When it comes to cooking, you want to show off your at-home pro chef skills, but some seemingly trivial things you do in the kitchen can create real problems, like uneven cooking or barely seasoned foods. It’s hard enough to grill a steak or season vegetables correctly; use this list of four really bad habits you need to break to become a better home cook!
Not Following the Recipe
There is room to modify any recipe, like an extra spice or an ingredient substitution for dietary or allergy reasons. However, if you don’t follow the recipe correctly, you risk making a mistake that jeopardizes the entire dish.
Instead of cooking for a crowd, limit the number of ingredients to the recommended amount. That way, you don’t have leftovers.
Also, when trying recipes from another culture or part of the world, check specialized stores or the international section of your supermarket for specific items so you have the right ingredients.
Overfilling a Pot or Pan
When cooking anything, you want to ensure you’re not cooking too much at once, or else you risk several issues in the kitchen.
When you overfill a pot or pan, you risk spillage, unpleasant aromas, and sections burning if you’re cooking too many pieces of the dish at once. Sure, those one-pan meals are easy, but many require you to have a certain-sized pot to cook everything correctly.
While cooking, make sure to buy the right pan or pot size before cooking. If you’re cooking multiple pieces of the meal at once, using other appliances can speed up the cooking time and make the process more tolerable.
Letting Cooking Smells Linger
It’s always a blast smelling the food while it cooks, but not ventilating as you cook can create significant issues. For example, you can develop a breathing problem if you constantly ingest smoke from the grill. Some sources of some bad smells can even fester into mold growth if there’s no airflow.
To avoid any potential health problems or irritation, make sure you know how to remove cooking smells. By learning how to draw out and address the unwanted aromas, you create a cleaner kitchen that’s fun to cook in.
Using Metal Utensils on Nonstick Pans
If you’ve stocked your kitchen with nonstick pans, using silicone or plastic utensils is essential. The nonstick pans you cook with contain Teflon, a synthetic chemical that, when scratched by metal utensils or a copper scrubber, can absorb into your food and create serious health risks.
Once your nonstick pan gets scratched, do not use it. Replace it with a new pan, and remember to avoid using metal utensils in the future.
Cooking is a fun activity that most people enjoy, but problems can occur if you struggle with these bad kitchen habits that are hard to break. As you learn more about these classic cooking mistakes, you understand what to avoid and how to succeed in the kitchen!
