8 Life-Changing Tips For The Beginner Home Cook

Over the past two years, I’ve gone from not being able to cook a meal to creating a successful business teaching other people how to cook at home. Here’s 8 important things you need to know as a beginner home cook:

Don’t run before you can walk. There is absolutely no point trying to make complicated meals before you can make the basics. You should be starting with scrambled eggs & pasta meals, not fancy dishes with many different components.

Be prepared to get it wrong, a lot. You will likely make many meals that just aren’t great. They’ll be burnt and flavourless, your sauces will split, you’ll add way too much salt, and your steak will be well done. It happens. Eat it anyway.

Practice the same meal many times. I did this with carbonara at the start. It taught me the important of temperature control, salt, ingredient quality, and so many other things. It also tastes good even if you get it wrong and make scrambled eggs.

Eat whatever you make, within reason. Unless it’s so bad it’ll kill you, you should eat all the meals you make. It’ll encourage you to get it right next time, and you’ll be able to focus exactly on the things that went wrong taste-wise rather than just dumping it.

Good equipment is an absolutely worthwhile investment. A good stainless or carbon steel pan, a good chefs knife & whetstone, wooden spoon, rubber spatula, and a Microplane will save you so much time and misery. You can also get all of this for less than a three course meal.

Don’t worry too much about second opinions on your meals, at least at the start. People won’t focus as much on what your food tastes like as you would. It’ll likely either be “good” or “not great”. You’ll know the nuances & your progress better than they would.

Find good teachers! Don’t waste time buying Jamie Oliver cookbooks or anything like that. Watch videos: J Kenji Lopez-Alt, Adam Ragusea, & Ethan Chlebowski are great free resources to watch to build knowledge, techniques, and, importantly, passion.

And lastly, don’t be afraid of being wrong. The Dunning-Kruger effect is real. I look back on what I thought were great meals/techniques a year ago and I couldn’t eat them now. You’ll continuously get better. Only compare yourself to your past self.

If you’d like to learn the basics on how to become a great home cook, including a dozen recipes to practice with, check out my Home Cooking Guide!

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