Nikole Stewart
While many might say it’s simple, cooking can be pretty hard to figure out. Most recipes vary, and everyone has their own preferences to think about. But thankfully, there are many common cooking mistakes that you can easily avoid to make it that much more enjoyable.
7. Not Prepping Your Ingredients
It might seem boring to just chop, dice, and mix everything before cooking begins, but trust them when they say to prep your ingredients before you get started.
One of the most common cooking mistakes happens when something is already on the stove, and you’re behind on prep work. Your dish will usually feel chaotic, unorganized, and might even come out a little off. You can easily burn your protein, completely miss an ingredient, or even ruin the entire dish.
6. Not Pre-Heating Pans
Pre-heating your pan is a crucial step to making an amazing dish. It’s similar to preheating your oven. Throwing something in while it’s slowly coming to temperature usually causes your food to be undercooked and soggy. Doing the same thing to your pans can cause a lot of issues. Preheating your pan, for one thing, helps sear your ingredients, which especially gives your protein a delicious crust. Along with that, high temperatures help create a seal to prevent sticking.
5. Underseasoning
One of the hardest parts about learning to cook is figuring out your seasoning preferences. Some prefer a light seasoning to enjoy the natural ingredients, while others want to douse everything in garlic and onion powder. It’s hard to know what your preference is until you actually start cooking.
What you don’t want to do is underseason. That’ll make it feel as though you just wasted ingredients on something bland. Make sure you’re tasting your dish along the way, and when in doubt, add salt and pepper.
4. Using Too Many Ingredients
Unfortunately, more is not always better when it comes to dishes. And tossing too many ingredients into your pan to cook is not the way to go. Usually, for large families, you want a hearty protein, and then two or three sides. For most of us, a protein and one or two sides is the way to go.
To create the perfect dish, you want the star of the show, and then pick just a couple of things to go along with it. Don’t start dumping onions, mushrooms, chicken, shrimp, and beans into a pan.
3. Getting Impatient
Cooking, unfortunately, takes time. You can’t really whip something up within a couple of minutes unless it’s something microwaved, in a toaster oven, or even some ramen. If you’re making something more elaborate, you need patience.
For instance, you really should wait until the water is boiling, your pan is up to temperature, and so on. It’s hard to resist stirring and messing with your food, but you must try. Don’t touch your protein when cooking, unless you’re flipping it. Don’t fidget with your pancakes or burgers; just let them cook. And you don’t need to stir your rice.
2. Not Sharpening Knives
Knives are a chef’s best friend, so you must take care of them. Oddly enough, dull knives are way more dangerous than sharp ones. If your knife is dull, you’ll likely push down harder, which can result in a more unstable grip, which will likely end up hurting yourself even more. Sharpen your knives for a clean, easy slice and cut each time, that way you have more control and precision.
1. Overcooking Meat and Vegetables
We all do it. One of the most common cooking mistakes you can make is overcooking your food, especially your protein and vegetables. Meat, especially, is extremely hard to nail down. For vegetables, you usually want a bit of crunch, like in your broccoli, asparagus, and fresh green beans.
For meat, you want a little bit of juice, and for the best bite, some pink as well in red meat. For chicken, it can be hard to tell when it’s done since you want no pink, but definitely juice. It’s important to get a thermometer to read the inside temperature so you can pull and let them rest at the perfect moment.