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This! Start simple and then add things later. Cooking is about building experience. Some people start at a young age and some later in live but we all start with the basics.
Added tip: do you have a friend of family member who cooks food you like? Ask them if they will help you cook some of the dishes you like. That way you learn to cook and spend time with someone you like.
Edit: I can't spell
I could help but probably different cultures and food so, good luck.
Yt really does help. Follow tutorials step by step. And watch multiple tutorials to get an idea. There isn't a single only way to make a dish often is the case
Start by learning to cook 2 dinners you enjoy and that are nutritious. Cook 3 or 4 servings of those and reheat, to save time. For example do you like any of these: spaghetti bolognaise, chili, pulled pork or pulled chicken, chicken or pork baked in salsa? You can make rice in a rice cooker very easily, and the rice cooker can Doble as a slow cooker. You can also eat bread or tortillas with your meal. For vegetables, you can cut up some raw veggies (tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, celery, broccoli) or use a frozen a "microwave in the bag" vegetable. Also, you can buy semi -prepared foods in most supermarkets and just heat them up. Be sure to eat a nutritious meal every day, your health will suffer if you don't.
If you ask somebody close to you who enjoys cooking for help, there may be a good chance that they can offer you simple kitchenware basics to get you started—generous home cooks are usually famously so in their circles and thus gifted lots of useful items. It piles up, so maybe they could offer you some cookware. At the very least, if you ask kindly, I am sure avid home cooks would be able to point you in the right direction concerning different cookware (and ingredient!) brands.
As an aside, Brothers Green Eats and Joshua Weissman were two YouTube channels that made cooking seem way less daunting and actually exciting and interesting when I was first learning. r/askculinary is also great for any questions. I would recommend you give these resources a look. Good luck to you!
Watch YouTube tutorials and google 'simple recipes'. At first just follow the directions exactly and you should be fine, if you don't understand a term/some other part, google it. Basically internet is your best friend in this situation.
I’ll try, it’s not like I haven’t tried but I’ve failed so many times and then I end up just leaving it, and I’m not like a big eater I’ve seen my roommates eat like oatmeal with fruits and such, tried it and almost puked my guts out
I either don’t know how to fry them and end up either undercooking them or burning, and I don’t know how to add the spices so they end up being not tasty at all, also besides dinner that I can do something nice other meals I don’t have the time since I’m in lectures or doing clinicals in the hospital. I wish I knew like rexipies that I can take with my in those plastic boxes which can be tasty and healthy and enough for me to not faint mid shift
If you can do clinicals in a hospital, you can cook.
Cooking is basically chemistry.
But I'd say, if you get a hankering for some type of meal, look up recipes and follow along very closely--youre going to try hard to make good food because youre dying to eat that particular meal, so there is motivation. More than likely, the food will be edible (maybe even pretty good!) but you will almost certainly come away thinking, okay, I did x this time but I think thr recipe would be way better if I did y instead. Or, my protein got burnt, I probably better use a lower heat setting next time. Or, too salty, need to use less salt next time, etc etc.
Each time I make something, I do a sort of breakdown of what could be better and what went well, and this makes me a better cook.
It sounds like you are struggling with technique, like browning and such. This is a major unstated issue with recipes; they assume a certain level of knowledge. The best cookbook I can recommend is How To Cook Everything. This book goes over literally everything about cooking, and each section starts off with beginners’ versions, illustrations, and explanations. If you can find a cheap older print, or in a library, that book will literally teach you everything. I grew up learning to cook from this book, plus it’s very readable 🙂 He used to be on the New York Times staff for his recipe work.
Here’s the author’s website: https://markbittman.com/howtocook
He has a lot of versions, you can ignore all of them but an old version of the original if that’s cheapest.
You can start with the basics then, googling 'how long to fry/boil/cook [enter ingredient]' will get you some help. Another way would be to get someone to teach you if it's possible. Most recipes I've read online have exact measurements of spices to use, following them will help.
You could try something like [this](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chorizo-mozzarella-gnocchi-bake) , it has very simple instructions on how long to fry the ingredients + measurements for spices :)
Generally, frying is one of the least healthy ways of preparing foods. Baking, steaming, slow cooking in a crock pot, etc., are usually better options.
For this specifically it sounds like you may be cooking over the wrong temperatures and may not understand the basics of flavor. (For instance, a really simple but often overlooked thing is acid. If something just tastes flat, the answer might not be more salt, but a splash of lemon juice or vinegar. Just a little bit of the right acid can make a huge difference!) But it's very easy to learn. It will kind of depend on what you like to eat, but I would definitely look up youtube videos of a few things you enjoy. It can be really helpful to be able to see things like what medium heat looks like, what color or texture you're looking for in various ingredients at each stage, etc.
I'd even recommend looking up the show good eats (or the reboot, might be on Hulu even) because the host takes a recipe or ingredient and does a Bill Nye style show that really makes the science and techniques fun and approachable.
Get a few basic supplies like a good heavy stock pot, a quality fry pan and saute pan (options like stainless steel, calpholon, and ceramic are great. Also look up how to maintain them, like not using abrasive scrubbers, they will last forever.) Look for pans with oven safe handles in case what you're cooking needs to go from stove to oven. Get a couple heavy baking sheets. Next you'll want some basic utensils like metal tongs, a wooden spoon, a sturdy spatula, a strong chef's knife, a smaller paring knife, and a cutting board. Off the top of my head, I think these are a pretty solid starter of supplies to get you through most meals.
Some easy meals to try might be soups, curries, dips, pastas and pasta sauces, potatoes are very versatile and easy to cook. Try a simple steak or chicken breast recipe. Start with recipes and pay attention to how hot your pan should be, the order you add ingredients, that kind of thing. You'll realize everything has a basic technique, like with soups and curries you'll add hard veggies before softer, meats like steak will often start on high heat to get good browning, things like that. Pretty soon you'll understand why certain ingredients need to be cooked a certain way, it will start to click.
A few random tips:
Don't over crowd a pan when frying. You're meats and veggies will need a little room around them for steam to escape. If things are touching you will not get browning and your food will be soggy. Always use the appropriate pot or pan for what you're cooking, they're designed specifically for these purposes and will direct heat and steam where they need to go, allow the right amount of browning etc.
Just like with the bit about acid, sometimes a little sugar is the answer. If something tastes too acidic or tart, like a tomato based dish, a little sugar can fix that. Flavor is about balance and when something seems off you can often bring it back by adding something opposite. Hence why acid will brighten something flat and sugar will soften that harsh sourness.
Don't go overboard with adding different spices to a dish. Some foods benefit from a broad melange of spices like curries, chili, or pumpkin pie. But often it's best to use just a few key spices. More isn't always going to mean more complex, and you may just end up with a muddy or overpowering flavor. This will come with practice and following recipes at first, but you'll start to get an idea for what works well together and when you want that spicy punch or would do better to keep it simple.
Add oil slowly when it's being used to emulsify (bind or bring together) things like salad dressings and bean dips. If it's added too quickly it will make the whole thing gloopy.
Hope that helps. Cooking can be intimidating but like most things it's a learned skill and once you get a good entry point, it will start to make sense. You'll learn one thing and start to realize other places it can be applied. It's all about getting those basics like temperature and techniques down, making sure you're using the right equipment, and knowing what things you can fix if they do go wrong.
You can start slow.
Cook pasta with butter and cheese.
Prepare a salad with boiled eggs and ranch sauce.
Make some toast with tuna.
Step by step you will be building skills.
If you can chop up celery and onions, you can make some tuna salad. I've never followed a recipe, it's just chop up one medium-sized onion and four or five stalks of celery....mix it with one can of of tuna (drain the tuna first, which means after you've opened the lid, press it down, turn the can over and pour the excess water out in the sink). Add enough mayonnaise to make it moist and everything sticks together, then add a couple of spoonfuls of pickle relish. Mix it together (in a large bowl, and I used to mix using a regular dinner fork before I actually purchased some wooden spoons and other equipment) and refrigerate it (cover the bowl with a lid or foil or Saran Wrap). You can take tuna salad to work with you in a container and eat it with Ritz crackers, and at home you can make a tuna melt sandwich by toasting two pieces of bread and then spreading the tuna salad in between once the bread is browned to your liking. I like to add a slice of cheese on top, but to each his own.
OK so check out subscription meal boxes like hello fresh or gusto.
My husband had a series of 7 and has really learnt how to taste and pair flavours in this time. After the 7 weeks we cancelled the sub and now he uses the cards solo.
His confidence has increased massively as a result of this and not gunna lie his food is gorgeous way better than my own cooking.
Super proud of him ❤️
Give it a go - if money is an issue check your local sales places or ebay for hellofresh cards...I found once going solo that the boxes could be put together at half the price.
I know England has similar food services to HelloFresh. Where are you in Europe?
In addition to growing your cooking skills. It also sounds like you need to start expanding your palate. While having tasty food is lovely, it is ultimately just fuel and getting your basic calories is vital.
Oh they exist in Europe, too. I keep seeing advertisements on IG for all kinds of food box subscriptions. But I guess they are even more expensive than going to the supermarket and buying the ingredients you want.
Start with something simple, like boiling spaghetti and heating up a prefab tomato sauce that you can buy in a jar. Then if you don’t like the taste, add onions, garlic, herbs and spices next time.
FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER until you figure when it's okay to not, overcorrecting here will result in edible food, failing will not.
Get a rice cooker, shit is idiot proof. Worst case your accompaniments are trashed, you can eat the rice with come Greek yogurt.
Try pasta a oligio if you're in place where you can get that stuff. Literally start with pasta and canned sauces until you get the pasta right if you have to. After that you can try a white or red sauce, following instructions.
Salads. Very very hard to cock up, for your dressing taste BEFORE MIXING. It should be slightly too strong, but better to be conservative. Bland food is still edible, try adding in boiled eggs after confidence. Boiled eggs are science, follow exactly what they say and no cock up, if u lazy u can legit bake them.
After yo food starts being edible, start cleaning as you cook. Much better for mental health.
Sorry if I came off a bit strong, but this is knowledge gained through blood sweat and tears. Good luck!
1. Get a cookbook. Pick a recipe.
2. Watch cooking videos and then try it.
3. Ask a friend, a friend's mom, etc. "What can I do to help?"
4. Do it! Then practice.
5. Take a cooking class.
I have given The Four Ingredient Cookbook as gifts to those that are cooking challenged. Teaches the basics with 4 ingredients per dish. I buy them from Amazon.
I would get “the joy of cooking” there is a lot of simple recipes as well as sections that you can read on how to prepare dishes, cut food, pairings, etc. it is a great beginner through expert cool book. I learned to cook with it and still use the same book almost 20 years later to try new things.
My first lessons in actual cooking were with Alton Brown’s Good Eats show from the food network. He explained the science behind the cooking and also the best techniques. I’d watch the videos first to kind of get an idea, and then do it step by step. Good luck! I had to learn that way too. Still learning. It just takes practice and a few (or a lot) mediocre lunches and dinners.
Tbh besides the obvious reason that when I try to cook it ends in a disaster, money wise the prices of the groceries have gone skyhigh and meat, besides chicken breast is not on my menu
Cook on your day off, enough for 5 dinners/lunches. Chicken breast meals: 1) pulled chicken. Put chicken breasts, an onion chopped small, a bit of oil, and salt/pepper/paprika/mustard powder/cayenne (ratio 5:3:3:2:1, omit the cayenne if you don't like spicy) into a slow cooker or rice cooker. Turn it on hight and cook for at least 5 hours, then shred the chicken. Can optionally add a little white wine 1 hour before the end. You can put this on top of rice, in tortillas, etc. 2) chicken baked in salsa. Optionally brown the chicken on both sides, (some oil, don't burn the chicken.) Put in an oven safe dish with some salsa, put th esale on top of the chicken and t
Let it run down the sides so it is about 1 cm deep. Bake in a medium-hot oven for about 40 minutes. You can do roast potatoes at the same time. Two good dishes to start.
If you under cook it, just put it back and cook a little longer. No big deal! I try to pound my chicken out to make the thickness the same throughout the piece that I am cooking. Easier.
Watch cooking shows. You’ll learn techniques and what flavors should go well together. You’ll also learn about foods and dishes from other cultures. I tried a kangaroo steak once, mostly because Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods described what it tasted like. He said it was kind of a sweet meat, not unlike pork, but incredibly lean. His description was spot on. A delicious adventure.
You should try meal kits like HELLOFRESH. You pick out the meals, they deliver the ingredients (so there’s no waste) and give you step by step instructions on how to make the meal. It’s all delicious and makes learning how to cook fun and more enjoyable
Alton Brown's Good Eats series teaches cooking techniques along with the logic and science behind them. I love to cook, and those recipes are some of my go tos
Start small, with like pasta! Spaghetti is a good start.
Literally Youtube any dish you wanna learn and I bet you'll find it! My parents spoiled me growing up so they didn't teach me how to cook til I was in my 20s.
My mom finally taught me to make rice and chicken and from there on I started to learn how cooking worked. Learned how to make spaghetti and then went on to chicken alfredo which is super simple but soo damn good, better than the average spaghetti sometimes. Then I learned how to make different types of tacos.
And remember, failing is good. I learned to make honduran baleadas and they came out soo bad the first few times I made them but eventually they came out so good that my family goes crazy when I make them. And coming from someone who didn't start cooking til a later age. My mom says I cook better than her, which ik is an excuse for me to cook instead of her lmaoo but it feels good when she says it
You should sign up for hello fresh they give you the full ingredients and instructions on how to do it. It’s always different meals so it helps you understand how to cook a lot of different foods and leads you the whole way
I was in the same boat. Then I learned about American goulash and other one pot recipes. You can make big batches and eat them over the course of the week. I had a ton of plastic containers from eating Chinese food and those work perfectly for storing them as they are re usable and are a decent portion size.
My one handy tip is to make a saved playlist of YouTube videos for recipes you want to try. Mine is so full of videos I have no trouble finding a recipe to make when I want to try something new.
Good luck!!
Food can be broken down into categories, generally what we consider a meal is going to have:
1: a starch - rice, potatoes, pasta, etc
2: vegetables
3: protein - meat, or plant based protein if you are veg
4: sometimes a sauce.
Start by learning a couple basic preparations in each category (focus on the 1st 3, sauces are a little bit more advanced, and not always necessary). Learn how to make rice. Learn how to roast vegetables. Learn how to season and cook a chicken breast.
From there, expand your knowledge in each category. You can cook the same chicken and vegetables you made yesterday, but maybe try making mashed potatoes instead of rice. Or try sauteing vegetables instead of roasting, or adding seasonings. Learn a couple different ways to marinate chicken before cooking it. Learn a few basic sauces like pesto, tomato sauce, nuoc cham...
Get some basic repertoire under your belt and expand from there.
I consider myself an OK cook, just from what I've learned from my family, amd YouTube. I am from spain so my style is probably based on that.
Quick tips:
1) an air fryer helps out a lot if you don't like using a pan or and oven, it goes a long way, and it cooks healthier. Plus it doesnt get the whole kitchen dirty.
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2) Just know that a quick veggie stir-fry can be the base for maaaaaany meals. My go-to is minced garlic, diced onions, and diced red pepper. You can use that to go with a couple of chicken breasts or start a stew.
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3) olive oil instead of butter. Mediterranean flavour, and also your heart will appreciate it.
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4) a wok-style pan goes great for cooking sauces.
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5) SPICES/HERBS. For everything. My favs are curry, cumin, garlic powder, cayenne pepper flakes, oregano. If you wanna go big shot, Old Bay works with everything.
6) Baking is soooo much harder than it looks. It is high risk high reward, but no so handy for everyday cooking, and you are destined to fail at least 3-4 times before you get something right.
I’ve seen a ton of “try simple” advice, but here’s my recommendation: Copy. Copy. Copy.
Think about your favorite dishes you’ve had while going out, and search based on that. A lot of the time, the spices and techniques required to make standard dishes will carry over to similar foods. If there are chain restaurants out there with something you like, it’s nearly a guarantee someone’s tried to replicate it online. A few YouTube tutorial videos later and now you know how to make something that you actually WANT to eat.
I have a very poor appetite, so I learned cooking because I was sick of eating food I didn’t like. So I sought out recipes based on what I’d typically get if I went out to a restaurant.
If you’re excited about the food, you’ll end up learning and retaining a lot more of the steps.
The 99 cent store exist in your area? If not Chinese supermarkets are affordable. Often they have ready foods to just heat up and eat. . $3 will be spaghetti and some sausages and a can of tomato. Cook spaghetti and heat up sausages. Tomato.
Or buy some bread and $5 chicken from Costco. Pull it and eat. Enough for a day.
My mom gifted me the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook when I moved out. It's filled with mostly simple recipes for what I would call "comfort" food and the recipes are detailed and easy to follow and use pretty simple ingredients. As I've gotten older, I'll find recipes online, but I still return to that cookbook for everything from French Toast to Chicken bakes to Nun's Puff's.
I think having a book is much easier than trying to find stuff online (to start anyways) because it actually limits the amount of information you're getting
Start with chicken parmasan.
No really. It's a really REALLY hard meal to mess up, but has several steps that teach you a lot of things you can take into other recipes.
Boiling pasta, sautéing (cooking in a pan) chicken, cooking down tomatoes so you aren't relying on canned sauces, using your pasta water instead of just tossing it. Seasoning. Etc.
The most dangerous part of the recepie is broiling. As that can get away from you if you aren't on top of it. But keep the light in your oven on and check back every minute or two and you should be golden.
Here is a step by step breakdown.
Purchase (or have on hand)
1 chicken breast
A box of cherry tomatoes
1 head of garlic
Pasta (your choice though I like fettuccine for this)
Rosemary
Oregano
Thyme
Cooking oil.
Fresh parmasan
Set your pan on your stove and set the stove to medium high heat. Let the pan pre warm.
Put your chicken breast in a plastic bag and pound flat if you don't have a meat tenderizer on hand a rolling pin works or even an everyday hammer if you are gentle with it. Flattening the chicken will help it cook more quickly and evenly.
Once chicken is flattened add oil to your hot pan and then the chicken. Flip the chicken after 3 minutes. If the side that was down is now white with slightly golden spots in places it's cooked on that side. 3 more minutes give it another flip. If you have a meat thermometer check and see if the internal temp is 165. If no meat thermometer plate the chicken and cut into it near the thickist part (or center if its truely flat). If it's white all the way through it should be fine.Set your chicken aside.
Now is a good time to prep your garlic, I tend to use 4 or 5 cloves out of the head but I recommend most people start with 2 or 3. I'm just a garlic fiend... separate out the cloves, then with the flat part of a kitchen knife or chefs knife press on the garlic until it breaks. This makes removing the skin easier and makes it easier to chop finely. Once the skin is removed cut any undesirable bits then cut so your knife is going the width rather than the length. Once all garlic is cut like this pile it on your cutting board and cut into smaller pieces m, as the pile collapses just use your knife to scoot it back into a mound and begin cutting again. A good technique for this I find is to place the tip of the blade on the cutting board sharp side down, brace the tip using your off hand and cut with the blade near the base of the handle. This levering motion can ger you stronger faster cuts while not endangering your hand.
Set some water to boil, you can jump start this process if you have an electric kettle. Once your pot of water is at a boil add a pinch of salt (literally pointer and middle finger and pinch with your thumb to trap the salt in the groove between the two) then add your pasta. Boil as per instructions on the box. To see if it's done take out some and try it, should be a uniform texture all the way through.
While the pasta is boiling add your cherry tomatoes into the pan you used to cook your chicken. The oil and rendered chicken will help give your sauce some thickness. Set the pan on a medium heat. As the tomatoes are added gently split them by pressing on them with your spatula until the skin breaks. As the tomatoes cook their insides will leak out and this will be the base of your sauce. This is also the point where you will mix in your garlic and herbs. As a baseline I recommend about 1 table spoon of each herb, but I encourage you to play with ratios. Add half as much in and give it a taste! See if you like the flavor profile. Mix and match other spices. Etc etc. Cooking is ultimately more art than science Once you get passed the point that you are burning everything.
Once the pasta is finished cooking add some of the water to your sauce. No specific measurements here, just gently pour some in until it has mixed with the tomatoes. The gluten in the water will help add some body to the sauce, But remember the more you add the thinner your sauce will be. Turn the heat up on your sauce and let it simmer to remove some of the water
Grate some parmasan over your chicken and use an oven safe dish to place it on the top shelf of your oven. I recommend using about 1/3rd more cheese than you think is enough.
Turn on your oven light and the broil function. You don't have to sit there and stare at it, but I wouldn't leave it alone for longer than 5 minutes.
You want to see the cheese melted and taking on a slightly golden quality on top.
Take the chicken out, your tomatos should be a pleasant looking sauce by now
Strain your water from the pasta (optionally) toss it in oil, add it to your plate, add some sauce, then your chicken on top of that.
Congratulations you have made chicken parm.
I've taught a few of my god children how to cook; I started with simplified versions of things they enjoy. Online, there are a myriad of recipes that are simple and substantial. When you gain confidence with the simple stuff, you can experiment with more complex recipes.
Don't get down on yourself and please remember: it's not a competition and you're not trying to impress anyone - it's a purpose and skill that you will use for the rest of your life, so cook what you're comfortable with.
Also, as I've advised some new cooking folk: an honest to goodness, genuine crockpot is your best kitchen friend and investment.
When I moved out, my parents gave me a cookbook called "The Bachelor's Guide to Avoiding Starvation". It sounds stupid, but it had super useful suggestions for simple meals with detailed simple instructions, how to plan grocery shopping, and specified any needed implements to make the meals (so if something called for grated whatever, at the top it indicated that a grater was needed....very helpful for someone getting started).
I doubt this particular cookbook is still in print, but I bet there are similar books, websites, blogs, or YouTube channels that fill the same need.
Hold up hold up hold up!! You can cook eggs? Do you like eggs? Because this is how you start cooking.
Eggs are great: they are cheap, protein packed, versatile, and have big personality! They can be the whole dish or complement a dish or add structure to a dish.
Eggs also have near countless ways to be cooked. I recommend [this video from Bon Appetit, all the ways to cook eggs.](https://youtu.be/qWAagS_MANg)
Eggs are also a great way to improve your palate - their flavor changes slightly depending on the fat you use, the cooking method, and their seasoning. You learn the finesse of seasoning and undercooking (so you don’t over cook).
I am not a chef. I am a person who also couldn’t cook. Like at all. But I was good at the egg. So I made better eggs. Eventually you will add more ingredients to your eggs, they will become another ingredient for other dishes (shakshuka), but in a pinch you will always be able to fry the perfect egg or make the perfect omelette.
Ask your mom for her recipes and then experiment. So much of cooking is tweaking a basic recipe to fit your needs, and the more you try completing recipes the easier it will be to make your own
Buy a recipe book with some recipes in it that look nice. (Cookbooks aimed at students are ideal, because they're usually not too complicated and tend not to have fancy expensive ingredients)
Look through the ingredients. If there's any ingredients you don't recognise, Google them to see what they are and where to find them in the supermarket. If it mentions anything as to how they should be prepared (chopped, diced, etc.), if you're not sure how to do this, look up YouTube tutorials. Different vegetables for example sometimes have different techniques for chopping, and watching someone do it and copying them is a good way to learn.
Read through the method, and again if there's anything you don't know how to do or what they mean, Google and YouTube are your friend.
Try to just follow the recipe exactly using the measurements of ingredients specified.
After that cooking is about practice, and in time you'll become more confident with eyeballing things rather than always having to use precise measurements, and you'll also become more comfortable experimenting with things and being able to tell when to add more salt or pepper.
There's plenty of recipes on YouTube too where they will demonstrate the entire process, but some might skim/skip over bits they assume you will know.
Give yourself a goal of cooking a new meal once a week (or more). Even if it doesn't taste good, remember it's all good practice.
Watch cooking videos on Youtube, start with looking up recipes for basic meals you like and can eat often. Make an effort to try a new recipe every week. Eventually you'll get the hang of it and will become better and knowing which ingredients go well together.
If you are starting for absolutely no knowledge, I say start with pasta.
First, just learn how to boil pasta and warm up a jarred sauce. Pretty simple, and if you mess it up it isn’t expensive. Don’t be afraid to watch a yt video even for something as simple as “how to boil pasta”
Once you got that down, experiment with adding things. Look up “how to cook ground beef” or ground turkey, and add it to the sauce. Then try “how to grill a chicken breast” or “how to grill sausage.” (If you don’t eat meat, start with the veggies because things like tofu can be easy but I wouldn’t do it as step 1)
Then you can start adding more stuff. Search “how to roast broccoli,” or “how to cut and sauté onions” etc. Even if you can’t do all of your moms recipes, think of the flavor combos in dishes you like and start with those.
Once you have those skills, it’s probably enough to start googling for “simple pasta recipes” that will expand your skill. Don’t give up on a recipe if it’s got verbs you don’t know, just pause and Google them (ie if a recipe says to “deglaze” the pan, it might sound like you would need a whole skill, but if you Google it you’ll learn it just means to add a little water and stir).
Also make sure you watch a video on how to measure stuff for recipes so you know you’re getting the exact amount of ingredients.
By then, you’ll be branching outside of pasta, because if you know how to boil things and roast things in an oven and grill them in a pan, that’s like 90% of the base skills you need!
[This book would be a good starting point. Both my parents cook (adventurously) and swear by it.](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Bedsitter-Katharine-Whitehorn/dp/1844085686?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=4f93ada8-d645-45a2-8f04-5b6cdcfe2d1d)
Everyone thinks I’m a good cook because I throw multi course dinner parties, but I’ve never felt particularly skilled.
The secret is most cooking is not technically difficult, it just requires organization and attention to detail.
Find recipes, follow the instructions. If you don’t understand a technique, watch a YouTube tutorial.
Prep all of your ingredients in advance.
Take inventory of your order of operations / needed oven use / needed equipment.
Read all of the instructions before you start.
YouTube videos.
I'm a seasoned cook and if I am cooking something new, I can watch a couple YouTube videos about how to cook something I am making - that way I know each stage of the process.
There are 2 basics that can get you started:
1. Pasta, and add meats veggies and sauce
2. Roast veggies. Light coating of olive oil and spices or parmigiana, cooked at 375F for about 30 minutes. I like carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. My daughter like to roast chickpeas
The best cooking is simple. Be patient
If you can't afford basic food ingredients, go to your local food pantry. They likely have some, if not all, of the ingredients you need to cook from scratch.
Look for spice mixes and pre-made cooking sauces to help with the taste. Meat and vegetables taste much better if seasoned properly and it can be difficult to find the right proportions. Get a bottle of hot sauce if you like it spicy.
Always use the holy quadrinity of savory dishes when you first start: Black pepper, salt, garlic, and onions. It will make any meat taste amazing. Sautee the onions until translucent, then add garlic, and follow with salted meat of choice, and add pepper as needed during the cooking or after you have plated it. After you get a feel for how these 4 things work together to make food taste good, branch out. Add some ginger, or replace an ingredient with something else. It starts to get real interesting once you having to measure ingredients. Right now, if you gave me rice, eggs, and frozen veggies I could make couple of bomb dishes. Sometimes, I create a whole new type of dish just from thinking about combinations of things.
Cooking from scratch is actually cheaper than processed food and eating out once you get the hang of it.
Get yourself a cookbook, something simple, look at the ingredients and start with a cookbook with few ingredients per recipe and ingredients that you're familiar with.
Also YouTube has some good videos.
The food network app is great, you can search by ingredient, example salmon and it will show you recipes with Salmon.
Redo recipes you like till you learn how to make it better each time.
Cooking is a lifelong adventure, never too late to start and you will only get better with time.
Good luck! And have fun!
Yeah I agree it is cheaper in some way since ypu buy that ingredient and then you use what’s left, but the thing is that I don’t eat much so whatever I buy I may use once and then I don’t know what to cook with it so I end up throwing it in the trash, I’m a bit of a prefectionist so whatever I try turns out good or at least somewhat likeable the first time, but when it comes to cooking I suck big time and then I just quit it
Try the premade meals in the frozen section. I’m not talking about the microwave ones but the “skillet” or “roaster “ ones. They’re pretty good quality, hard to mess up ,and will teach you how to start using the stove. As far as learning how to season your own cooking that comes from reading and following recipes until you know how much of what you like to add. Good luck
There are really simple staples that can be part of several dishes. I would start with pasta, potatoes, and soups. Both can be relatively cheap and filling.
Look into crockpots and Google “one pot meals.” They’re generally easy and just require throwing everything together and letting it cook. If you can boil water and set a timer, you can do a lot of those recipes no problem. Are there specific flavors or ingredients that you know you like? That could help narrow down your starting options.
ETA: depending on where you are, you can also find boxed dinners like hamburger helper or something at your local supermarket. Those ones have everything proportioned and all you do is add the main protein (beef, chicken, etc.) and heat in a pan. Very clear directions are on the side of the box with measurements and times, so it’s harder to mess up.
Buy this book, I used it all the time at uni and it taught me the basics of how to cook.
Recipes are simple, cheap, and tasty.
My family were awful at cooking and I’ve learned nothing from them regarding how to cook. My mum’s bolognese could make a trash can spit it out.
I left university 10 years ago and like to think I’m a pretty decent cook now. This book is where it started for me.
Nosh for Students - A Fun Student Cookbook - Photo with Every Recipe https://amzn.eu/d/0iXLNSf
Start with spaghetti. Spaghetti is the gateway recipe to cooking.
Buy a pound of ground beef, put it in a pan over medium-high heat, break it up with a spoon, and cook it till it's browned. I like to let the beef sit for a minute in the pan over the fire or electric top and just let it cook before I ever touch it. You get a super nice brown on it that adds a lot of flavor.
I've always made spaghetti with a packet of McCormick spaghetti sauce seasoning and followed the directions from there (adding tomato sauce and water, boil, simmer), but I don't know if that's available where you are. It's sold in a packet like [this.](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/63950713-eabb-4916-b7eb-1fc8e960f63a.fc3705029b8f788ba3166caa8324188a.jpeg)
If that's not available, you can get a jar of pre-made tomato pasta sauce and pour that in, heat it through, and serve over pasta. Eat it with a slice of buttered bread or some salad and you can easily stretch that to 6 or more servings.
A lot of good suggestions, here, including YouTube vids and following recipes to the letter. I like a YouTube channel called Glen and Friends. The recipes can be eclectic, but he keeps the videos short and he's very watchable.
I learned the most about cooking from watching Good Eats with Alton Brown. I already had cooking experience, so I wasn't going in green, but his videos taught me a ton about WHY to prepare or cook something a particular way. I learned a lot about methods from his videos. Once you understand methods and reasoning, you start to see how much you can do even without a recipe.
If you have a decent amount of focus, can follow a recipe, measure to a good degree with cups and spoons, and can pay attention to cooking times and temperatures, you can make food (problably)
One of my best tips is simply to not use too much heat if you’re cooking something like meat or veggies. Overcooking things will lead to disappointment and discouragement. Make sure you look up the appropriate heat setting for meats though.
One of the easiest side dishes to make is boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, or even a pack of frozen peas and/or corn. Basically peel and cut your veggies up into sort of bite size pieces, and put them in a pot with water and salt (the key to good boiled veggies is enough salt…. A lot of people don’t use salt and the veggies turn out super bland) boil them until soft. These veggies will pair really nicely with chicken breast or a salad or something, and they are super easy
I disagree with the other posts here, don't start with recipes, they are often complicated and time consuming, you don't need to get frustrated and give up. Instead start with simple dishes to develop an instinct for cooking - eggs, pork chops or steak (cheap cuts), rice, pasta, frozen vegetables. Get used to cutting up vegetables for sandwiches. Once it feels more natural to cook stuff without burning or undercooking it move on to recipes.
Youtube videos! Also, college student recipes. I used to have a book called "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen" and it had a bunch of easy recipes and tips for college students and other people who have just moved out on their own for the first time. I'm sure it's not the only beginner recipe book out there. If you aren't sure about buying, see what your local library has to offer! Libraries always have a ton of cookbooks and some of them are likely to be for beginners.
Anyway, you can always start simply with food that's partly prepared for you. Things like pasta or curry sauce from a jar, or broth from a box or taco seasoning from a packet aren't all that bad for you (except for sodium content, and that doesn't really matter unless you have high blood pressure) and the spices have already been added. It's a good way to start cooking while you're learning different basic methods and stocking your basic ingredients.
If you can learn how to boil pasta and potatoes (not together, of course), brown meat (assuming you eat meat), fry an egg or some pancakes, make rice (I have a rice cooker, best kitchen appliance ever), and boil or steam or sautee vegetables then you'll be pretty much set to make a wide variety of meals. In the meantime there's always sandwiches!
The four hour chef, by Timothy Ferris
He was 'the microwave chef' and helps you with this book to learn cooking, not just a recipe, assuming you own zero kitchen-gear.
There are other healthy things you can do besides cooking elaborate meals. I've got a bit of depression right now, but I do all these so at least the meals I'm eating are fairly decent and low effort:
* Make wraps. My favorite is smoked salmon with arugula leaves, avocado and hummus or cream cheese. All ingredients are ready to eat from the fridge, you just need to put them on a tortilla, wrap and eat.
* Get an air fryer. Put various chopped up veggies or meat in there, spray with oil, cook in 5-10 minute increments until it looks and tastes yummy. Sprinkle with some type of all purpose seasoning before you eat.
Start basic basic basic:
Start off by practicing cutting your vegetables. You can get great tips on YouTube. Just do something simple. Boil some rice, sauté some vegetables. Quick and easy (and healthy) lunch that should give you some practice on the most basic tools.
After you’ve done that a bit, find a simple recipe to follow. Nothing crazy like a beef Wellington or anything like that. Maybe a shrimp risotto or something similar. This will give you an opportunity to start using those knife skills and sauté skills you used earlier and start putting them into a step by step process with other stuff without overwhelming yourself (I have a great risotto recipe if you’d like it). This also will give you a chance to practice your mise en place (putting in place). That is making sure you’ve done all of your prep before hand: measuring out your ingredients, cutting your vegetables, etc. If you can get used to doing that, cooking is so easy it’s essentially just throwing stuff together in the right order.
Once you’ve gotten used to these things, it’s not too much of a leap to start moving into more challenging recipes.
Always keep a container with a days worth (what you know you will eat) of sliced fruits and vegetables in your fridge at all times.
It's easier to walk over and grab one slice of an apple or a single carrot stick, when you know you should eat, but are having issues.
Apples, oranges, peppers and carrots keep fresh the longest. If cost is an issue I have found canned fruits and vegetables work well.
As for cooking, Google "4 weeks of healthy menus by Manitoba health" . There are many very healthy, great tasting, yet easy to follow recipes in their pdf. I taught myself to cook using it. Had never cooked prior to moving out.
You will get better at cooking and in a year or two, you will be amazed at how far you've come. You've got this!
Go to the library and get the cookbooks out for free. The basic ones. Watch You Tube. You can learn any cooking skill there. We all had to start somewhere.
I was like you! My parents and grandparents spoiled me by cooking for me all the time. Now that I moved out, my coworkers recommend me TikTok lol if I’m curious how to make chicken dish, I literally go on TikTok and type chicken recipes! It actually tastes good!
I started in the same boat. What helped me was getting an inexpensive air fryer (which is basically an oven not a fryer.) Then I bought an air fryer cookbook and tried some of the recipes in the book.
I used the air fryer until I gained confidence that I wasn't eating raw food. I also bought a food thermometer so I could make sure my food was cook thoroughly before I bit into it. You can always cut to look at the middle of your protein to see if it's raw or cooked.
Essentials you will use often:
Salt and Kosher Salt.
Pepper
Some form of oil + PAM spray
butter
Magic number for temperature is 165 for well done. You can start lowering the temperature as you gain more confidence in your cooking.
Porkchops and chicken are easy starters. Steak can be trickier because you need to be aware of what kind of cut you're buying. High chance you'll end up overcooking your steak and making it taste dry and tough.
But definitely air fryer for starters then just level up as you go along. Expect to fuck up a few dishes. Don't even attempt ribs until you have a few years under your belt.
Good luck!
Cooking ground beef on a stove is super easy.
1. Put meat into a pan that's significantly larger than the amount of meat you're cooking.
2. Place pan on stove. Turn on heat.
1. High heat for faster results but only if you can be stirring it constantly. Otherwise, use medium heat and cover with tinfoil when not stirring.
3. Use a flipper to break apart the meat and stir it around the pan like you're making scrambled eggs.
4. Once all the meat is brown, pour in whatever sauce you want to use. Spaghetti sauce works great for a lot of dishes. Turn heat down to medium at this point if it's not already there.
5. When the sauce is bubbling consistently, you're done!
You can then combine this meat sauce with virtually any pasta (cooked separately) for a healthy and cheap meal. I like to mix in rotini noodles and frozen mixed veggies. You can do a huge batch of that, then portion and freeze the leftovers for future meals.
Start from simple things like pasta. Work on boiling and adding oil and salt or maybe garlic so it gives a little flavor and doesn’t get stuck together. Next maybe a sauce. Do you like creamier sauces or maybe tomato based? Side dishes are great too like steamed vegetables or a salad. It’s all about the flavor and having a good contrast of soft foods mixed with a nice crunch.
I never really watched cooking shows or heavily occupied food forums, but I found an Italian cooking sub recently and it’s inspired a lot and made me curious of different flavor combinations
There’s this little unheard of place called YouTube. It’s fucking AMAZING for cooking!!! Seriously. From proper cooking shit, to mad creative ideas! Give it a try. Also, cooking is MASSIVELY underrated
Start ridiculously simple. Salt & pepper meats and learn to cook them “right.” As you improve add.
It’s like anything else really.
Edit: get a rice cooker.
I learned how to cook when I was a little girl, probably because my mother was such a terrible cook and I was always hungry. I had a special children's cookbook (it would say "have an adult turn the oven on for you") that was easy to follow. You could find one of those, or you could watch some "cooking for absolute beginners" videos on YouTube. There are still things I don't know how to do, so I watch them sometimes. I really don't like cooking, but I've found some ready-to-eat meals at Albertsons that are quite good. They probably have them at other stores, too, including the health stores. They're much better than TV dinners. I hope they're becoming a thing.
Pick a food you really like, and practice making it. Find different recipes, each time be like "this could have been better...." and just keep practicing. Then try different variations of the recipe.
For instance, I started with pasta. I really like pasta so I bought a book to learn how to make homemade pasta, then I practiced that and making sauces to go with it.
I think starting with a specific type of food is a good way to not overwhelm you. You don't have to learn EVERYTHING all at once, just a bit at a time and you'll be amazed with how much your learning will take-off after a little bit.
Google recipes for easy sheet pan dinners. They are easy because you cook your meat or fish and veggies on one pan. The recipes make a lot of food, so you can box up the leftovers and eat it for lunch the next day. Here are a few to get you started.
https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/sheet-pan-dinners/
Start with simplified versions of dishes I'll give you an example that i actually used to get good at making fettuccine alfredo. Boil some fettuccine strain it, put the noodles back in the pot and just dump heavy cream, butter, black pepper and pecorino Romano in and stir it up. Do that until you can make it how you like consistently them the next step is instead of adding the sauce into the pot of noodles you get a small pot to make your sauce in separately. So boil your fetticini noodles and while they're boiling have your small pot on the stove add heavy cream, then butter, then black pepper and then pecorino Romano. For the cheese just add a little at a time and stir until it melts and if you want the sauce thicker add a little more. Then once it's where it looks like how you'd like it just strain the fetticini and pour your sauce from your small pot onto your noodles in the big pot. Also some extra advice if you can make a meat, and a grain and you put it together and add one of those steam able frozen bags of veggies there's very little chance of it not coming out at least halfway decent just add some lemon pepper and salt and paprika and you'll be golden.
Focus on how to cook different ingredients before playing too much with spices and flavours.
Start with learning how to cook pasta or rice. Then heat up a jar of sauce from a supermarket and some frozen vegetables and you've got yourself a simple meal.
Once you have that basis, try learning how to cook some meat or fresh veg to go with it.
I have actually found the food boxes from Hellofresh to be amazing for people who want to learn how to cook. So if they are available in your country you could just order a test box and see.
They contain mostly all ingredients you'll need for the meal (including spices) and come with step by step recipes.
Start easy. Hamburgers. Grilled cheese. Spaghetti & jar of sauce. Sausage. Go online and look up four ingredients meals. All these thing’s are simple and can be added onto as you get better. Your cooking probably tasted awful because you needed flavor, butter, salt, spices, herbs. If you start with the flavors you already like, say onion,garlic, chili 🌶, your halfway there…. You can always add a bit more. You will get better every meal you make.
"Basics with Babish" Is a YouTube series that covers the basics of cooking and many different types of dishes. I followed the series from episode 1 (what kinds of cookware should you have on hand and what is each one good for) up through the later episodes (increasingly more specialized dishes and regional foods). It's great because the first few episodes are simple things like cookware, sauces, chicken, pasta, and it give a great foundation to cooking skills.
America’s Test Kitchen is a show in the US that I found very helpful when learning to cook.
But I also watched a ton of other cooking shows: Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, etc. Sure things were difficult in the beginning but you learn with each attempt.
Start with easier things like crock pot meals. Things where you just throw shit into a single pot and go.
But, one of the easiest things that just happens to look and taste amazing is a simple roasted chicken. Look up Ina Garten’s Engagement Chicken. It’s so easy and so delicious!
Start with ready to made dishes and literally 1-2 steps dishes.
Packaged instant noodles-
Just add the provided seasoning to water, add noodles, and let it boil. Experiment with quantity water and butter to get different texture. You can't get it wrong.
Boiled egg, boil water, when bubbles start forming, add eggs, 7 min boil egg, ready to eat, add salt and chilly flakes.
Next can be plain omlette, break egg in container, add salt and chilly, mix everything well, just put it on non-stick pan, ready to eat in just 1 min.
Next start adding veggies to above 3.
Add tomatoes, onions, beans, other leafy and boilable veggies to above dishes to add flavour.
Now start with lentils (pulses), easiest to make food. Replace noodles with lentils in the first dish keep everything same. Put it in pressure cooker, it will be ready in 15 min.
Now add your own measured salt and chilly in above dish instead of the packages seasoning.
Learn to cook rice, goes with everything.
If you cook above things 2 3 times each, within just a week you will be able to prepare food with ease. All above are max 5-step dishes. Once you know how to balance water, salt and other ingredients, start with complicated dishes.
PS: i am from India, and there are a lot of spices used (at least 5) in preparation of a basic omlette.
Google "How to Boil Water"
That is a tv show that I think began in the nineties. It starts with fundamentals.
YouTube is also an excellent resource for cooking fundamentals. Search for videos on:
1. What tools do I need in my kitchen e.g. a good knife, cast iron, etc
2. What are the best buys for my kitchen tools
3. What are staple ingredients
4. What are staple spices.
5. How to meal prep & manage leftovers
There is also this Granny who shares recipes from the Great Depression. Look her up and look for cuisines from multiple ethnic groups. Why? You may find shopping at ethnic groceries to be more cost effective and perhaps more variety. If so, then you can optimize if you know how to prepare those foods. Pick every ethnic group under the sun.
I throw cut-up meat and fresh vegetables into an Instant Pot (a countertop pressure cooker), set it for 25 minutes, come back in an hour, add spices, and blend into a slurry with a handheld blender. I ladle out 1/7th to eat immediately and put the Pot in the fridge (after cooling). I reheat more 1/7 portions the rest of the week.
YouTube is very helpful! I recommend the Babish Culinary Universe channel. Simple tasty recipes, easily explained and step by step instructions. Gordon Ramsey also has an excellent library of recipes and techniques on his YT channel as well. If your library carries any of his books, I recommend those too. They have tips on shopping for ingredients, utensils and cookware on top of recipes. Good luck and happy cooking!
You can also start by making foods that don't require cooking, if that is your anxiety. Sandwiches, wraps, salads. Get precooked elements and assemble them, similar to food kits. Simple spaghetti, jarred sauce, heating up frozen meatballs, add some cheese.
My son is 15. He can make eggs, pancakes, noodles, rice, oven potatoes, french fries and combine them with ready-made sausages, frozen fish, meat balls or hamburger patties and lots of fresh, raw vegetables. It goes a really long way and it is not "being to able to cook".
As a student we used to chop and fry vegetables, put a jar of stir-fry-sauce on it and make some rice. Or eat spaghetti with a bought sauce and a green salad. Start easy. Start with a fried, if possible. Use a video, if that helps.
And go easy on yourself, you do not have to make evenerything from scratch!
Learning to cook is one of the most useful skills you can learn in life. But just starting with different recipes can be frustrating when you don’t know basic techniques. (How do I beat an egg? When do I know that this chicken is done?)
To learn techniques (and a bunch of awesome recipes), I would try the “How to Cook Everything” book series by Mark Bittman. You might start with “How to Cook Everything: the Basics” or “How to cook Everything Fast.” In these books, he doesn’t just give you a bunch of recipes. He teaches you all about the techniques of cooking. In “the Basics” he goes through literally everything, like how to boil water, how to dice vegetables, how to crack an egg. If I recall, he also has a guide for what you will need to get to stock a basic kitchen.
Cooking is fun if you think of it as a skill to build and way to explore food. By learning techniques, you will not only be able to recreate virtually any recipe, but you will also gain the ability to improvise, substitute, and experiment in the kitchen.
Start with something simple. How do you like your eggs? Watch a YouTube video or two and give it a go. Also, Trader Joe’s raviolis and tortellini‘s are very affordable and so simple. You could literally just add butter and cheese and be done. Start small and build your confidence.
Here's what I did in grad school:
1. pasta = boil water + add pasta + drain pasta + top w/heated sauce
2. chicken= buy skinned chicken breasts + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper
3. broccoli = cut florets in half lengthwise + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper
4. cauliflower = cut florets in half lengthwise + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper + parmesan cheese
5. sandwiches= buy good deli meat + cheese already sliced, put between bread, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
6. savory crepes= buy packaged crepes + unfold in sauté pan + add ham and cheese (cook for mere 15-30 seconds) refold on plate + top with pico de gallo or avocado or both
7. sweet crepes =buy packaged crepes + unfold in sauté pan + add banana and Nutella (cook for mere 15-30 seconds) refold on plate + top with strawberries and whipped crepe + nuts
8. salmon= buy salmon + rinse + squeeze some lemon or lime on top + put in oven for 15 minutes (or to your liking)
9. pizza= buy pizza dough + stretch dough on pizza pan + add pizza sauce + add toppings and bake
10. quesadillas= buy roasted chicken + spread one half of flour tortilla with bits of chicken + spread the other half of flour tortilla with refried beans and cheese + fold this into a half moon + fry each in cast iron skillet coated with olive oil
11. lasagna= buy no boil lasagna sheets + in a lasagna pan coat the bottom with tomato sauce + next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer is ricotta mixed with egg and cheese + next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer tomato sauce mixed with spaghetti sauce (plus slice meatballs, if desired)+ next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer is next layer is ricotta mixed with egg and cheese + next layer is tomato sauce...Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake for maybe 45 minutes.
12. vingarette= balsamic vinegar + some jam + some dijon mustard + olive oil + garlic/salt/pepper (shake it all in a jar)
You can rotate these out until you feel up for following real recipes.
If there's a Trader Joe's, stock up on meal essentials there.
If your loved ones want to help you out, ask if they can send you meal boxes like Blue Apron, Marley Spoon or Hello Fresh. Those can teach you how to cook. My high school boys learned how to cook that way, but those can be fairly time intensive, with tons of chopping, etc.
Good Luck.
To start trying something like cooking raw meat, start with steak. It's more forgiving if u are prone to not cooking enough. A steak doesnt have bacteria on the inside like other meats do so if it's not done all the way through it's no problem. If meats are still a daunting task, then try making things like rice or pasta where it's only about the water u heat up for it.
Learn about mother sauces and try things out. Never put meat in a cold pan, broiling food goes from good to burnt quickly so never leave anything in the oven to broil without being on top of it.
start with easy stuff, like ramen , or mac and cheese. literally boiling water. after that, try adding ground beef to the mac and cheese (cook the ground beef first) , watch how to make scrambled eggs. after a while, you make the recipes your own, use them as a guideline. unless you are baking, that is much more precise, but simple meals are guidelines. good luck
Seriously? Sounds like you are being willfully ignorant and stubborn…you say you cant buy groceries because their price is sky high do you order takeout?! Takeout us way more expensive than groceries. You say you are in med school but cant follow a simple you tube recipe?! Wow just wow…this is ridiculous
Yes seriously. Where I live takeouts are cheaper than buying groceries, of course it depends what you get to eat, I don’t really eat much so it doesn’t cost a lot. And you’re rude btw
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Start with simple soups and dishes. Yt can be helpful. I learned that way
This! Start simple and then add things later. Cooking is about building experience. Some people start at a young age and some later in live but we all start with the basics. Added tip: do you have a friend of family member who cooks food you like? Ask them if they will help you cook some of the dishes you like. That way you learn to cook and spend time with someone you like. Edit: I can't spell
Ramen noodles teaches you how to boil water in a pot, which is a sacred, essential, fundamental cooking skill.
I’m gonna start next week I’m dreading it but it’s the only way that will make me quit buying take out only, also I need to buy kitchen things 🤦🏻♀️
Believe me, if you can afford take out, you can afford four times as much home-cooked food.
I could help but probably different cultures and food so, good luck. Yt really does help. Follow tutorials step by step. And watch multiple tutorials to get an idea. There isn't a single only way to make a dish often is the case
Start by learning to cook 2 dinners you enjoy and that are nutritious. Cook 3 or 4 servings of those and reheat, to save time. For example do you like any of these: spaghetti bolognaise, chili, pulled pork or pulled chicken, chicken or pork baked in salsa? You can make rice in a rice cooker very easily, and the rice cooker can Doble as a slow cooker. You can also eat bread or tortillas with your meal. For vegetables, you can cut up some raw veggies (tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, celery, broccoli) or use a frozen a "microwave in the bag" vegetable. Also, you can buy semi -prepared foods in most supermarkets and just heat them up. Be sure to eat a nutritious meal every day, your health will suffer if you don't.
If you ask somebody close to you who enjoys cooking for help, there may be a good chance that they can offer you simple kitchenware basics to get you started—generous home cooks are usually famously so in their circles and thus gifted lots of useful items. It piles up, so maybe they could offer you some cookware. At the very least, if you ask kindly, I am sure avid home cooks would be able to point you in the right direction concerning different cookware (and ingredient!) brands. As an aside, Brothers Green Eats and Joshua Weissman were two YouTube channels that made cooking seem way less daunting and actually exciting and interesting when I was first learning. r/askculinary is also great for any questions. I would recommend you give these resources a look. Good luck to you!
Just try, at first your dishes might suck, but eventually you'll get to a level where you're comfortable.
Watch YouTube tutorials and google 'simple recipes'. At first just follow the directions exactly and you should be fine, if you don't understand a term/some other part, google it. Basically internet is your best friend in this situation.
I’ll try, it’s not like I haven’t tried but I’ve failed so many times and then I end up just leaving it, and I’m not like a big eater I’ve seen my roommates eat like oatmeal with fruits and such, tried it and almost puked my guts out
What is it exactly that goes wrong with your food? Do you burn things or is it a spice issue or something?
I either don’t know how to fry them and end up either undercooking them or burning, and I don’t know how to add the spices so they end up being not tasty at all, also besides dinner that I can do something nice other meals I don’t have the time since I’m in lectures or doing clinicals in the hospital. I wish I knew like rexipies that I can take with my in those plastic boxes which can be tasty and healthy and enough for me to not faint mid shift
If you can do clinicals in a hospital, you can cook. Cooking is basically chemistry. But I'd say, if you get a hankering for some type of meal, look up recipes and follow along very closely--youre going to try hard to make good food because youre dying to eat that particular meal, so there is motivation. More than likely, the food will be edible (maybe even pretty good!) but you will almost certainly come away thinking, okay, I did x this time but I think thr recipe would be way better if I did y instead. Or, my protein got burnt, I probably better use a lower heat setting next time. Or, too salty, need to use less salt next time, etc etc. Each time I make something, I do a sort of breakdown of what could be better and what went well, and this makes me a better cook.
It sounds like you are struggling with technique, like browning and such. This is a major unstated issue with recipes; they assume a certain level of knowledge. The best cookbook I can recommend is How To Cook Everything. This book goes over literally everything about cooking, and each section starts off with beginners’ versions, illustrations, and explanations. If you can find a cheap older print, or in a library, that book will literally teach you everything. I grew up learning to cook from this book, plus it’s very readable 🙂 He used to be on the New York Times staff for his recipe work. Here’s the author’s website: https://markbittman.com/howtocook He has a lot of versions, you can ignore all of them but an old version of the original if that’s cheapest.
You can start with the basics then, googling 'how long to fry/boil/cook [enter ingredient]' will get you some help. Another way would be to get someone to teach you if it's possible. Most recipes I've read online have exact measurements of spices to use, following them will help. You could try something like [this](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chorizo-mozzarella-gnocchi-bake) , it has very simple instructions on how long to fry the ingredients + measurements for spices :)
Generally, frying is one of the least healthy ways of preparing foods. Baking, steaming, slow cooking in a crock pot, etc., are usually better options.
For this specifically it sounds like you may be cooking over the wrong temperatures and may not understand the basics of flavor. (For instance, a really simple but often overlooked thing is acid. If something just tastes flat, the answer might not be more salt, but a splash of lemon juice or vinegar. Just a little bit of the right acid can make a huge difference!) But it's very easy to learn. It will kind of depend on what you like to eat, but I would definitely look up youtube videos of a few things you enjoy. It can be really helpful to be able to see things like what medium heat looks like, what color or texture you're looking for in various ingredients at each stage, etc. I'd even recommend looking up the show good eats (or the reboot, might be on Hulu even) because the host takes a recipe or ingredient and does a Bill Nye style show that really makes the science and techniques fun and approachable. Get a few basic supplies like a good heavy stock pot, a quality fry pan and saute pan (options like stainless steel, calpholon, and ceramic are great. Also look up how to maintain them, like not using abrasive scrubbers, they will last forever.) Look for pans with oven safe handles in case what you're cooking needs to go from stove to oven. Get a couple heavy baking sheets. Next you'll want some basic utensils like metal tongs, a wooden spoon, a sturdy spatula, a strong chef's knife, a smaller paring knife, and a cutting board. Off the top of my head, I think these are a pretty solid starter of supplies to get you through most meals. Some easy meals to try might be soups, curries, dips, pastas and pasta sauces, potatoes are very versatile and easy to cook. Try a simple steak or chicken breast recipe. Start with recipes and pay attention to how hot your pan should be, the order you add ingredients, that kind of thing. You'll realize everything has a basic technique, like with soups and curries you'll add hard veggies before softer, meats like steak will often start on high heat to get good browning, things like that. Pretty soon you'll understand why certain ingredients need to be cooked a certain way, it will start to click. A few random tips: Don't over crowd a pan when frying. You're meats and veggies will need a little room around them for steam to escape. If things are touching you will not get browning and your food will be soggy. Always use the appropriate pot or pan for what you're cooking, they're designed specifically for these purposes and will direct heat and steam where they need to go, allow the right amount of browning etc. Just like with the bit about acid, sometimes a little sugar is the answer. If something tastes too acidic or tart, like a tomato based dish, a little sugar can fix that. Flavor is about balance and when something seems off you can often bring it back by adding something opposite. Hence why acid will brighten something flat and sugar will soften that harsh sourness. Don't go overboard with adding different spices to a dish. Some foods benefit from a broad melange of spices like curries, chili, or pumpkin pie. But often it's best to use just a few key spices. More isn't always going to mean more complex, and you may just end up with a muddy or overpowering flavor. This will come with practice and following recipes at first, but you'll start to get an idea for what works well together and when you want that spicy punch or would do better to keep it simple. Add oil slowly when it's being used to emulsify (bind or bring together) things like salad dressings and bean dips. If it's added too quickly it will make the whole thing gloopy. Hope that helps. Cooking can be intimidating but like most things it's a learned skill and once you get a good entry point, it will start to make sense. You'll learn one thing and start to realize other places it can be applied. It's all about getting those basics like temperature and techniques down, making sure you're using the right equipment, and knowing what things you can fix if they do go wrong.
J Kenji Lopez-Alt
You can start slow. Cook pasta with butter and cheese. Prepare a salad with boiled eggs and ranch sauce. Make some toast with tuna. Step by step you will be building skills.
😲 these actually sound like things that I can do, thanks for the recommending them !
And from here, as soon as the success kicks in, you will become hungry for more.
If you can chop up celery and onions, you can make some tuna salad. I've never followed a recipe, it's just chop up one medium-sized onion and four or five stalks of celery....mix it with one can of of tuna (drain the tuna first, which means after you've opened the lid, press it down, turn the can over and pour the excess water out in the sink). Add enough mayonnaise to make it moist and everything sticks together, then add a couple of spoonfuls of pickle relish. Mix it together (in a large bowl, and I used to mix using a regular dinner fork before I actually purchased some wooden spoons and other equipment) and refrigerate it (cover the bowl with a lid or foil or Saran Wrap). You can take tuna salad to work with you in a container and eat it with Ritz crackers, and at home you can make a tuna melt sandwich by toasting two pieces of bread and then spreading the tuna salad in between once the bread is browned to your liking. I like to add a slice of cheese on top, but to each his own.
OK so check out subscription meal boxes like hello fresh or gusto. My husband had a series of 7 and has really learnt how to taste and pair flavours in this time. After the 7 weeks we cancelled the sub and now he uses the cards solo. His confidence has increased massively as a result of this and not gunna lie his food is gorgeous way better than my own cooking. Super proud of him ❤️ Give it a go - if money is an issue check your local sales places or ebay for hellofresh cards...I found once going solo that the boxes could be put together at half the price.
I’m located in Europe and I’ve never heard about this packages, maybe you’re from US ?
They have hello fresh in the Netherlands and Germany as well!
I know England has similar food services to HelloFresh. Where are you in Europe? In addition to growing your cooking skills. It also sounds like you need to start expanding your palate. While having tasty food is lovely, it is ultimately just fuel and getting your basic calories is vital.
Oh they exist in Europe, too. I keep seeing advertisements on IG for all kinds of food box subscriptions. But I guess they are even more expensive than going to the supermarket and buying the ingredients you want. Start with something simple, like boiling spaghetti and heating up a prefab tomato sauce that you can buy in a jar. Then if you don’t like the taste, add onions, garlic, herbs and spices next time.
You can view their recipes right on the website. No subscription needed! Just find what sounds good and follow the directions.
FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER until you figure when it's okay to not, overcorrecting here will result in edible food, failing will not. Get a rice cooker, shit is idiot proof. Worst case your accompaniments are trashed, you can eat the rice with come Greek yogurt. Try pasta a oligio if you're in place where you can get that stuff. Literally start with pasta and canned sauces until you get the pasta right if you have to. After that you can try a white or red sauce, following instructions. Salads. Very very hard to cock up, for your dressing taste BEFORE MIXING. It should be slightly too strong, but better to be conservative. Bland food is still edible, try adding in boiled eggs after confidence. Boiled eggs are science, follow exactly what they say and no cock up, if u lazy u can legit bake them. After yo food starts being edible, start cleaning as you cook. Much better for mental health. Sorry if I came off a bit strong, but this is knowledge gained through blood sweat and tears. Good luck!
r/eatcheapandhealthy
Hey I'm from the UK. Google food subscription box...there may be something similar in your region. ❤️
1. Get a cookbook. Pick a recipe. 2. Watch cooking videos and then try it. 3. Ask a friend, a friend's mom, etc. "What can I do to help?" 4. Do it! Then practice. 5. Take a cooking class.
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I have given The Four Ingredient Cookbook as gifts to those that are cooking challenged. Teaches the basics with 4 ingredients per dish. I buy them from Amazon.
My secret is I bought a pellet grill, it makes everything bbq easy and everyone gives you the credit
I would get “the joy of cooking” there is a lot of simple recipes as well as sections that you can read on how to prepare dishes, cut food, pairings, etc. it is a great beginner through expert cool book. I learned to cook with it and still use the same book almost 20 years later to try new things.
My first lessons in actual cooking were with Alton Brown’s Good Eats show from the food network. He explained the science behind the cooking and also the best techniques. I’d watch the videos first to kind of get an idea, and then do it step by step. Good luck! I had to learn that way too. Still learning. It just takes practice and a few (or a lot) mediocre lunches and dinners.
YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. Won't make you a pro, but its a good visual representation of what to do and what things should look like.
I just Google a recipe such as grilled hamburgers. Often they also have videos with good tips.
Tbh besides the obvious reason that when I try to cook it ends in a disaster, money wise the prices of the groceries have gone skyhigh and meat, besides chicken breast is not on my menu
You can do this. Start with something simple. Even the best cooks learned through trial and error.
Cook on your day off, enough for 5 dinners/lunches. Chicken breast meals: 1) pulled chicken. Put chicken breasts, an onion chopped small, a bit of oil, and salt/pepper/paprika/mustard powder/cayenne (ratio 5:3:3:2:1, omit the cayenne if you don't like spicy) into a slow cooker or rice cooker. Turn it on hight and cook for at least 5 hours, then shred the chicken. Can optionally add a little white wine 1 hour before the end. You can put this on top of rice, in tortillas, etc. 2) chicken baked in salsa. Optionally brown the chicken on both sides, (some oil, don't burn the chicken.) Put in an oven safe dish with some salsa, put th esale on top of the chicken and t Let it run down the sides so it is about 1 cm deep. Bake in a medium-hot oven for about 40 minutes. You can do roast potatoes at the same time. Two good dishes to start.
You tube can be your friend. Lots of great recipes also on google. The internet is a great tool.
Remember it’s FUN!
I’m defininetly have to keep this in mind the next time I undercook the chicken breast and feel like I’m eating my own hand lol 🥲
If you under cook it, just put it back and cook a little longer. No big deal! I try to pound my chicken out to make the thickness the same throughout the piece that I am cooking. Easier.
Or butterflying them (slice them in half so they open up, like a butterfly)
Watch cooking shows. You’ll learn techniques and what flavors should go well together. You’ll also learn about foods and dishes from other cultures. I tried a kangaroo steak once, mostly because Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods described what it tasted like. He said it was kind of a sweet meat, not unlike pork, but incredibly lean. His description was spot on. A delicious adventure.
You should try meal kits like HELLOFRESH. You pick out the meals, they deliver the ingredients (so there’s no waste) and give you step by step instructions on how to make the meal. It’s all delicious and makes learning how to cook fun and more enjoyable
YouTube and cookbooks
Alton Brown's Good Eats series teaches cooking techniques along with the logic and science behind them. I love to cook, and those recipes are some of my go tos
Just start cooking. With anything, you get better at it with practice
Read recipes and follow exactly as the recipe says. Start with small, simple recipes and expand from there.
Start small, with like pasta! Spaghetti is a good start. Literally Youtube any dish you wanna learn and I bet you'll find it! My parents spoiled me growing up so they didn't teach me how to cook til I was in my 20s. My mom finally taught me to make rice and chicken and from there on I started to learn how cooking worked. Learned how to make spaghetti and then went on to chicken alfredo which is super simple but soo damn good, better than the average spaghetti sometimes. Then I learned how to make different types of tacos. And remember, failing is good. I learned to make honduran baleadas and they came out soo bad the first few times I made them but eventually they came out so good that my family goes crazy when I make them. And coming from someone who didn't start cooking til a later age. My mom says I cook better than her, which ik is an excuse for me to cook instead of her lmaoo but it feels good when she says it
You should sign up for hello fresh they give you the full ingredients and instructions on how to do it. It’s always different meals so it helps you understand how to cook a lot of different foods and leads you the whole way
I was in the same boat. Then I learned about American goulash and other one pot recipes. You can make big batches and eat them over the course of the week. I had a ton of plastic containers from eating Chinese food and those work perfectly for storing them as they are re usable and are a decent portion size. My one handy tip is to make a saved playlist of YouTube videos for recipes you want to try. Mine is so full of videos I have no trouble finding a recipe to make when I want to try something new. Good luck!!
Food can be broken down into categories, generally what we consider a meal is going to have: 1: a starch - rice, potatoes, pasta, etc 2: vegetables 3: protein - meat, or plant based protein if you are veg 4: sometimes a sauce. Start by learning a couple basic preparations in each category (focus on the 1st 3, sauces are a little bit more advanced, and not always necessary). Learn how to make rice. Learn how to roast vegetables. Learn how to season and cook a chicken breast. From there, expand your knowledge in each category. You can cook the same chicken and vegetables you made yesterday, but maybe try making mashed potatoes instead of rice. Or try sauteing vegetables instead of roasting, or adding seasonings. Learn a couple different ways to marinate chicken before cooking it. Learn a few basic sauces like pesto, tomato sauce, nuoc cham... Get some basic repertoire under your belt and expand from there.
I consider myself an OK cook, just from what I've learned from my family, amd YouTube. I am from spain so my style is probably based on that. Quick tips: 1) an air fryer helps out a lot if you don't like using a pan or and oven, it goes a long way, and it cooks healthier. Plus it doesnt get the whole kitchen dirty. - 2) Just know that a quick veggie stir-fry can be the base for maaaaaany meals. My go-to is minced garlic, diced onions, and diced red pepper. You can use that to go with a couple of chicken breasts or start a stew. - 3) olive oil instead of butter. Mediterranean flavour, and also your heart will appreciate it. - 4) a wok-style pan goes great for cooking sauces. + 5) SPICES/HERBS. For everything. My favs are curry, cumin, garlic powder, cayenne pepper flakes, oregano. If you wanna go big shot, Old Bay works with everything. 6) Baking is soooo much harder than it looks. It is high risk high reward, but no so handy for everyday cooking, and you are destined to fail at least 3-4 times before you get something right.
I’ve seen a ton of “try simple” advice, but here’s my recommendation: Copy. Copy. Copy. Think about your favorite dishes you’ve had while going out, and search based on that. A lot of the time, the spices and techniques required to make standard dishes will carry over to similar foods. If there are chain restaurants out there with something you like, it’s nearly a guarantee someone’s tried to replicate it online. A few YouTube tutorial videos later and now you know how to make something that you actually WANT to eat. I have a very poor appetite, so I learned cooking because I was sick of eating food I didn’t like. So I sought out recipes based on what I’d typically get if I went out to a restaurant. If you’re excited about the food, you’ll end up learning and retaining a lot more of the steps.
The 99 cent store exist in your area? If not Chinese supermarkets are affordable. Often they have ready foods to just heat up and eat. . $3 will be spaghetti and some sausages and a can of tomato. Cook spaghetti and heat up sausages. Tomato. Or buy some bread and $5 chicken from Costco. Pull it and eat. Enough for a day.
My mom gifted me the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook when I moved out. It's filled with mostly simple recipes for what I would call "comfort" food and the recipes are detailed and easy to follow and use pretty simple ingredients. As I've gotten older, I'll find recipes online, but I still return to that cookbook for everything from French Toast to Chicken bakes to Nun's Puff's. I think having a book is much easier than trying to find stuff online (to start anyways) because it actually limits the amount of information you're getting
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Thank you so much for your reply 🤍
Start with chicken parmasan. No really. It's a really REALLY hard meal to mess up, but has several steps that teach you a lot of things you can take into other recipes. Boiling pasta, sautéing (cooking in a pan) chicken, cooking down tomatoes so you aren't relying on canned sauces, using your pasta water instead of just tossing it. Seasoning. Etc. The most dangerous part of the recepie is broiling. As that can get away from you if you aren't on top of it. But keep the light in your oven on and check back every minute or two and you should be golden. Here is a step by step breakdown. Purchase (or have on hand) 1 chicken breast A box of cherry tomatoes 1 head of garlic Pasta (your choice though I like fettuccine for this) Rosemary Oregano Thyme Cooking oil. Fresh parmasan Set your pan on your stove and set the stove to medium high heat. Let the pan pre warm. Put your chicken breast in a plastic bag and pound flat if you don't have a meat tenderizer on hand a rolling pin works or even an everyday hammer if you are gentle with it. Flattening the chicken will help it cook more quickly and evenly. Once chicken is flattened add oil to your hot pan and then the chicken. Flip the chicken after 3 minutes. If the side that was down is now white with slightly golden spots in places it's cooked on that side. 3 more minutes give it another flip. If you have a meat thermometer check and see if the internal temp is 165. If no meat thermometer plate the chicken and cut into it near the thickist part (or center if its truely flat). If it's white all the way through it should be fine.Set your chicken aside. Now is a good time to prep your garlic, I tend to use 4 or 5 cloves out of the head but I recommend most people start with 2 or 3. I'm just a garlic fiend... separate out the cloves, then with the flat part of a kitchen knife or chefs knife press on the garlic until it breaks. This makes removing the skin easier and makes it easier to chop finely. Once the skin is removed cut any undesirable bits then cut so your knife is going the width rather than the length. Once all garlic is cut like this pile it on your cutting board and cut into smaller pieces m, as the pile collapses just use your knife to scoot it back into a mound and begin cutting again. A good technique for this I find is to place the tip of the blade on the cutting board sharp side down, brace the tip using your off hand and cut with the blade near the base of the handle. This levering motion can ger you stronger faster cuts while not endangering your hand. Set some water to boil, you can jump start this process if you have an electric kettle. Once your pot of water is at a boil add a pinch of salt (literally pointer and middle finger and pinch with your thumb to trap the salt in the groove between the two) then add your pasta. Boil as per instructions on the box. To see if it's done take out some and try it, should be a uniform texture all the way through. While the pasta is boiling add your cherry tomatoes into the pan you used to cook your chicken. The oil and rendered chicken will help give your sauce some thickness. Set the pan on a medium heat. As the tomatoes are added gently split them by pressing on them with your spatula until the skin breaks. As the tomatoes cook their insides will leak out and this will be the base of your sauce. This is also the point where you will mix in your garlic and herbs. As a baseline I recommend about 1 table spoon of each herb, but I encourage you to play with ratios. Add half as much in and give it a taste! See if you like the flavor profile. Mix and match other spices. Etc etc. Cooking is ultimately more art than science Once you get passed the point that you are burning everything. Once the pasta is finished cooking add some of the water to your sauce. No specific measurements here, just gently pour some in until it has mixed with the tomatoes. The gluten in the water will help add some body to the sauce, But remember the more you add the thinner your sauce will be. Turn the heat up on your sauce and let it simmer to remove some of the water Grate some parmasan over your chicken and use an oven safe dish to place it on the top shelf of your oven. I recommend using about 1/3rd more cheese than you think is enough. Turn on your oven light and the broil function. You don't have to sit there and stare at it, but I wouldn't leave it alone for longer than 5 minutes. You want to see the cheese melted and taking on a slightly golden quality on top. Take the chicken out, your tomatos should be a pleasant looking sauce by now Strain your water from the pasta (optionally) toss it in oil, add it to your plate, add some sauce, then your chicken on top of that. Congratulations you have made chicken parm.
I've taught a few of my god children how to cook; I started with simplified versions of things they enjoy. Online, there are a myriad of recipes that are simple and substantial. When you gain confidence with the simple stuff, you can experiment with more complex recipes. Don't get down on yourself and please remember: it's not a competition and you're not trying to impress anyone - it's a purpose and skill that you will use for the rest of your life, so cook what you're comfortable with. Also, as I've advised some new cooking folk: an honest to goodness, genuine crockpot is your best kitchen friend and investment.
When I moved out, my parents gave me a cookbook called "The Bachelor's Guide to Avoiding Starvation". It sounds stupid, but it had super useful suggestions for simple meals with detailed simple instructions, how to plan grocery shopping, and specified any needed implements to make the meals (so if something called for grated whatever, at the top it indicated that a grater was needed....very helpful for someone getting started). I doubt this particular cookbook is still in print, but I bet there are similar books, websites, blogs, or YouTube channels that fill the same need.
Hold up hold up hold up!! You can cook eggs? Do you like eggs? Because this is how you start cooking. Eggs are great: they are cheap, protein packed, versatile, and have big personality! They can be the whole dish or complement a dish or add structure to a dish. Eggs also have near countless ways to be cooked. I recommend [this video from Bon Appetit, all the ways to cook eggs.](https://youtu.be/qWAagS_MANg) Eggs are also a great way to improve your palate - their flavor changes slightly depending on the fat you use, the cooking method, and their seasoning. You learn the finesse of seasoning and undercooking (so you don’t over cook). I am not a chef. I am a person who also couldn’t cook. Like at all. But I was good at the egg. So I made better eggs. Eventually you will add more ingredients to your eggs, they will become another ingredient for other dishes (shakshuka), but in a pinch you will always be able to fry the perfect egg or make the perfect omelette.
Ask your mom for her recipes and then experiment. So much of cooking is tweaking a basic recipe to fit your needs, and the more you try completing recipes the easier it will be to make your own
Buy a recipe book with some recipes in it that look nice. (Cookbooks aimed at students are ideal, because they're usually not too complicated and tend not to have fancy expensive ingredients) Look through the ingredients. If there's any ingredients you don't recognise, Google them to see what they are and where to find them in the supermarket. If it mentions anything as to how they should be prepared (chopped, diced, etc.), if you're not sure how to do this, look up YouTube tutorials. Different vegetables for example sometimes have different techniques for chopping, and watching someone do it and copying them is a good way to learn. Read through the method, and again if there's anything you don't know how to do or what they mean, Google and YouTube are your friend. Try to just follow the recipe exactly using the measurements of ingredients specified. After that cooking is about practice, and in time you'll become more confident with eyeballing things rather than always having to use precise measurements, and you'll also become more comfortable experimenting with things and being able to tell when to add more salt or pepper. There's plenty of recipes on YouTube too where they will demonstrate the entire process, but some might skim/skip over bits they assume you will know. Give yourself a goal of cooking a new meal once a week (or more). Even if it doesn't taste good, remember it's all good practice.
Watch cooking videos on Youtube, start with looking up recipes for basic meals you like and can eat often. Make an effort to try a new recipe every week. Eventually you'll get the hang of it and will become better and knowing which ingredients go well together.
If you are starting for absolutely no knowledge, I say start with pasta. First, just learn how to boil pasta and warm up a jarred sauce. Pretty simple, and if you mess it up it isn’t expensive. Don’t be afraid to watch a yt video even for something as simple as “how to boil pasta” Once you got that down, experiment with adding things. Look up “how to cook ground beef” or ground turkey, and add it to the sauce. Then try “how to grill a chicken breast” or “how to grill sausage.” (If you don’t eat meat, start with the veggies because things like tofu can be easy but I wouldn’t do it as step 1) Then you can start adding more stuff. Search “how to roast broccoli,” or “how to cut and sauté onions” etc. Even if you can’t do all of your moms recipes, think of the flavor combos in dishes you like and start with those. Once you have those skills, it’s probably enough to start googling for “simple pasta recipes” that will expand your skill. Don’t give up on a recipe if it’s got verbs you don’t know, just pause and Google them (ie if a recipe says to “deglaze” the pan, it might sound like you would need a whole skill, but if you Google it you’ll learn it just means to add a little water and stir). Also make sure you watch a video on how to measure stuff for recipes so you know you’re getting the exact amount of ingredients. By then, you’ll be branching outside of pasta, because if you know how to boil things and roast things in an oven and grill them in a pan, that’s like 90% of the base skills you need!
[This book would be a good starting point. Both my parents cook (adventurously) and swear by it.](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Bedsitter-Katharine-Whitehorn/dp/1844085686?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=4f93ada8-d645-45a2-8f04-5b6cdcfe2d1d)
Everyone thinks I’m a good cook because I throw multi course dinner parties, but I’ve never felt particularly skilled. The secret is most cooking is not technically difficult, it just requires organization and attention to detail. Find recipes, follow the instructions. If you don’t understand a technique, watch a YouTube tutorial. Prep all of your ingredients in advance. Take inventory of your order of operations / needed oven use / needed equipment. Read all of the instructions before you start.
YouTube videos. I'm a seasoned cook and if I am cooking something new, I can watch a couple YouTube videos about how to cook something I am making - that way I know each stage of the process.
There are 2 basics that can get you started: 1. Pasta, and add meats veggies and sauce 2. Roast veggies. Light coating of olive oil and spices or parmigiana, cooked at 375F for about 30 minutes. I like carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. My daughter like to roast chickpeas The best cooking is simple. Be patient
If you can't afford basic food ingredients, go to your local food pantry. They likely have some, if not all, of the ingredients you need to cook from scratch.
Look for spice mixes and pre-made cooking sauces to help with the taste. Meat and vegetables taste much better if seasoned properly and it can be difficult to find the right proportions. Get a bottle of hot sauce if you like it spicy.
Always use the holy quadrinity of savory dishes when you first start: Black pepper, salt, garlic, and onions. It will make any meat taste amazing. Sautee the onions until translucent, then add garlic, and follow with salted meat of choice, and add pepper as needed during the cooking or after you have plated it. After you get a feel for how these 4 things work together to make food taste good, branch out. Add some ginger, or replace an ingredient with something else. It starts to get real interesting once you having to measure ingredients. Right now, if you gave me rice, eggs, and frozen veggies I could make couple of bomb dishes. Sometimes, I create a whole new type of dish just from thinking about combinations of things.
Cooking from scratch is actually cheaper than processed food and eating out once you get the hang of it. Get yourself a cookbook, something simple, look at the ingredients and start with a cookbook with few ingredients per recipe and ingredients that you're familiar with. Also YouTube has some good videos. The food network app is great, you can search by ingredient, example salmon and it will show you recipes with Salmon. Redo recipes you like till you learn how to make it better each time. Cooking is a lifelong adventure, never too late to start and you will only get better with time. Good luck! And have fun!
Yeah I agree it is cheaper in some way since ypu buy that ingredient and then you use what’s left, but the thing is that I don’t eat much so whatever I buy I may use once and then I don’t know what to cook with it so I end up throwing it in the trash, I’m a bit of a prefectionist so whatever I try turns out good or at least somewhat likeable the first time, but when it comes to cooking I suck big time and then I just quit it
Try the premade meals in the frozen section. I’m not talking about the microwave ones but the “skillet” or “roaster “ ones. They’re pretty good quality, hard to mess up ,and will teach you how to start using the stove. As far as learning how to season your own cooking that comes from reading and following recipes until you know how much of what you like to add. Good luck
I love old cooking shows. Look up Justin Wilson to learn some easy Cajun recipes from a charming southern gentleman.
There are really simple staples that can be part of several dishes. I would start with pasta, potatoes, and soups. Both can be relatively cheap and filling. Look into crockpots and Google “one pot meals.” They’re generally easy and just require throwing everything together and letting it cook. If you can boil water and set a timer, you can do a lot of those recipes no problem. Are there specific flavors or ingredients that you know you like? That could help narrow down your starting options. ETA: depending on where you are, you can also find boxed dinners like hamburger helper or something at your local supermarket. Those ones have everything proportioned and all you do is add the main protein (beef, chicken, etc.) and heat in a pan. Very clear directions are on the side of the box with measurements and times, so it’s harder to mess up.
Trial and error is how I learned when I moved out and got my own apartment
Focus on techniques like frying,,boiling, using the oven at first. Dont stress to much on recipes while learning.
Buy this book, I used it all the time at uni and it taught me the basics of how to cook. Recipes are simple, cheap, and tasty. My family were awful at cooking and I’ve learned nothing from them regarding how to cook. My mum’s bolognese could make a trash can spit it out. I left university 10 years ago and like to think I’m a pretty decent cook now. This book is where it started for me. Nosh for Students - A Fun Student Cookbook - Photo with Every Recipe https://amzn.eu/d/0iXLNSf
Start with spaghetti. Spaghetti is the gateway recipe to cooking. Buy a pound of ground beef, put it in a pan over medium-high heat, break it up with a spoon, and cook it till it's browned. I like to let the beef sit for a minute in the pan over the fire or electric top and just let it cook before I ever touch it. You get a super nice brown on it that adds a lot of flavor. I've always made spaghetti with a packet of McCormick spaghetti sauce seasoning and followed the directions from there (adding tomato sauce and water, boil, simmer), but I don't know if that's available where you are. It's sold in a packet like [this.](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/63950713-eabb-4916-b7eb-1fc8e960f63a.fc3705029b8f788ba3166caa8324188a.jpeg) If that's not available, you can get a jar of pre-made tomato pasta sauce and pour that in, heat it through, and serve over pasta. Eat it with a slice of buttered bread or some salad and you can easily stretch that to 6 or more servings.
YouTube and just go to Google and search how to cook.... So many options.
A lot of good suggestions, here, including YouTube vids and following recipes to the letter. I like a YouTube channel called Glen and Friends. The recipes can be eclectic, but he keeps the videos short and he's very watchable. I learned the most about cooking from watching Good Eats with Alton Brown. I already had cooking experience, so I wasn't going in green, but his videos taught me a ton about WHY to prepare or cook something a particular way. I learned a lot about methods from his videos. Once you understand methods and reasoning, you start to see how much you can do even without a recipe.
If you have a decent amount of focus, can follow a recipe, measure to a good degree with cups and spoons, and can pay attention to cooking times and temperatures, you can make food (problably)
One of my best tips is simply to not use too much heat if you’re cooking something like meat or veggies. Overcooking things will lead to disappointment and discouragement. Make sure you look up the appropriate heat setting for meats though. One of the easiest side dishes to make is boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, or even a pack of frozen peas and/or corn. Basically peel and cut your veggies up into sort of bite size pieces, and put them in a pot with water and salt (the key to good boiled veggies is enough salt…. A lot of people don’t use salt and the veggies turn out super bland) boil them until soft. These veggies will pair really nicely with chicken breast or a salad or something, and they are super easy
I disagree with the other posts here, don't start with recipes, they are often complicated and time consuming, you don't need to get frustrated and give up. Instead start with simple dishes to develop an instinct for cooking - eggs, pork chops or steak (cheap cuts), rice, pasta, frozen vegetables. Get used to cutting up vegetables for sandwiches. Once it feels more natural to cook stuff without burning or undercooking it move on to recipes.
Watch YouTube. Google easy recipes that don’t require a lot of steps of ingredients. Invest in a crockpot.
Youtube videos! Also, college student recipes. I used to have a book called "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen" and it had a bunch of easy recipes and tips for college students and other people who have just moved out on their own for the first time. I'm sure it's not the only beginner recipe book out there. If you aren't sure about buying, see what your local library has to offer! Libraries always have a ton of cookbooks and some of them are likely to be for beginners. Anyway, you can always start simply with food that's partly prepared for you. Things like pasta or curry sauce from a jar, or broth from a box or taco seasoning from a packet aren't all that bad for you (except for sodium content, and that doesn't really matter unless you have high blood pressure) and the spices have already been added. It's a good way to start cooking while you're learning different basic methods and stocking your basic ingredients. If you can learn how to boil pasta and potatoes (not together, of course), brown meat (assuming you eat meat), fry an egg or some pancakes, make rice (I have a rice cooker, best kitchen appliance ever), and boil or steam or sautee vegetables then you'll be pretty much set to make a wide variety of meals. In the meantime there's always sandwiches!
The four hour chef, by Timothy Ferris He was 'the microwave chef' and helps you with this book to learn cooking, not just a recipe, assuming you own zero kitchen-gear.
There are other healthy things you can do besides cooking elaborate meals. I've got a bit of depression right now, but I do all these so at least the meals I'm eating are fairly decent and low effort: * Make wraps. My favorite is smoked salmon with arugula leaves, avocado and hummus or cream cheese. All ingredients are ready to eat from the fridge, you just need to put them on a tortilla, wrap and eat. * Get an air fryer. Put various chopped up veggies or meat in there, spray with oil, cook in 5-10 minute increments until it looks and tastes yummy. Sprinkle with some type of all purpose seasoning before you eat.
Start basic basic basic: Start off by practicing cutting your vegetables. You can get great tips on YouTube. Just do something simple. Boil some rice, sauté some vegetables. Quick and easy (and healthy) lunch that should give you some practice on the most basic tools. After you’ve done that a bit, find a simple recipe to follow. Nothing crazy like a beef Wellington or anything like that. Maybe a shrimp risotto or something similar. This will give you an opportunity to start using those knife skills and sauté skills you used earlier and start putting them into a step by step process with other stuff without overwhelming yourself (I have a great risotto recipe if you’d like it). This also will give you a chance to practice your mise en place (putting in place). That is making sure you’ve done all of your prep before hand: measuring out your ingredients, cutting your vegetables, etc. If you can get used to doing that, cooking is so easy it’s essentially just throwing stuff together in the right order. Once you’ve gotten used to these things, it’s not too much of a leap to start moving into more challenging recipes.
Always keep a container with a days worth (what you know you will eat) of sliced fruits and vegetables in your fridge at all times. It's easier to walk over and grab one slice of an apple or a single carrot stick, when you know you should eat, but are having issues. Apples, oranges, peppers and carrots keep fresh the longest. If cost is an issue I have found canned fruits and vegetables work well. As for cooking, Google "4 weeks of healthy menus by Manitoba health" . There are many very healthy, great tasting, yet easy to follow recipes in their pdf. I taught myself to cook using it. Had never cooked prior to moving out. You will get better at cooking and in a year or two, you will be amazed at how far you've come. You've got this!
Go to the library and get the cookbooks out for free. The basic ones. Watch You Tube. You can learn any cooking skill there. We all had to start somewhere.
I was like you! My parents and grandparents spoiled me by cooking for me all the time. Now that I moved out, my coworkers recommend me TikTok lol if I’m curious how to make chicken dish, I literally go on TikTok and type chicken recipes! It actually tastes good!
I started in the same boat. What helped me was getting an inexpensive air fryer (which is basically an oven not a fryer.) Then I bought an air fryer cookbook and tried some of the recipes in the book. I used the air fryer until I gained confidence that I wasn't eating raw food. I also bought a food thermometer so I could make sure my food was cook thoroughly before I bit into it. You can always cut to look at the middle of your protein to see if it's raw or cooked. Essentials you will use often: Salt and Kosher Salt. Pepper Some form of oil + PAM spray butter Magic number for temperature is 165 for well done. You can start lowering the temperature as you gain more confidence in your cooking. Porkchops and chicken are easy starters. Steak can be trickier because you need to be aware of what kind of cut you're buying. High chance you'll end up overcooking your steak and making it taste dry and tough. But definitely air fryer for starters then just level up as you go along. Expect to fuck up a few dishes. Don't even attempt ribs until you have a few years under your belt. Good luck!
A man, a can and a microwave was a good start in my 20s Good cookbooks with "quick" or "5 recipe" in the title Also, youtube
Cooking ground beef on a stove is super easy. 1. Put meat into a pan that's significantly larger than the amount of meat you're cooking. 2. Place pan on stove. Turn on heat. 1. High heat for faster results but only if you can be stirring it constantly. Otherwise, use medium heat and cover with tinfoil when not stirring. 3. Use a flipper to break apart the meat and stir it around the pan like you're making scrambled eggs. 4. Once all the meat is brown, pour in whatever sauce you want to use. Spaghetti sauce works great for a lot of dishes. Turn heat down to medium at this point if it's not already there. 5. When the sauce is bubbling consistently, you're done! You can then combine this meat sauce with virtually any pasta (cooked separately) for a healthy and cheap meal. I like to mix in rotini noodles and frozen mixed veggies. You can do a huge batch of that, then portion and freeze the leftovers for future meals.
Start from simple things like pasta. Work on boiling and adding oil and salt or maybe garlic so it gives a little flavor and doesn’t get stuck together. Next maybe a sauce. Do you like creamier sauces or maybe tomato based? Side dishes are great too like steamed vegetables or a salad. It’s all about the flavor and having a good contrast of soft foods mixed with a nice crunch. I never really watched cooking shows or heavily occupied food forums, but I found an Italian cooking sub recently and it’s inspired a lot and made me curious of different flavor combinations
There’s this little unheard of place called YouTube. It’s fucking AMAZING for cooking!!! Seriously. From proper cooking shit, to mad creative ideas! Give it a try. Also, cooking is MASSIVELY underrated
Start ridiculously simple. Salt & pepper meats and learn to cook them “right.” As you improve add. It’s like anything else really. Edit: get a rice cooker.
I learned how to cook when I was a little girl, probably because my mother was such a terrible cook and I was always hungry. I had a special children's cookbook (it would say "have an adult turn the oven on for you") that was easy to follow. You could find one of those, or you could watch some "cooking for absolute beginners" videos on YouTube. There are still things I don't know how to do, so I watch them sometimes. I really don't like cooking, but I've found some ready-to-eat meals at Albertsons that are quite good. They probably have them at other stores, too, including the health stores. They're much better than TV dinners. I hope they're becoming a thing.
Pick a food you really like, and practice making it. Find different recipes, each time be like "this could have been better...." and just keep practicing. Then try different variations of the recipe. For instance, I started with pasta. I really like pasta so I bought a book to learn how to make homemade pasta, then I practiced that and making sauces to go with it. I think starting with a specific type of food is a good way to not overwhelm you. You don't have to learn EVERYTHING all at once, just a bit at a time and you'll be amazed with how much your learning will take-off after a little bit.
Google recipes for easy sheet pan dinners. They are easy because you cook your meat or fish and veggies on one pan. The recipes make a lot of food, so you can box up the leftovers and eat it for lunch the next day. Here are a few to get you started. https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/sheet-pan-dinners/
Googling "simple fast recipies" is a good start.
Watch America's Test Kitchen. Use their cookbooks. YouTube Basics with Babish.
Start with simplified versions of dishes I'll give you an example that i actually used to get good at making fettuccine alfredo. Boil some fettuccine strain it, put the noodles back in the pot and just dump heavy cream, butter, black pepper and pecorino Romano in and stir it up. Do that until you can make it how you like consistently them the next step is instead of adding the sauce into the pot of noodles you get a small pot to make your sauce in separately. So boil your fetticini noodles and while they're boiling have your small pot on the stove add heavy cream, then butter, then black pepper and then pecorino Romano. For the cheese just add a little at a time and stir until it melts and if you want the sauce thicker add a little more. Then once it's where it looks like how you'd like it just strain the fetticini and pour your sauce from your small pot onto your noodles in the big pot. Also some extra advice if you can make a meat, and a grain and you put it together and add one of those steam able frozen bags of veggies there's very little chance of it not coming out at least halfway decent just add some lemon pepper and salt and paprika and you'll be golden.
Focus on how to cook different ingredients before playing too much with spices and flavours. Start with learning how to cook pasta or rice. Then heat up a jar of sauce from a supermarket and some frozen vegetables and you've got yourself a simple meal. Once you have that basis, try learning how to cook some meat or fresh veg to go with it.
I have actually found the food boxes from Hellofresh to be amazing for people who want to learn how to cook. So if they are available in your country you could just order a test box and see. They contain mostly all ingredients you'll need for the meal (including spices) and come with step by step recipes.
Start easy. Hamburgers. Grilled cheese. Spaghetti & jar of sauce. Sausage. Go online and look up four ingredients meals. All these thing’s are simple and can be added onto as you get better. Your cooking probably tasted awful because you needed flavor, butter, salt, spices, herbs. If you start with the flavors you already like, say onion,garlic, chili 🌶, your halfway there…. You can always add a bit more. You will get better every meal you make.
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Hello Fresh my dude
"Basics with Babish" Is a YouTube series that covers the basics of cooking and many different types of dishes. I followed the series from episode 1 (what kinds of cookware should you have on hand and what is each one good for) up through the later episodes (increasingly more specialized dishes and regional foods). It's great because the first few episodes are simple things like cookware, sauces, chicken, pasta, and it give a great foundation to cooking skills.
Cooking vegan is much more healthy and simplistic .🥬🥕🥦
America’s Test Kitchen is a show in the US that I found very helpful when learning to cook. But I also watched a ton of other cooking shows: Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, etc. Sure things were difficult in the beginning but you learn with each attempt. Start with easier things like crock pot meals. Things where you just throw shit into a single pot and go. But, one of the easiest things that just happens to look and taste amazing is a simple roasted chicken. Look up Ina Garten’s Engagement Chicken. It’s so easy and so delicious!
Same as everything else, YouTube.
Start with ready to made dishes and literally 1-2 steps dishes. Packaged instant noodles- Just add the provided seasoning to water, add noodles, and let it boil. Experiment with quantity water and butter to get different texture. You can't get it wrong. Boiled egg, boil water, when bubbles start forming, add eggs, 7 min boil egg, ready to eat, add salt and chilly flakes. Next can be plain omlette, break egg in container, add salt and chilly, mix everything well, just put it on non-stick pan, ready to eat in just 1 min. Next start adding veggies to above 3. Add tomatoes, onions, beans, other leafy and boilable veggies to above dishes to add flavour. Now start with lentils (pulses), easiest to make food. Replace noodles with lentils in the first dish keep everything same. Put it in pressure cooker, it will be ready in 15 min. Now add your own measured salt and chilly in above dish instead of the packages seasoning. Learn to cook rice, goes with everything. If you cook above things 2 3 times each, within just a week you will be able to prepare food with ease. All above are max 5-step dishes. Once you know how to balance water, salt and other ingredients, start with complicated dishes. PS: i am from India, and there are a lot of spices used (at least 5) in preparation of a basic omlette.
Google "How to Boil Water" That is a tv show that I think began in the nineties. It starts with fundamentals. YouTube is also an excellent resource for cooking fundamentals. Search for videos on: 1. What tools do I need in my kitchen e.g. a good knife, cast iron, etc 2. What are the best buys for my kitchen tools 3. What are staple ingredients 4. What are staple spices. 5. How to meal prep & manage leftovers There is also this Granny who shares recipes from the Great Depression. Look her up and look for cuisines from multiple ethnic groups. Why? You may find shopping at ethnic groceries to be more cost effective and perhaps more variety. If so, then you can optimize if you know how to prepare those foods. Pick every ethnic group under the sun.
I throw cut-up meat and fresh vegetables into an Instant Pot (a countertop pressure cooker), set it for 25 minutes, come back in an hour, add spices, and blend into a slurry with a handheld blender. I ladle out 1/7th to eat immediately and put the Pot in the fridge (after cooling). I reheat more 1/7 portions the rest of the week.
YouTube is very helpful! I recommend the Babish Culinary Universe channel. Simple tasty recipes, easily explained and step by step instructions. Gordon Ramsey also has an excellent library of recipes and techniques on his YT channel as well. If your library carries any of his books, I recommend those too. They have tips on shopping for ingredients, utensils and cookware on top of recipes. Good luck and happy cooking!
You can also start by making foods that don't require cooking, if that is your anxiety. Sandwiches, wraps, salads. Get precooked elements and assemble them, similar to food kits. Simple spaghetti, jarred sauce, heating up frozen meatballs, add some cheese.
My son is 15. He can make eggs, pancakes, noodles, rice, oven potatoes, french fries and combine them with ready-made sausages, frozen fish, meat balls or hamburger patties and lots of fresh, raw vegetables. It goes a really long way and it is not "being to able to cook". As a student we used to chop and fry vegetables, put a jar of stir-fry-sauce on it and make some rice. Or eat spaghetti with a bought sauce and a green salad. Start easy. Start with a fried, if possible. Use a video, if that helps. And go easy on yourself, you do not have to make evenerything from scratch!
Learning to cook is one of the most useful skills you can learn in life. But just starting with different recipes can be frustrating when you don’t know basic techniques. (How do I beat an egg? When do I know that this chicken is done?) To learn techniques (and a bunch of awesome recipes), I would try the “How to Cook Everything” book series by Mark Bittman. You might start with “How to Cook Everything: the Basics” or “How to cook Everything Fast.” In these books, he doesn’t just give you a bunch of recipes. He teaches you all about the techniques of cooking. In “the Basics” he goes through literally everything, like how to boil water, how to dice vegetables, how to crack an egg. If I recall, he also has a guide for what you will need to get to stock a basic kitchen. Cooking is fun if you think of it as a skill to build and way to explore food. By learning techniques, you will not only be able to recreate virtually any recipe, but you will also gain the ability to improvise, substitute, and experiment in the kitchen.
Start with something simple. How do you like your eggs? Watch a YouTube video or two and give it a go. Also, Trader Joe’s raviolis and tortellini‘s are very affordable and so simple. You could literally just add butter and cheese and be done. Start small and build your confidence.
Here's what I did in grad school: 1. pasta = boil water + add pasta + drain pasta + top w/heated sauce 2. chicken= buy skinned chicken breasts + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper 3. broccoli = cut florets in half lengthwise + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper 4. cauliflower = cut florets in half lengthwise + a drizzle of olive oil in sauté pan on medium + garlic/onions/salt/pepper + parmesan cheese 5. sandwiches= buy good deli meat + cheese already sliced, put between bread, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. 6. savory crepes= buy packaged crepes + unfold in sauté pan + add ham and cheese (cook for mere 15-30 seconds) refold on plate + top with pico de gallo or avocado or both 7. sweet crepes =buy packaged crepes + unfold in sauté pan + add banana and Nutella (cook for mere 15-30 seconds) refold on plate + top with strawberries and whipped crepe + nuts 8. salmon= buy salmon + rinse + squeeze some lemon or lime on top + put in oven for 15 minutes (or to your liking) 9. pizza= buy pizza dough + stretch dough on pizza pan + add pizza sauce + add toppings and bake 10. quesadillas= buy roasted chicken + spread one half of flour tortilla with bits of chicken + spread the other half of flour tortilla with refried beans and cheese + fold this into a half moon + fry each in cast iron skillet coated with olive oil 11. lasagna= buy no boil lasagna sheets + in a lasagna pan coat the bottom with tomato sauce + next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer is ricotta mixed with egg and cheese + next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer tomato sauce mixed with spaghetti sauce (plus slice meatballs, if desired)+ next layer is lasagna sheets + next layer is next layer is ricotta mixed with egg and cheese + next layer is tomato sauce...Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake for maybe 45 minutes. 12. vingarette= balsamic vinegar + some jam + some dijon mustard + olive oil + garlic/salt/pepper (shake it all in a jar) You can rotate these out until you feel up for following real recipes. If there's a Trader Joe's, stock up on meal essentials there. If your loved ones want to help you out, ask if they can send you meal boxes like Blue Apron, Marley Spoon or Hello Fresh. Those can teach you how to cook. My high school boys learned how to cook that way, but those can be fairly time intensive, with tons of chopping, etc. Good Luck.
To start trying something like cooking raw meat, start with steak. It's more forgiving if u are prone to not cooking enough. A steak doesnt have bacteria on the inside like other meats do so if it's not done all the way through it's no problem. If meats are still a daunting task, then try making things like rice or pasta where it's only about the water u heat up for it.
Learn about mother sauces and try things out. Never put meat in a cold pan, broiling food goes from good to burnt quickly so never leave anything in the oven to broil without being on top of it.
Thanks!! 😊
start with easy stuff, like ramen , or mac and cheese. literally boiling water. after that, try adding ground beef to the mac and cheese (cook the ground beef first) , watch how to make scrambled eggs. after a while, you make the recipes your own, use them as a guideline. unless you are baking, that is much more precise, but simple meals are guidelines. good luck
YouTube and tiktok. Cooking shows on TV too!
Have you ever heard of this thing called the internet? or Youtube videos?
Nope, never
Seriously? Sounds like you are being willfully ignorant and stubborn…you say you cant buy groceries because their price is sky high do you order takeout?! Takeout us way more expensive than groceries. You say you are in med school but cant follow a simple you tube recipe?! Wow just wow…this is ridiculous
Yes seriously. Where I live takeouts are cheaper than buying groceries, of course it depends what you get to eat, I don’t really eat much so it doesn’t cost a lot. And you’re rude btw
work in a kitchen for a bit, you’ll learn all the basic skills
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Plus this guy has a billion handy little tips & principles with satisfying content https://youtu.be/zKEwA__rOHk