How do I learn to cook properly as an adult?
A route into cooking that builds transferable technique rather than a collection of recipes.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 1 hr
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Learn a small number of techniques rather than a long list of recipes, and cook the same handful of dishes repeatedly until they need no thought. Five or six reliable meals plus the ability to season properly covers most of everyday cooking.
Cooking is taught as recipes and learned as technique. Someone who can soften an onion, season to taste, and judge when something is cooked can improvise; someone with fifty recipes and none of those skills cannot cook without instructions.
What you'll need
- A sharp knife
- A heavy pan
- Chopping board
- Digital scales (optional)
- Meat thermometer (optional)
Step by step
- Learn to season properly first.Salt, acid and fat. It is the single skill that most affects whether food tastes good, and it applies to everything.
- Learn to soften an onion slowly without browning it.It is the base of an enormous number of dishes and it is where most people rush.
- Pick five or six dishes and cook them repeatedly.Repetition builds the judgement that recipes cannot convey. Variety comes later.
- Learn one technique at a time rather than one recipe at a time.Roasting, frying, braising, boiling. Each transfers across dozens of ingredients.
- Taste constantly while cooking.Not just at the end. It is how you learn what each stage should taste like, which is what lets you improvise later.
- Buy a sharp knife and learn to use it safely.It affects speed, safety and enjoyment more than any other piece of equipment.
- Read the whole recipe before starting.It catches resting times, chilling steps and equipment you do not have, which is where most failures begin.
- Cook things that go wrong and work out why.The diagnosis is the learning. A dish that fails and is understood teaches more than three that work by luck.
Tips
- Cooking the same dish weekly for a month teaches more than cooking four different dishes once each.
- Most disappointing home cooking is under-seasoned rather than badly cooked. Salt and acid are the first things to check.
- Batch cooking builds confidence quickly because the repetition happens within a single session.
Common mistakes
- Collecting recipes rather than practising technique — Recipes tell you what to do once. Technique lets you cook without them.
- Cooking something different every night — There is no repetition, so no judgement develops. Repeating a few dishes builds skill far faster.
- Not tasting during cooking — It is the feedback loop. Without it you cannot learn what each stage should be like.
Questions people ask
What should I learn to cook first?
Seasoning, and how to soften an onion properly. Between them they underpin an enormous proportion of everyday cooking, and both are usually rushed.
How many recipes do I need?
Five or six that you can make without thinking covers most of everyday cooking. Depth in a few beats breadth across many, because the technique transfers.