cooking Bacon on a Stovetop
Listen, we know that some people don't have ovens. If you absolutely have to cook bacon on your stovetop, low and slow is the way to go. But, bacon is so much better if you cook it in the oven at around 415, only flipping once.
You're Not Paying Attention to the Color of Your Meats
In order to tell whether a cut of meat is fresh, you need to go by smell and appearance. If a piece of meat is looking grey and smells a little nasty, chances are that it's spoiled. You do NOT want to eat spoiled meat.
You're Pouring Grease Down the Drain
If you pour grease down the drain, you can be contributing to a giant fat deposit in your community's sewer system. Instead of putting any type of fat down the drain, just save it in a heatproof container and throw it out when it cools.
Don't Throw Out Your Old Bread
Whenever you buy a nice loaf of bread, it's super important to use as much of it as you possibly can. So, when your bread goes stale, just try and turn it into croutons or breadcrumbs, The bread is still of extremely high quality, it's just a little dry.
You're Not Using a Splatter Screen
If you didn't know about this one, then you need to know now. Splatter screens are available everywhere, and they prevent oils and grease from getting sprayed all around your kitchen when you're cooking wet food at a high temperature. With one of these bad boys, you can pretty much mitigate needing to clean your range after every cast iron steak.
You're Not Using Different Cutting Boards
It might come as a no-brainer to you and me, but some people don't actually switch or clean cutting boards after cutting meat on it. Chicken is literally poison if you don't treat it right. You could end up in the hospital if you don't properly sanitize and separate raw ingredients.
You're Buying Pre-Shredded Cheese
Shredded cheese at the grocery store is very convenient, but a lot of the time they have to coat the cheese with starchy powders to prevent the cheese from sticking together and spoiling. It's always best to buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself if you can.
You're Cooking Bacon on High Heat
Woah! Slow down there, partner. There is absolutely no need to try and rush the bacon cooking process. If you try to get it as crispy as fast as possible, it won't render its fat properly and you'll have both burned and chewy bacon. Nobody wants that.
You're Washing Your Poultry
Julia Child was an advocate for rinsing poultry, but modern science has proven her way wrong. Washing chicken doesn't pull the bacteria off of it necessarily. However, it does 100% spread that bacteria all around your kitchen through little water droplets. DO NOT rinse your poultry.
You're Not Planning Your Meals
There are a few different schools of thought when it comes to grocery shopping. However, it is important to have some kind of plan when you go in. Whether you're trying out a new recipe or just picking up some staples, you should know what your week of meals looks like before you step foot into a store. Make a plan!
You're Throwing Away Your Herbs
Let's say that you purchased a bundle of parsley but you only used half of it for a recipe and let it sit in your fridge until it wilted. Instead of throwing it away, chop it up, throw it in an ice cube tray, and fill the empty space with olive oil. You can just pop one of those bad boys out whenever you need to add some freshness to a dish.
You're Using Too Much Coffee
Most people measure roughly one tablespoon per two cups of coffee. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the accuracy of your measurement does depend on the coffee that you're using. You should weigh your coffee on a kitchen scale and then decide how much of it that you're going to use. Or, just use trial and error until you figure out your perfect cup.
You're Scrambling Eggs on High Heat
Eggs are very delicate ingredients that should not be treated like many other edible substances. Cooking eggs on low heat with some healthy, tasty fat is the best way to go about it. That is, unless you're trying to get one of those crispy egg bottoms. In that case, fry in a neutral oil over medium heat until the bottom of your egg gets nice and golden brown.
You're Using Metal Tools in Nonstick Pans
When you scrape the bottom of a nonstick pan with a metal tool, the nonstick coating starts to come off into your food. This both renders the pan's purpose useless, and it can endanger the people you're feeding. Please be smart and only use wooden or heat-safe plastic tools in nonstick pans.
You're Whisking Your Eggs in the Pan
In order to make good scrambled eggs, you absolutely need to whisk your eggs to a full emulsion before you put them into your hot pan. Additionally, please only cook eggs over extremely low heat. These egg hacks will change your breakfast game, and we can guarantee that.
You're Not Cracking Your Eggs on a Flat Surface
In order to get the best, cleanest, and easiest cracked egg, you should avoid cracking it on the side of a bowl. When you crack an egg using a wedge type surface, you risk breaking the yolk and getting fragments of eggshell into the eggs themselves. Cracking eggs on a flat surface allows the eggshell to shatter naturally, without breaking the membrane.
You're Not Drying the Fat Off of Your Bacon
Alton Brown, one of the world's most popular kitchen science teachers, advises that you line your baking sheet with paper towels before placing uncooked bacon on them and placing it in the oven. Evidently, the paper towels will soak up most of the grease, helping your bacon cook faster and more evenly.
You're Cooking Your Rice Uncovered
If you're cooking your rice without a lid on, it won't get the appropriate amount of heat and steam to properly cook. Don't be a fool, cook rice with the lid on.
You're Cooking Pancakes Too Hot
Pancakes are one of those great mystery foods that nobody really knows if they're cooking them correctly. A good rule of thumb is to start at a low heat and bring it up from there. Your first pancake will never be perfect, but your second one can be.
You're Burning Your Olive Oil
You should never use expensive olive oil to cook something on high heat in a pan. The sugars and tannins in the oil will burn before you can even create a sear on whatever you're trying to cook. Do yourself a huge favor and just use a neutral oil if you're cooking on high heat.
You're Only Using Baking Trays for Pastries
There are literally dozens of different uses for muffin tins, loaf trays, bundt cake molds, and so on and so forth. You can make savory dishes, roast nuts, dry fruit, and keep individual ingredients warm unlike any other common kitchen tool.
You Aren't Basting Your Steak
Finishing your steak with hot fat, whether it's butter, beef fat, or oil, is basically necessary for creating an unforgettable meal. You can still eat steaks without basting them, but you'd be much happier if you did so.
You Need to Store Your Spices Appropriately
Some spices and herbs need different temperatures and environments to be stored in. For instance, you should put cut cilantro in the fridge, but keep fresh basil out at room temp. This will help you make the best of all of your flavors.
You're Pre-Grinding Your Coffee
One of the worst things that you can do to your bag of expensive coffee is grinding it at the grocery store and throwing it back in your bag. Invest in an inexpensive spice grinder, When you grind your coffee fresh, you allow the oils (aka the flavor) to stay in your coffee without getting damaged or evaporated.
You're Cooking Pizza All Wrong
Make sure that you preheat your baking surface before you put your pizza in the oven. This will guarantee a crispy bottom and a completely cooked top. Best case scenario, buy a pizza stone. It will set you free.
You're Spending Money on Ketchup
Making ketchup at home is extremely easy and, quite frankly, much better than anything you can get in the stores. Check out the Food Network's website for some guides on how to make your own red concoction today!
You Walk Away from Your Stove
Excluding crockpots, long simmered soups, and sometimes rice, you should always stand in front of your stove if it is on. A pot of water can quickly overboil while you're gone. This will get boiling water on the floor, possibly hurting you and anything/anyone else in your kitchen. That, and things can overcook in a heartbeat if you're not 100% attentive. Please stay focused for the duration that you're cooking.
You Aren't Tenderizing Your Meat
There are a few different ways to tenderize your meats. Lean meats, particularly lean poultry, need a little help because they don't have the same intramuscular fat that other fattier cuts do. By either marinating that meat in acid like lime juice (which breaks down the tissue over time) or pounding it out so it covers more surface area and breaks molecular bonds, you will make a much more enjoyable bite.
You Check on Your Food Too Often
Every time you open the oven, heat and pressure get released. Your oven then has to self-regulate once again to bring itself back up to temperature. Avoid opening your oven when you're cooking, just use the little window in the front.
You're Not Storing Your Onions Properly
You need to keep your onions and garlic far away from sunlight and any kind of moisture. It's important to keep them dry and cool so they don't develop any mold and they retain their flavor.
You're Not Using a Meat Thermometer
Cutting open a piece of meat to look inside of it is the absolute last thing that you want to do when it comes to determining whether it's ready or not. Get yourself a meat thermometer, and learn up on how/where to prod a cut to get an accurate read. Don't ruin your chicken by slicing off the breast while it's still raw.
You're Not Preheating Your Baking Pans
Just like how you should preheat your pan on the stove, there are multiple different cooking techniques that require you to preheat your baking pan. Always think before you just toss a sheet tray into the oven. Do you want something to brown faster but still cook evenly? Then you need to preheat your baking pan.
You're Avoiding Fresh Herbs
Curry powder, cayenne pepper, and garlic can be the star of a dish, but when you top that dish with a fresh herb, you ad a layer of delicacy, vibrance, and fiber for digestion. Fresh herbs are imperative if you want to start becoming a serious home cook, start your own garden or source from stores.
You're Flipping Meat Too Much
A good rule of thumb for cooking meat is to only flip it once. You want to establish as deep a sear as possible on either side. If you flip burgers or steaks too much, the inside will cook at the same rate as the outside, which will eventually overcook the meat before you can establish a nicely browned exterior.