People Who Cook For A Living Are Sharing Their Simple Hacks To Become A Better Chef

Even if you've been cooking your entire life, there's always something new you can be learning in the kitchen. And if you're just starting out, there are also tons of little tips that can massively improve your craft. So here are some tips home cooks can use to improve their skills, according to pro chefs.

1. "Depending on the dish, leave it alone. A lot of people move what they are cooking way too often. You will have a hard time getting that nice caramelization if you keep touching it."

—u/Woden8

2. "Knowing when to add salt is key. Generally speaking, adding salt during cooking produces much more robust flavors than just adding salt at the very end. When making soups, sauces, or cooking vegetables, each thing that hits the pan should get seasoned as it hits the pan, and you should be tasting things at every step in the process for proper seasoning, not just at the very end..."

"......Some ingredients can lose their integrity if salted too far in advance, though, like lettuces and leafy greens. Salting fish too far in advance can also be problematic. The salt pulls moisture out of the protein and that moisture can make it hard to get a crisp sear on the fish without overcooking it."

—u/Samuelgato

3. "Get your prep done before you need it. Mise en place is the term we use (or 'mise' for short). It's best never to scramble to finish dicing up that vegetable or to get that next thing ready to go in the pan. Get some small bowls or pick up some insert pans from a restaurant auction. Prep all your ingredients in advance, and set them up and ready to go when needed. When I need diced onion for a dish, I'm not trying to dice up an onion right then. I reach into my diced onion container and grab it."

—u/SuperDuper125

4. "Learn the science of cooking. Understanding the basic science of what's happening will help you immensely. For example, you'll learn why you shouldn't overcrowd the pan (Maillard reaction); deglazing, emulsifying pasta, etc, will help you across many dishes, not just one recipe."

—u/m4milly

5. "Most home cooks (and even some restaurant dishes) are under-seasoned. Sometimes, all you need are salt and pepper, but most people don't use enough — salt especially. It shouldn't taste SALTY, but just shy of it."

—u/iamtehryan

6. "Few bland dishes can't be improved by adding more salt, sugar, and/or butter. And those that can't be improved will likely benefit from a splash of citrus juice or a good vinegar.

—u/angelicism

7. "Using poor quality knives or knives that are not sharpened is a mistake. A good knife makes prep go ten times faster. Plus, food looks better if your cuts are nice."

—u/nococonuts

8. "Read cookbooks. The biggest thing, IMO, is experience. You make chili, and then you make curry later. You start thinking about what cumin and garlic do. You make gumbo, then you make cioppino. You notice how they're similar and how they're different. One day, you set out to make your favorite dish, but you're out of one ingredient and either substitute or simply omit it. Either way, you learn something. Eventually, you notice that (a) you're making delicious food and (b) you have your style."

—u/Grillard

9. "I would say home cooks don't use their senses as much as possible. I can hear when something is about to burn. I can smell it when something is properly caramelized. The nice thing about home cooking is that you can take the time to smell, taste, hear, and feel what they are cooking. So do it."

—u/Modified3

10. "Taste as you go. Home cooks don't taste their food as it's cooking when they can do something about it. This is the number one shortcut to greatness. Learn to taste. It doesn't do any good to taste if you can't identify the right action. So, taste food as you're making it before you add the salt, so you know what lack of salt tastes like. Taste before adding acid so you know what that tastes like."

—u/severoon

11. "A lot of times, I've noticed that people mistake a lack of acid for a lack of salt! A little acid can go a long way in tying together a dish.

—u/bacon_treras95

12. "Quality and seasonality of ingredients comes first. Buying a tomato from a supermarket out of season will taste bland and dull compared to a local farmer at peak season."

—u/deleted

13. "When a recipe calls for you to let something 'sit' or 'rest', do not rush this step. Good things happen to the food in that downtime."

—u/canada_is_best_

14. "Don't be afraid of high heat. Lots of vegetables, for example, taste great with a short amount of high heat instead of a longer amount of lower heat."

—u/coww98

15. "Olive oil is a condiment and is terrible to fry with. Use vegetable oil or any other 'neutral' oil; it has a higher flashpoint and is pretty much flavorless."

—u/MeMuzzta

16. "The amount of garlic flavor depends on when you add the garlic. Add it early for light flavor, add it late for bold flavor."

—u/Orbnotacus

17. "People often buy food globally (out of season), in addition to highly processed ingredients, and then they wonder why their dishes are so boring and lifeless. If it NEEDS sriracha, change the dish, then use sriracha to compliment it."

—u/Tehlaserw0lf

18. "Preheat your pans! Putting cold food into a cold pan isn't going to help anything. By preheating, you can check your cooking surface temperature and more easily regulate your heat, especially on those damned electric stoves. This one step can make a HUGE difference between caramelized and burnt onions."

—u/chaun2

19. "Soy sauce goes on more than Asian foods. Try a dash in scrambled eggs or towards the end of your caramelized onions. It is a savory salt flavor that compliments many dishes."

—u/-B-H-

Do you have something to add? Whether or not you are a professional chef, what is a cooking tip or trick that can make a big difference in the quality of your food? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.