Family,  Food,  Healthy Living,  Meal Prep,  New Year,  self-care

Improving Your Cooking? Here are Some Kitchen Skills to Learn This Year

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Creating amazing flavors and treats in the kitchen is something that everyone loves to do. But what happens when you find out that you’re ready to try something new?

It’s a New Year. Why not challenge your culinary skills more than you ever have before? Below, you’ll find a great list of cooking skills you can learn this year to change how you think about cooking.

Not only does this mean that you’ll enhance your flavors and recipes, but you’ll also be challenging yourself to try new dishes too. If you have family and friends who love to eat, use them as your “test subjects” to try out some of your new dishes!

Read below to find out how to enhance your cooking skills and enhance the variety of your meals.

​​New Cooking Skills for This Year

When learning to cook, most people think that frying, baking, and using their Instant Pot are all they really need to know. But that just isn’t the truth!

Adding a variety of cooking skills to your knowledge base is a great way to make a plethora of dishes taste different every time.

Baking homemade bread

baking bread

Buying bread from the store is indeed easier, but this means that you’re missing out on tasting some of the best flavors on the planet. There is nothing quite like a loaf of homemade bread, warm and fresh from the oven.

Just be prepared because after you make one homemade loaf of bread, everyone in the house will beg for more! This is also the perfect time to pass along this valuable cooking skill to younger members of your family so they can carry on the baking tradition.

How to cook a perfect steak

grilling steak

There are a few tips to keep in mind when cooking the perfect steak. The first and probably most important tip to understand is that you need to get a good cut of meat.

A cut of prime steak will give you good marbling with tender meat. After getting a great cut of meat, the next step will be to figure out exactly how you would like your steak to be cooked.

There are options for rare to well-done, all of which require different cooking times for each one. Grilling steaks isn’t overly challenging to do, but time management truly is everything when cooking a steak perfectly.

Once you get the time down on how long to cook the steak for your liking, don’t forget to allow it to rest for a few minutes after pulling it off the heat. This gives the juices in the steak time to release back into the meat, creating a perfectly juicy and tender bite every time.

Grilling Meats, Vegetables – And Pizza!

cooking skills

Using your grill for more than just hamburgers is the key to expanding your skills. Did you know that grilling vegetables is a great way to get your kids to want to eat vegetables? There’s just something so delicious about having veggies that are cooked to perfection over the charcoal on the grill.

You can also cook more than just beef on your grill too. Grilling chicken, pork, and even your next Thanksgiving turkey are all fun ways to get new flavors into your meal planning rotation.

The other shocker about your BBQ grill is that it’s equipped and ready to handle cooking a homemade pizza as well. You’re going to be amazed by how perfectly crisp the pizza’s crust will be just by making it on your grill instead of in the oven.

Flavoring foods based upon taste

Have you ever watched the cooking shows on TV where the chef is always taking a tiny bite or sip of the recipe they’re making and then adding in a spice immediately after? This is a cooking skill that everyone should strive for!

What this skill does is that it shows that you’re in touch with the flavors that you’re hoping to make and know what to alter after just one taste. Practice makes perfect, so get to sampling.

Converting measurements

cooking skills measuring cup

Following recipes are great, but recipes only can be followed if they’re exactly what you’re looking for. Converting measurements to make a smaller or larger batch is vital in executing recipes well.

Why miss out on a recipe that you love just because you don’t know what to change to be able to make it into a larger or a smaller quantity?

Making a cheat sheet for conversions is totally fine, too! This is what many cooks do, and then they hang it up on their fridge to refer to later when they need it.

Cutting skills

cooking skills cutting board

It’s no secret that plenty of knives are used in the kitchen, but do you know how to use them correctly? Specific knives are meant for certain types of food and cutting styles, so bump this up on your priority list to learn.

The sooner that you can learn how to use knives correctly while prepping and cooking, the faster your entire cooking process will go. This also means that you should figure out the proper placement for knives in your kitchen area to be efficient at the same time.

Meal prepping for the week

meal prep

Many families will meal plan ahead of time so that everyone knows what to expect for lunch and dinner, but you can take it even further than that.

Many recipes will call for fruits and veggies to be washed, chopped, and/or peeled, and this is one step that can be done ahead of time to save you actual cooking time later down the road.

To meal-prep effectively, you need to do all the preparation ahead of time, so that when you’re ready to make the recipe, you just have to add in the ingredients and start cooking.

Conclusion

This is a starter list to get you cooking better and faster in your kitchen. From here, keep expanding your knowledge and make more complicated dishes. Your taste buds, family and friends will love you for it.




Loving Life — The Reboot!

Dominique

Improving Your Cooking? Here are Some Kitchen Skills to Learn This Year

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