How To Improve Your Cooking Skills

Whether you’re planning on hosting a dinner party or simply want to become a more confident home cook, there are plenty of ways you can improve your cooking skills - leaving you feeling like a pro chef in no time. 

Cooking abilities, like any skill, take time to develop. While you may have a natural aptitude for this, the more you practice - the better you’ll become. As a result, the most important thing to remember when working to become a better cook is that it may take time to achieve your goals - but it will all be worth it in the end.

With that in mind, here are some simple ways to improve your cooking skills! 

Don’t be afraid of failure.

We’ve all faced culinary disasters in our lifetime - whether you’ve burnt something to a crisp or added the wrong seasoning to a dish. However, instead of shying away from these mistakes, view them as a fun learning opportunity. Failure plays a crucial role in our growth - and you’re sure to laugh about it in the future. 

Make your own seasonings. 

The difference between a mouth-watering dish and an unbelievably bland one lies in the seasoning - which means that one of the easiest ways to become a better cook is to learn about the art of seasoning. For example, you should learn with herbs and spices blend well together and which should be kept apart. You may also want to consider making your own seasoning blends for your favorite dishes. For example, if you’re a fan of Indian cuisine, you may want to make your own garam masala.

Watch tutorials.

Watching cooking tutorials (or cooking shows) is another excellent way to become a more competent cook, as it provides you with a more visual form of guidance than you’d get from a written recipe. As a result, you are less likely to make mistakes and may find it easier to follow complex recipes. Furthemore, the knowledge you acquire in this method is more likely to stick as “video-based learning is better than text because it improves retention, recall, and memory.” 

Try one new recipe a week.

While you may already have a few tried-and-tested recipes that you rely on, cooking the same dishes on rotation will not make you a better cook. After all, it means you’re using the same techniques and flavor combinations over and over again, as opposed to trying out something new. As such, you should set yourself the challenge of trying out one new recipe a week. This way, you’re mixing things up.

Sign up for cooking classes.

Signing up for local cooking classes is another great way to develop better cooking skills - especially as you’ll be doing so under the guidance of an experienced chef. For example, you may want to sign up for general cooking classes or something more specialized and based on a specific cuisine. Either way, the skills you developed here are sure to come in handy when you return to your own kitchen.