Cooking Tips
Look, I can give you all the recipes in the world, but if you're tripping over your own kitchen like it's an episode of Wipeout, none of it matters. Before you fire up a burner and start pretending you're on MasterChef, here are some tips that will actually make your life easier. These aren't revolutionary. They aren't going to get their own Netflix special. But they work, and that's more than I can say for most of the "advice" floating around the internet.
1. Get Everything Out Before You Start
This is called mise en place, which is French for "I'm not going to lose my mind mid-recipe." Get every single ingredient, tool, and pan you need out on the counter before you turn on the stove. Read the whole recipe first. Yes, the whole thing. I know reading is hard when there's food to be made, but trust me.
Because here's what happens when you don't: you're halfway through searing chicken and you realize the Italian seasoning is buried behind 47 spice jars you bought for that one recipe three years ago. Now the chicken is burning, the smoke alarm is screaming, the dog is barking, and you're elbow-deep in the spice cabinet whispering profanity. Don't be that person. Everything on the counter. Measured, prepped, and ready to go. Be the organized cook your mother always hoped you'd be.
2. Clean As You Go
I know, I know. You came here to cook, not to clean. But hear me out. There are always little pockets of downtime while you're cooking. The sauce is simmering. The water is boiling. The oven is preheating. You know what you shouldn't be doing during those moments? Standing there staring at your phone. You know what you should be doing? Cleaning.
Throw the trash away. Wipe down the counter. Rinse a pan. Load a few things into the dishwasher. Put ingredients back where they came from. It takes 30 seconds here and there, and by the time you're done cooking, your kitchen doesn't look like a crime scene. Future you will be grateful. Present you might grumble about it, but present you also thought it was a good idea to eat shredded cheese out of the bag at midnight, so we're not trusting present you's judgment.
3. Clear Out the Kitchen
If you are cooking, the kitchen is your domain. Everyone else? Out. Gone. Exiled. I don't care if your significant other "just needs to grab a water" or your kid "just wants to watch." They can watch from the doorway like a tourist at a zoo exhibit.
The kitchen is not a spectator sport. When you've got hot pans, boiling liquids, sharp knives, and a timer that's about to go off, the absolute last thing you need is someone standing right where you need to be. You can't stir the sauce when Uncle Jerry is blocking the stove telling you about his fantasy football team. You will burn something. You will spill something. And you will blame Jerry. Rightfully so. Clear the kitchen. Cook in peace. Serve the food. Then they can come back in and pretend they helped.
4. It Isn't As Easy As It Looks on TikTok
Let me save you some frustration right now: that 15-second cooking video you saw where someone made a four-course meal while dancing to a trending audio? That's not real. That's a production. They filmed that 47 times. They have professional lighting. They have someone off-camera doing the actual prep work. They edited out the part where they dropped the egg on the floor and their smoke alarm went off twice.
Real cooking is messy. Real cooking takes longer than 15 seconds. Real cooking involves reading a step three times because you forgot what you just read. And that's fine. Don't compare your Wednesday night dinner to someone's carefully curated content. They're not better than you. They just have better editing software. Give yourself grace, make the food, and if it doesn't look like the video, who cares? It probably tastes better anyway because you didn't have to pause and adjust the ring light between each step.
5. Make It Your Own
Here's a secret that food bloggers don't want you to know: recipes are suggestions. Shocking, I know. You are the chef in your kitchen. You're the one eating the food. If you want to add more garlic, add more garlic. If you hate cilantro (and you're right to), leave it out. If you think it needs more heat, throw in another pepper. Nobody is going to arrest you for going off-script.
I didn't invent Piccata sauce, but I made my own version of it. That's how cooking works. You start with someone else's recipe, you make it a few times, and eventually you start tweaking things until it becomes yours. Here's my pro tip: print out the recipe and write your modifications directly on it. "Added more lemon." "Used half the capers." "Doubled the wine because it was that kind of day." This entire site started from a folder of printed recipes covered in sauce stains and scribbled notes. You'll know which recipes are the keepers—they're the ones you can barely read anymore because they've been through the wars with you.
Now Get In There
That's it. That's the list. No, I'm not going to give you 97 tips so you can bookmark this page and never look at it again. Five tips. Five things that will genuinely make you a better, less stressed, more confident cook. Tape them to your fridge if you have to. Tattoo them on your forearm. I don't care how you remember them, just remember them.
Now stop reading and go make something. You've got this. And if you don't got this, you will after a few tries. That's how it works. Nobody was born knowing how to deglaze a pan. Well, maybe Julia Child was, but the rest of us had to learn. So go learn. Go burn something. Go make something incredible. Just cook it already.