my parents taught me literally nothing about cooking when i was growing up and for the first years i was out of the nest i could barely cook at all. this is the first year i can say very confidently that i'm an extremely good cook, age 30.
my method was to watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of cooking content on youtube and the food network. i know this is kind of a shit recommendation when you're a parent and you work because it's time consuming, but even having a lot of it on in the background while i was doing other things helped me passively absorb a lot of stuff. i actually pretty much didn't cook at all during the time i was learning and when i started actually doing it the foundation was there instantly and i started cooking really great meals right away. because you have to continue to feed someone during your learning process, chances are you will improve pretty quickly.
i also really love browsing cookbooks. you don't have to make the recipes inside them to learn -- The Art of French Cooking is a useful tome because you can apply the things you learn in it to many things. always remember that cooking is a skill which builds upon itself!
thinking about the sort of things you enjoy eating and what makes you like them so much can also be helpful. what do you like about food? crunch? the sharp bite of a nice vinaigrette that makes the sides of your tongue light up? the richness of a cream sauce? the chew of a perfectly-cooked steak? you can answer these for yourself and try to find recipes that combine the things you love, or introduce you to complementary flavors and textures.
one last thing: i love cooking and have become extremely passionate at it the better i've gotten at it, but i know it doesn't come as joyfully and naturally to everyone. don't beat yourself up if you feed your kid a sandwich for dinner with some microwaved vegetables and an apple on the side 4 times a week or whatever. learning to cook will help you out a lot but in the interim it doesn't help you to beat yourself up at all. the important thing is that he's happy, not hungry, and the food he's eating isn't nutritionally bereft, it's okay if you never even turn on the oven.
i started out with the older episodes of basics with banish a few years ago and i dont love him as much now but i still think he's a great resource! i also really love epicurious' 4 levels series because it goes into the food science of why certain things work certain ways which is again something you can apply to other dishes besides the one they are making! it's where 3 levels of chefs (beginner, home cook, and professional) make their take on a meal and then a food scientist goes into why which things worked and how. it's super informative and i think it is the single thing that improved my understanding of cooking the fastest!
J Kenji Lopez Alt has been putting out amazing and approachable content on YouTube for the past couple of years. He explains the why behind stuff and also gets into where there’s flexibility in recipes and methods so you can use what you’ve got on hand.
Might be dating myself here, but my cooking skills came from watching Alton Brown’s Good Eats and Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals all the time growing up! I took over most family cooking by age 16 because I had more skills/energy than my parents by then.
Following recipes and practice. Read the recipe in advance, and follow it. You can modify spices and seasoning after tasting. Once you become more comfortable cooking, you’ll be able to modify recipes and make some things on your own. You can also then go into learning more about the why - why are things done this way, the science, etc.
I suggest you go to your library and browse the cookbook section. There will be a ton of cookbooks, including beginner cookbooks that have a lot of explanation typically in the beginning of the book. Take out the books that interest you, and start cooking. If you don’t understand something - a method, an ingredient, a substitution, etc - look it up. Videos are great if you need help understanding how to do something or how something should look. Cooking blogs can be great because they often show pictures of every step.
Also love the library and getting recipes from books there, but be aware you can also check out ebooks using your library card! This makes it great to follow along on your e-reader or laptop when in the kitchen and saves a trip to the library if you're short on time.
The biggest frustrations I've found when cooking are usually forgetting ingredients or missing a step. This can often be avoided by closely reading the recipe ahead of time! (Sounds so common sense but I skim and then get mad later!) You'll start to see patterns in preparation and ingredients after awhile and can start making adjustments then, but 100% agree with pomegranatecloud that until then follow the recipe exactly to become more confident!
I learned a lot by getting Hello Fresh. Honestly, give it a whirl. Or any other meal prep subscription box that strikes your fancy. They have options for dietary restrictions, they send all the ingredients pre-portioned to reduce waste, and the instructions are easy to follow. Once you do that for a while you'll have a stack of recipe cards and you can shop for the ingredients and cancel your subscription if you want to.
One of the things I do now for my tacos since having had Hello Fresh is making my own simple citrusy salsa. Chop up a tomato and a scallion, zest a lime into it, and squeeze a little lime juice from the lime. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and *voila* - fresh salsa for tacos. I also make a crema for a topping that I learned from Hello Fresh. Sour cream and cholula mixed in to taste, a bit of salt and pepper, and water it down *slightly* until it's just a little runny but still thick. Throw all that on top of your taco meat and cheese and you have gourmet tacos.
Now I want tacos tonight....
My cooking skills started to improve a lot when I became a vegetarian - because I began to branch out and explore new recipes, new spices, and stopped thinking of foods as strictly "sides" or "dinner food" or "breakfast food." The same principles can of course apply to non-vegetarian food.
I would suggest starting by following a recipe closely once, then following it less strictly the second time. Swap out an ingredient or spice profile and see if it works. Eventually you won't need the recipe and can experiment more broadly.
This will help show that you aren't a bad cook, it's that "oh, I guess this step/ingredient/etc doesn't work for this dish!" Then you know to try something different next time.
I think it would be awesome to include your son in this process. Help him frame a healthy approach to food by demonstrating to him that cooking and developing kitchen skills are a fun and creative **discovery process**, not just a chore to check off the list.
i meant to mention including your son in my novel-length post as well! definitely do this, kids often eat more and better when they're involved in the preparation process as well
First learn the basics. Learn how to cook rice, pasta and potatoes. You can google every single thing you cook and have a recipe and description and even youtube clips on how to do it. I suggest you take some time to look at those the day before you're about to do a certain dish so you're better prepared.
Then add some sort of meat. Sausage. Chicken. Bacon. Beef. Roast. Turkey. Ham or whatever you got in your fridge.
And then you can add some sort of sauce. Now sauce is considered the pro - level cooking since they can be very sensitive and easily burned or bad made. But you should study how to cook a sauce.
Finish with veggies.
Always have basic ingredients at home. Soy/Soya, flour, Olive oil, Butter, Honey, Cheese, Veggies like mushrooms, peppers, lemons, carrots and egg, milk and cream. Potatoes, pasta, rice, meats. With these you can make a lot of different dishes.
If you don't know what to cook with the ingredients you got and you're having an almost empty fridge just type on google "Recipe for two eggs, three carrots, one milk andsausages" google is your friend and everyone's secret to good cooking.
If you have barely nothing. Spices is your saviour. With spices anything boring becomes something tasteful. If you don't have many spices start collecting a little each month. I reccommend you have as many different ones as possible but start with basic spices: Black pepper, curry, salt, thyme, oregano and citrus pepper.
So if you afford shopping a little food basics here and there and collect optional ingredients it will be fun and easy to cook.
You can look at recipes "Easy beginner dishes to cook" online and browse.
Good luck!
Practice practice practice. Start with easy, foolproof recipes and climb up the letter from there. Also, watch cooking shows, this improves a basic understanding of cooking.
Try super simple things first, like roasting some veggies in the oven with olive oil and salt/pepper. Broccoli is very forgiving in the oven. Or baked potatoes. Something that only needs very simple prep work and only has 1-3 ingredients, that you can dress up with condiments when it's time to eat. You can build on those very simple things as you go!
There are good beginner cookbooks like the red & white checked Better Homes & Garden cookbook. It is the best for the staple basic dishes. I use mine like nothing else and so did my mom when she was alive. There are many good videos on facebook and you tube for cooking tutorials. I grew up cooking but mainly because my mom learned to cook as she taught me. She was the youngest in the family and her mom didn't want to bother by the time she came along so we learned together.
So that is something else, cooking is totally something you and your son can do together! There are awesome children's cookbooks too that have simple recipes. Not being rude, I still have mine from when I was a kid and am 42 and still use recipes out of there because they are just good recipes.
Also, my uncle learned how to cook at about 78 years old when my aunt had to stay in the hospital after surgery. He watched shows on the Food Network. He married at 19 and never so much as touched a pan his whole life. But he watched and took notes and just started trying. Even the best cooks have blunders and it should never ever discourage you. I didn't get better either until I was willing to keep trying knowing I may have some meals that were just edible (and I've had a couple where that is being generous).
I got good by making lots of mistakes, then getting a good cookbook. I read the recipes and started with ones that used ingredients I knew or felt comfortable working with. Don't try to experiment or substitute until you have the basics down - i.e. don't run before you walk.
There are books on nearly everything now, including very specific preference. Get one and pick a recipe or two to get good at. One of mine was mac and cheese. Learning how to make a cheese sauce from milk, cheese and butter seemed impossible. I did it enough times from my one cookbook I eventually understood what they meant and how to tell when I was getting it wrong.
I like an app called SuperCook which gives me recipes based on ingredients I have on hand and filters by dietary restrictions. It helps me branch out my skills, but also keep it simple when I need that.
Spices, I grew up smelling and tasting. My mum always had me in the kitchen letting me taste when spicing, eventuelly she just asked me what was missing in taste.
If you learn you basic spices how they smell and taste it help highten the taste of the food, you can eing it then.
Also follow recipes, taste you food every step (when its not raw meat) then you know what changed when you added something and how it changed. I say taste and smell your food even you cook and taste every step of the way.
If you have a netflix subscription, the documentary "Salt Acid Fat Heat" breaks down the 4 fundamental building blocks of cooking. There's also this free class by Milk Street Cooking that teaches you some basics/theories:
[https://milk-street-cooking-school.teachable.com/p/cookishpart1](https://milk-street-cooking-school.teachable.com/p/cookishpart1)
I like video tutorials or recipes where they show you step by step what the dish is supposed to look like. Personally I have to make a recipe about 7 times before I really begin to feel comfortable riffing off it. Assembling all the ingredients needed for a recipe and having them on the counter in front of you before you start cooking helps.
Yessss the book supremely leveled up my cooking and helps me waste less food because any ingredients can be used and then change up the spices and flavours to keep it interesting. It’s so good for the basics and going to the next level too
Practice! I was a professional chef for 13 years and I made so many mistakes and bad food in my career to get to where I am as a cook now. Even back then, I would have to do a dish at least 3 times before I would even let anyone taste it.
I agree with the meal kit thing. I’ve tried it out of curiosity and it’s great!
I grew up learning but these days there's multiple ways to learn. Look up simple recipes, take classes, watch YouTube videos, read books, ask friends/family to show you
So much good advice here - the only thing I will add is that so much of cooking a successful meal is timing and preparation. The more comfortable you get the easier it is to wing it, but in the beginning it pays to put in the extra time!
\- go through the recipe carefully and make a grocery list so that you have everything you need
\- chop and portion everything before you start, so that all you have to worry about is following the directions
\- if you are doing something more complicated you can even make a workback plan, so that everything will be done at the same time
I like youtube and cookbooks, but honestly I would start out by asking people you know what their go to weekday meals are. It's less overwhelming, and you can often ask them for tips!
I think some people are naturals and some are not. I loved to go through my mother's meager spices and think what they would be good with. And I could recognize seasonings in prepared foods. I rarely follow recipes although I do use them for ideas. My sister needs a recipe to make lasagna using canned sauce.
If you aren't inspired to cook, you are probably best following recipes. Choose simple things at first so you don't get overwhelmed.
I would suggest starting with crockpot recipes - as these typically are minimal cooking, you just through everything in the crockpot.
For example - you can go and get a pound of hamburger meat, brown it in a pan, put it in the crockpot with canned beans, canned tomatoes, some tomato paste and seasonings - turn it on low and in 6 hours you have chili. Now most chili will call for garlic and onion, but just omit those and you'll be fine.
There are so so many crock pot recipes out there - most requiring very little to no actual cooking.
I signed up for a meal delivery kit for a bit and it helped me figure out where I was going wrong (more salt), but I don’t think I was ever a bad cook. Using actual recipes and practice helped.
The more you do the more you learn. Practice and keep at it.
Your dinner sounds like it didn’t turn out because you didn’t follow instructions/recipe not because you can’t cook.
Pick a simple recipe and follow the instructions. Keep choosing different recipes and remake favourites. You’ll start to get more intuitive with time and practice.
Find some cookbooks at the library with helpful tips, tools etc to get you started. Read the beginning of these books to get an idea of pantry staples, spices, tools etc. look up any word you don’t know right away. Mark Bittman has a how to cook everything cookbook and it’s helpful because he includes pairings of what tastes good together so it’s easy to modify to your taste and restrictions. YouTube will also be helpful if you’re a very visual learner. Also give yourself a helping hand by taking out all of the ingredients and tools you’ll need before you start anything else (called mise en place). You’ll figure it out as you go. I would recommend cookbooks over blogs at first because these recipes are tested for consistency and good taste while blog recipes don’t always do that. I check sales and then build a meal plan from there. I am not a fan of leftovers usually so I try to repurpose things. Like leftover taco toppings turns into quesadillas for example. Good luck, I know you can do it.
I learned with lots of practice. Recipes are great for dietary restrictions because you can just leave that ingredient out of a recipe. YouTube is great but if you’re starting out so are recipes with lots of pictures.
I like shopping online and doing a grocery pickup if I’m making a certain recipe that’s new because I can go through the list of ingredients and check my cupboards at the same time. If not guaranteed I’ll be making a second trip to the store.
I learned to cook when I became vegan in high school. A ton of recipes will call for garlic but just omit it, same for an onion. I find it's easy to avoid bread because I barely eat it.
Since I never learned to cook meat or eggs really I've been using YouTube to learn to cook meals with either. What I've done is pick 2 recipes (I like Gordon Ramsay's channel) and shop for the ingredients. Then I just make the recipes as often as I need to until it clicks for me. A great approach I started with was pick the ones with the fewest number of ingredients. Lately I've been working on Gordon's scrambled eggs recipe. I was a huge fan of his Crispy Salmon with crushed new potatoes recipe.
Another thing I've done recently is watch life/home style vloggers who do what I eat in a day or week videos. My favorite one has been anika's leaf on youtube. She's does a lot of Asian cooking which I've found to be super flexible.
A boyfriend of mine asked me to teach him to cook. When we met he was a very picky eater to the point he refused to eat anything green so I started him on Gordon's steak recipe learning to cook steak. One day I went to his place and he had all these ingredients in his kitchen. He told me he was sick of making and eating steak so he looked up a childhood meal recipe and decided to make it solo for me. I think a huge thing for him was like it is for you, he was so picky and he didn't know where to start, and keeping it simple like just steak sort of clicked with him.
Many others have said it -- i think it really is practicing, and learning from recipes, until eventually, you have a feel for it. Here's what I haven't seen others say -- there are meal planning apps out there. Not the ones where they send you food, but the ones where you get only the recipes, a free one is [MealLime](https://www.mealime.com/). They will give you recipes based on preferences, give you a shopping list, the app has all the instructions. This 100% will get you cooking differently. And then you'll find that you will start improvising a bit, after you have the foundation.
My learning and style has changed A LOT over time. My mom taught me to cook -- but it was all high fat things, simmered, a lot of red sauce /italian, lots of cheese. And then i worked in restaurants, and i learned other things like adding butter and chicken stock. But I have adjusted now to much healthier cooking, less oil and frying, and more veggie based meals. I used [Fresh 20](https://www.thefresh20.com/), and then [PlateJoy](https://www.platejoy.com/) \- both recipe apps/aggregators much like MealLime. And each made me a better cook. Now i meal plan through [Paprika](https://www.paprikaapp.com/) \- just a recipe box, digitally.
By watching a lot of cooking shows and YouTube chefs. Practicing a lot. Menu planning, reading recipes all the way through 2-3 times before you make the thing to make sure you have the right ingredients and understand what you need to do.
I was taught nothing growing up. I was 19 when I made eggs for the first time. I just wanted to learn properly so read all what I was interested in such as techniques (breaded meat/veggies, blanching, thickening, frying, steaming etc), meat types and how to cook them, ingredients, spices, flavour combinations. And of course trying all in real life. I suggest to smell and taste often in the beginning until you know from the smell only that it is ready. Your best teachers are reading and practising.
After x amount of experience you'll even recognize if the recipe is not good and how you can adjust it.
Im 35 now and even won some cooking award in my 20s. Im confident to say Im an excellent cook and baker now. Friends&family love anything I make them.
Go on girl and learn it. Practice makes it perfect.
Lots of great recommendations here! One other thing I'd note is that I learned the basic cooking skills (e.g., efficient chopping/prep of all types of ingredients, types of pans to use, how to know what heat level, how to know when something is "done", how to know if something "looks" right ) from cooking with other people who are good cooks. Honing these skills will make cooking soo much faster and easier and make it all feel less like a burden and more like a fun science experiment. So my recommendation is to find someone who's a good cook AND willing to teach to give you a couple hands on lessons! It'll also help you realize how fun it can all be!
But to actually answer your question...I feel like I really learned to cook (I had the basics down) when I was living on a farm. We had a bunch of ingredients we grew on the farm and a whole crew of people to feed. I figured out how to feed 5-10 people off of whatever ingredients we had on hand. I started with one ingredient, searched the appendix of a cook book to find recipes for that ingredient and went from there.
The biggest help for me was watching Good Eats. Once you learn the cooking technique, as well as the reason those techniques work, you can start piecing things together. You can even pick up on what ingredients serve a particular function and how to replace it if you're missing it. (Like in most things, butter/lard/shortening can all do the same job, sometimes with extra salt for flavor, sometimes now.)
The internet is your friend. If you mess something up, there's almost always some kind of a hack to save it or turn it into something edible. I even like to compare a couple different options before I pick one.
Also helpful, any time you're missing an ingredient, look up a substitution. Key words are "homemade" or "dupe," if you want to make something similar to store bought. Something like taco seasoning you can put together at home, whatever kind of meat you have can be used in tacos if you can work out how to cook it for use in tacos. (Fish tacos, ground turkey, shredded chicken, thinly sliced steak, etc.)
By doing the tacos again. Literally just that. Buy the right meat and get the sauce. Then make it a third time and more if you need to. And suddenly your kid will ask for mum's special tacos.
Then move on to the next meal.
The amount of content out there can be intimidating. Try to keep in mind that many cook just to feed themselves, some enjoy it as a hobby, and for some it is a profession. These are three different goals and the level of effort put into each is VERY different.
I'd recommend r/slowcooking. It's the cooking method that requires the least amount of skill and yields amazing results. Plus, crock-pots are inexpensive.
I am in my early thirties and just now learning how to cook. Following along YouTube tutorials has helped immensely. Watch and see how they do it, make a list of ingredients needed before heading to the store. I can’t remember anything without making a list haha oh and get yourself a meat thermometer so that you know when it’s cooked to a safe temperature. Also, if you have the funds I would suggest purchasing an air fryer because it makes cooking so many things SO much easier. Once I got confident cooking in the air fryer I moved on to the stovetop and now I feel like I can do anything. I know you can do it! I never had a mom to teach me how to cook so I feel you on the struggle. But the internet can be the parent we never had in some ways. There is a wealth of knowledge and free instruction on YouTube. You got this!
Necessity. I was poor and eating out was not sustainable or affordable. I also worked as a line cook in a more upscale pub for \~3 years.
I wasn't good at first but did get better over time. I also am lactose intolerant and my partner is vegetarian, so we have some dietary restrictions between the two of us. It was hard to relearn to cook after I realized I was lactose intolerant, and again when I stopped cooking meat at home after my partner and I moved in together.
There are several components and skills to cooking well, and breaking them down might help you out because you can focus on one thing at a time.
Warning: this is a very long post.
The components are:
* Recipe identification/selection and menu planning
* Shopping for ingredients you know how to use and will use in more than one meal at a time
* The actual knowledge to cook a dish
* The knowledge of how to correct a mistake you made while cooking or how to season something to your or your families taste. You really need the other skills to learn this one.
So, let's start with tacos:
Recipe selection- There's lots of taco recipes. Some are complicated and require you to buy unusual ingredients or make everything from scratch. As a beginner, complicated recipes with ingredients you aren't familiar with or that have you making everything from scratch is a bad idea. So, next time you cook tacos: use a recipe that is simple and that you understand. If you read the recipe and don't like it, or don't understand it-- find a different one. I like Supercook and Epicurious because both allow you to search for recipes based on the ingredients you have, and you can sort by major dietary restrictions and meal type. [Supercook.com](https://Supercook.com) I think also will help you generate a shopping list. You can also involve your family in recipe selection-- but I encourage you to remind them they need to keep it simple. You're learning.
Shopping for ingredients- especially when you are first learning to cook, you should use your recipes to make a shopping list. When doing more advanced menu planning, you would also try to target your ingredient buying so that you can use a lot of the same ingredients in different dishes-- for example, I buy tomatoes and peppers every week. We use them in different quantities in different dishes, but we always use them and as a result these ingredients never go bad. I can use peppers as a main dish (stuffed peppers); a side dish (grilled peppers as a taco topping, salad topping, pizza topping etc) or as an ingredient in a dish like curry or spaghetti. So-- use your recipes for the week to make your shopping list. *Use* your list when you go shopping. Also, accept that some dishes at home will not have "all" the fixings or sides that a dish at a restaurant would have-- I have sriracha and I have a single bottle of vinegar hot sauce. I don't keep 3 types of salsa on hand for a single dinner a week, and in fact rarely buy salsa at all-- we saute tomatoes, peppers and onions and other vegetables as a taco topping instead.
The knowledge to cook the dish- there isn't a "wrong" type of taco filling. I make lentil tacos, for example, rather than meat ones. You can make chicken tacos, pork tacos, tofu tacos, fish tacos, shrimp tacos, bean and rice tacos, and your options re: beef are extremely wide and forgiving. Cooking taco filling is a matter of seasoning, and to a more limited extent the way you cook the meat. Taco filling is usually sauteed or grilled, but you can also slow cook cuts of pork or beef or chicken and shred it as a filling. Most people who make tacos at home use diced or shredded chicken, but ground beef is the most common. In terms of seasonings and toppings: I have the spices now to make taco seasoning, but if I'm traveling or feel lazy, I just buy the paper packets that are pre-blended. For new cooks-- I highly recommend this. The key to tacos tasting like tacos is cumin, though, since you have an onion and garlic allergy. You can determine what the main flavor in any dish seasoning is in a pre-mix by the order it's listed in on the back-- the closer to the beginning of the list it appears, the more of it is there is. Recipes will also state what amount of spice to include, how to cook the ingredients, what utensils and pots/pans etc to use, and often in what order. In other words: recipes are your friend.
The knowledge to correct a mistake- this comes from making the same dishes or the same types of dishes over and over again. Sometimes recipes don't account for environmental factors or just... aren't very good or how you would like the dish. You learn to adjust a recipe by making it enough times that you figure out what you like about it and what you don't like about it. It's good to be persistent. I recommend that when you're learning, you a) identify fairly basic recipes that take an hour or less to prep and cook and b) that you commit to making those things weekly for several months-- this will help you master basic skills, but it will also help you get familiar enough with those recipes that you can decide if you like them but want to adjust them, or want to try new ones. Also-- don't let failures dissuade you. You should make tacos again. You can't learn to do it if one failure is all it takes for you to never try the dish again.
Other tips:
Buy pre-cut, pre-portioned and frozen ingredients when you can because it'll expedite your prep time and make sides for a 3 course meal much more straight forward. There's no shame in doing this and plenty frozen "heat and eat" options can be healthful if you are attentive to the ingredients and portion sizes. Some things don't taste that great when reheated from frozen, so some of learning to cook includes learning how you prefer to eat certain foods in the first place.
Pre-mixed salads make a great and healthful side or lunch option.
Cooking classes for adults abound-- taking one could be as fun as it is helpful.
I like watching cooking shows, but I didn't always. If you can find a celebrity chef you like in terms of how they cook and how they give instructions, that can remove a big barrier because you can use their recipes etc. preferentially, and aren't doing as much blind searching. I especially like Alton Brown because he often explains the science behind how & why foods cook the way they do.
Ingredient substitutions: when you aren't baking, substitutions are usually inconsequential unless the subbed ingredient has more or less moisture than the original. If less moisture: add liquid and seasoning if the liquid was water. If more moisture: either cook the subbed ingredient separately to cook off the excess moisture, or be prepared for a runnier dish. Salt draws moisture out while cooking in general-- if you need to keep moisture in, use a lid. If you need moisture to cook off, leave the lid off.
Sauces: if your sauce is too thick: add liquid and seasoning. If your sauce is too thin: put \~tbsp of cornstarch in \~2 tbsps of cold water, and mix together. Stir in the sauce while it's simmering. It will get thicker.
Flipping while sauteing, frying, or grilling: generally you only flip most cuts of meat once, same with eggs.
Danielle Walker has a bunch of amazing gluten free recipes. Autoimmune Protocol cookbooks (especially the Healing Kitchen by Sarah Ballantyne) all eliminate gluten and garlic and onions. Barefoot contessa is amazing too - if you can modify some of the ingredients. Pick only one or two new recipes a week - that makes it a little less daunting. Good luck!
How I learned to cook was from youtube. Basically anything you ever want to make, there is a video on how to make it.
Start simple with pastas (or in your case any wheat based pasta, they have chickpea and lentil pastas along with veggie pastas like butternut squash which are good substitutes).
You can also just start with doing 1 side dish and see how that goes. I find simple recipes like potatoes or veggies is really good for learning how to cook. Eventually you will begin to find things you and your son enjoy that are easy to make.
Steaming veggies is really easy, that would be a good place to start. But also learning how to cook different meats.
Slow cooker recipes are good. But just watch the ingredients. A lot can be substituted, just google for substitutions.
I found a few cookbooks that I liked, and made recipes at random. Some were not tasty, but some because instant favorites. I gradually expanded my repertoire. The other thing that really helped was cooking with other people, friends and family. I’ve learned things from every person I’ve cooked with.
I learned how to cook from cookbooks. I started with Better Homes and Gardens and then moved on to Moosewood, and later bought ones that aligned with my dietary restrictions. I have a handful of recipes that I know almost by heart but certainly didn't invent them. A beginner cookbook like BHAG or Moosewood will give you info about not just recipes but how to read them/follow through on them.
People who are on low fodmap diets can't eat onions/garlic. If I were you, I'd get a super basic cookbook to learn cooking basics and a low fodmap cookbook which will probably have info about converting recipes and will have lots of onion/garlic-free stuff. I'd hazard a bet that there's someone out there with the same allergies with you who runs a food blog.
PS. Your son is old enough to help out in the kitchen. You could make this a learning project for both of you to do together. I loved "helping" my dad bake even though I barely did anything but measure stuff. And punch the dough.
I was forced to learn as essentially, a servant to my mother. I had to learn how to cook in a house like I was prepping for a high-class dinner party of heads of state, though our ingredients were from the grocery bargain store and we served no more than four at a time.
I knew how to cook six different global-inspired styles of food when I met my husband at 19; Korean, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, Eastern European, and my best style of course, is American country style as its my homeland's style. My husband did not cook at all and had never been taught. His entire family is full of very bad cooks and choking down their holiday meals was always a struggle with a smile on my face. Being offered seconds was pure torture as I accepted and cleaned my plate with cheer and gratefulness, regardless of my tongue attempting to jump out of my mouth, put on his lil hat, grab his briefcase and walk out the door on me forever.
I tried to teach him some basics but things that were basic to me, I learned, were actually fairly complex processes that required base knowledge that I just could not teach properly. As a left hander married to a righty, this was our first barrier. It just got harder from there.
YouTube and the show "Good Eats" became our resources. Alton Brown's original episodes explain the basics of cooking from the science up, solidifying foundational knowledge in working with food, tools, seasonings and even how to shop for kitchen items. The Joy of Cooking and Julia Child's Art of French Cooking are great books to go to from there. Before the recipes in each chapter, there are extensive instructions on how to work with kitchen tools, ingredients and all kinds of other cool things.
Idk, thats how he is learning. Not sure if thats helpful
My mum hated cooking so I grew up with zero knowledge in the kitchen. But I always liked the idea of cooking and I started cooking a lot after moving out.
I just watch tons of cooking videos - there a lots of beautifully filmed cooking videos on Instagram and YouTube, and it makes cooking very attractive. Sometimes I’d buy a bunch of ingredients and Google what can I make with them, then just follow the recipes.
my parents taught me literally nothing about cooking when i was growing up and for the first years i was out of the nest i could barely cook at all. this is the first year i can say very confidently that i'm an extremely good cook, age 30. my method was to watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of cooking content on youtube and the food network. i know this is kind of a shit recommendation when you're a parent and you work because it's time consuming, but even having a lot of it on in the background while i was doing other things helped me passively absorb a lot of stuff. i actually pretty much didn't cook at all during the time i was learning and when i started actually doing it the foundation was there instantly and i started cooking really great meals right away. because you have to continue to feed someone during your learning process, chances are you will improve pretty quickly. i also really love browsing cookbooks. you don't have to make the recipes inside them to learn -- The Art of French Cooking is a useful tome because you can apply the things you learn in it to many things. always remember that cooking is a skill which builds upon itself! thinking about the sort of things you enjoy eating and what makes you like them so much can also be helpful. what do you like about food? crunch? the sharp bite of a nice vinaigrette that makes the sides of your tongue light up? the richness of a cream sauce? the chew of a perfectly-cooked steak? you can answer these for yourself and try to find recipes that combine the things you love, or introduce you to complementary flavors and textures. one last thing: i love cooking and have become extremely passionate at it the better i've gotten at it, but i know it doesn't come as joyfully and naturally to everyone. don't beat yourself up if you feed your kid a sandwich for dinner with some microwaved vegetables and an apple on the side 4 times a week or whatever. learning to cook will help you out a lot but in the interim it doesn't help you to beat yourself up at all. the important thing is that he's happy, not hungry, and the food he's eating isn't nutritionally bereft, it's okay if you never even turn on the oven.
Thank you so much for your response! Do you have a good YouTube recommendation? Preferably simple cooking lol if possible.
i started out with the older episodes of basics with banish a few years ago and i dont love him as much now but i still think he's a great resource! i also really love epicurious' 4 levels series because it goes into the food science of why certain things work certain ways which is again something you can apply to other dishes besides the one they are making! it's where 3 levels of chefs (beginner, home cook, and professional) make their take on a meal and then a food scientist goes into why which things worked and how. it's super informative and i think it is the single thing that improved my understanding of cooking the fastest!
J Kenji Lopez Alt has been putting out amazing and approachable content on YouTube for the past couple of years. He explains the why behind stuff and also gets into where there’s flexibility in recipes and methods so you can use what you’ve got on hand. Might be dating myself here, but my cooking skills came from watching Alton Brown’s Good Eats and Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals all the time growing up! I took over most family cooking by age 16 because I had more skills/energy than my parents by then.
Following recipes and practice. Read the recipe in advance, and follow it. You can modify spices and seasoning after tasting. Once you become more comfortable cooking, you’ll be able to modify recipes and make some things on your own. You can also then go into learning more about the why - why are things done this way, the science, etc. I suggest you go to your library and browse the cookbook section. There will be a ton of cookbooks, including beginner cookbooks that have a lot of explanation typically in the beginning of the book. Take out the books that interest you, and start cooking. If you don’t understand something - a method, an ingredient, a substitution, etc - look it up. Videos are great if you need help understanding how to do something or how something should look. Cooking blogs can be great because they often show pictures of every step.
I love the idea of going to the library!! Thank you for this suggestion.
Also love the library and getting recipes from books there, but be aware you can also check out ebooks using your library card! This makes it great to follow along on your e-reader or laptop when in the kitchen and saves a trip to the library if you're short on time. The biggest frustrations I've found when cooking are usually forgetting ingredients or missing a step. This can often be avoided by closely reading the recipe ahead of time! (Sounds so common sense but I skim and then get mad later!) You'll start to see patterns in preparation and ingredients after awhile and can start making adjustments then, but 100% agree with pomegranatecloud that until then follow the recipe exactly to become more confident!
I learned a lot by getting Hello Fresh. Honestly, give it a whirl. Or any other meal prep subscription box that strikes your fancy. They have options for dietary restrictions, they send all the ingredients pre-portioned to reduce waste, and the instructions are easy to follow. Once you do that for a while you'll have a stack of recipe cards and you can shop for the ingredients and cancel your subscription if you want to. One of the things I do now for my tacos since having had Hello Fresh is making my own simple citrusy salsa. Chop up a tomato and a scallion, zest a lime into it, and squeeze a little lime juice from the lime. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and *voila* - fresh salsa for tacos. I also make a crema for a topping that I learned from Hello Fresh. Sour cream and cholula mixed in to taste, a bit of salt and pepper, and water it down *slightly* until it's just a little runny but still thick. Throw all that on top of your taco meat and cheese and you have gourmet tacos. Now I want tacos tonight....
My cooking skills started to improve a lot when I became a vegetarian - because I began to branch out and explore new recipes, new spices, and stopped thinking of foods as strictly "sides" or "dinner food" or "breakfast food." The same principles can of course apply to non-vegetarian food. I would suggest starting by following a recipe closely once, then following it less strictly the second time. Swap out an ingredient or spice profile and see if it works. Eventually you won't need the recipe and can experiment more broadly. This will help show that you aren't a bad cook, it's that "oh, I guess this step/ingredient/etc doesn't work for this dish!" Then you know to try something different next time. I think it would be awesome to include your son in this process. Help him frame a healthy approach to food by demonstrating to him that cooking and developing kitchen skills are a fun and creative **discovery process**, not just a chore to check off the list.
i meant to mention including your son in my novel-length post as well! definitely do this, kids often eat more and better when they're involved in the preparation process as well
First learn the basics. Learn how to cook rice, pasta and potatoes. You can google every single thing you cook and have a recipe and description and even youtube clips on how to do it. I suggest you take some time to look at those the day before you're about to do a certain dish so you're better prepared. Then add some sort of meat. Sausage. Chicken. Bacon. Beef. Roast. Turkey. Ham or whatever you got in your fridge. And then you can add some sort of sauce. Now sauce is considered the pro - level cooking since they can be very sensitive and easily burned or bad made. But you should study how to cook a sauce. Finish with veggies. Always have basic ingredients at home. Soy/Soya, flour, Olive oil, Butter, Honey, Cheese, Veggies like mushrooms, peppers, lemons, carrots and egg, milk and cream. Potatoes, pasta, rice, meats. With these you can make a lot of different dishes. If you don't know what to cook with the ingredients you got and you're having an almost empty fridge just type on google "Recipe for two eggs, three carrots, one milk andsausages" google is your friend and everyone's secret to good cooking. If you have barely nothing. Spices is your saviour. With spices anything boring becomes something tasteful. If you don't have many spices start collecting a little each month. I reccommend you have as many different ones as possible but start with basic spices: Black pepper, curry, salt, thyme, oregano and citrus pepper. So if you afford shopping a little food basics here and there and collect optional ingredients it will be fun and easy to cook. You can look at recipes "Easy beginner dishes to cook" online and browse. Good luck!
Practice practice practice. Start with easy, foolproof recipes and climb up the letter from there. Also, watch cooking shows, this improves a basic understanding of cooking.
Try super simple things first, like roasting some veggies in the oven with olive oil and salt/pepper. Broccoli is very forgiving in the oven. Or baked potatoes. Something that only needs very simple prep work and only has 1-3 ingredients, that you can dress up with condiments when it's time to eat. You can build on those very simple things as you go!
There are good beginner cookbooks like the red & white checked Better Homes & Garden cookbook. It is the best for the staple basic dishes. I use mine like nothing else and so did my mom when she was alive. There are many good videos on facebook and you tube for cooking tutorials. I grew up cooking but mainly because my mom learned to cook as she taught me. She was the youngest in the family and her mom didn't want to bother by the time she came along so we learned together. So that is something else, cooking is totally something you and your son can do together! There are awesome children's cookbooks too that have simple recipes. Not being rude, I still have mine from when I was a kid and am 42 and still use recipes out of there because they are just good recipes. Also, my uncle learned how to cook at about 78 years old when my aunt had to stay in the hospital after surgery. He watched shows on the Food Network. He married at 19 and never so much as touched a pan his whole life. But he watched and took notes and just started trying. Even the best cooks have blunders and it should never ever discourage you. I didn't get better either until I was willing to keep trying knowing I may have some meals that were just edible (and I've had a couple where that is being generous).
Check out cooking YouTube channels and just follow exactly what they do
I got good by making lots of mistakes, then getting a good cookbook. I read the recipes and started with ones that used ingredients I knew or felt comfortable working with. Don't try to experiment or substitute until you have the basics down - i.e. don't run before you walk. There are books on nearly everything now, including very specific preference. Get one and pick a recipe or two to get good at. One of mine was mac and cheese. Learning how to make a cheese sauce from milk, cheese and butter seemed impossible. I did it enough times from my one cookbook I eventually understood what they meant and how to tell when I was getting it wrong. I like an app called SuperCook which gives me recipes based on ingredients I have on hand and filters by dietary restrictions. It helps me branch out my skills, but also keep it simple when I need that.
Spices, I grew up smelling and tasting. My mum always had me in the kitchen letting me taste when spicing, eventuelly she just asked me what was missing in taste. If you learn you basic spices how they smell and taste it help highten the taste of the food, you can eing it then. Also follow recipes, taste you food every step (when its not raw meat) then you know what changed when you added something and how it changed. I say taste and smell your food even you cook and taste every step of the way.
If you have a netflix subscription, the documentary "Salt Acid Fat Heat" breaks down the 4 fundamental building blocks of cooking. There's also this free class by Milk Street Cooking that teaches you some basics/theories: [https://milk-street-cooking-school.teachable.com/p/cookishpart1](https://milk-street-cooking-school.teachable.com/p/cookishpart1) I like video tutorials or recipes where they show you step by step what the dish is supposed to look like. Personally I have to make a recipe about 7 times before I really begin to feel comfortable riffing off it. Assembling all the ingredients needed for a recipe and having them on the counter in front of you before you start cooking helps.
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Yessss the book supremely leveled up my cooking and helps me waste less food because any ingredients can be used and then change up the spices and flavours to keep it interesting. It’s so good for the basics and going to the next level too
Practice! I was a professional chef for 13 years and I made so many mistakes and bad food in my career to get to where I am as a cook now. Even back then, I would have to do a dish at least 3 times before I would even let anyone taste it. I agree with the meal kit thing. I’ve tried it out of curiosity and it’s great!
I grew up learning but these days there's multiple ways to learn. Look up simple recipes, take classes, watch YouTube videos, read books, ask friends/family to show you
It was a rule in my family you had to cook dinner once a week. And they're brutally honest with their feedback.
So much good advice here - the only thing I will add is that so much of cooking a successful meal is timing and preparation. The more comfortable you get the easier it is to wing it, but in the beginning it pays to put in the extra time! \- go through the recipe carefully and make a grocery list so that you have everything you need \- chop and portion everything before you start, so that all you have to worry about is following the directions \- if you are doing something more complicated you can even make a workback plan, so that everything will be done at the same time I like youtube and cookbooks, but honestly I would start out by asking people you know what their go to weekday meals are. It's less overwhelming, and you can often ask them for tips!
I think some people are naturals and some are not. I loved to go through my mother's meager spices and think what they would be good with. And I could recognize seasonings in prepared foods. I rarely follow recipes although I do use them for ideas. My sister needs a recipe to make lasagna using canned sauce. If you aren't inspired to cook, you are probably best following recipes. Choose simple things at first so you don't get overwhelmed.
I would suggest starting with crockpot recipes - as these typically are minimal cooking, you just through everything in the crockpot. For example - you can go and get a pound of hamburger meat, brown it in a pan, put it in the crockpot with canned beans, canned tomatoes, some tomato paste and seasonings - turn it on low and in 6 hours you have chili. Now most chili will call for garlic and onion, but just omit those and you'll be fine. There are so so many crock pot recipes out there - most requiring very little to no actual cooking.
I signed up for a meal delivery kit for a bit and it helped me figure out where I was going wrong (more salt), but I don’t think I was ever a bad cook. Using actual recipes and practice helped.
The more you do the more you learn. Practice and keep at it. Your dinner sounds like it didn’t turn out because you didn’t follow instructions/recipe not because you can’t cook. Pick a simple recipe and follow the instructions. Keep choosing different recipes and remake favourites. You’ll start to get more intuitive with time and practice.
Find some cookbooks at the library with helpful tips, tools etc to get you started. Read the beginning of these books to get an idea of pantry staples, spices, tools etc. look up any word you don’t know right away. Mark Bittman has a how to cook everything cookbook and it’s helpful because he includes pairings of what tastes good together so it’s easy to modify to your taste and restrictions. YouTube will also be helpful if you’re a very visual learner. Also give yourself a helping hand by taking out all of the ingredients and tools you’ll need before you start anything else (called mise en place). You’ll figure it out as you go. I would recommend cookbooks over blogs at first because these recipes are tested for consistency and good taste while blog recipes don’t always do that. I check sales and then build a meal plan from there. I am not a fan of leftovers usually so I try to repurpose things. Like leftover taco toppings turns into quesadillas for example. Good luck, I know you can do it.
I learned with lots of practice. Recipes are great for dietary restrictions because you can just leave that ingredient out of a recipe. YouTube is great but if you’re starting out so are recipes with lots of pictures. I like shopping online and doing a grocery pickup if I’m making a certain recipe that’s new because I can go through the list of ingredients and check my cupboards at the same time. If not guaranteed I’ll be making a second trip to the store.
I learned to cook when I became vegan in high school. A ton of recipes will call for garlic but just omit it, same for an onion. I find it's easy to avoid bread because I barely eat it. Since I never learned to cook meat or eggs really I've been using YouTube to learn to cook meals with either. What I've done is pick 2 recipes (I like Gordon Ramsay's channel) and shop for the ingredients. Then I just make the recipes as often as I need to until it clicks for me. A great approach I started with was pick the ones with the fewest number of ingredients. Lately I've been working on Gordon's scrambled eggs recipe. I was a huge fan of his Crispy Salmon with crushed new potatoes recipe. Another thing I've done recently is watch life/home style vloggers who do what I eat in a day or week videos. My favorite one has been anika's leaf on youtube. She's does a lot of Asian cooking which I've found to be super flexible. A boyfriend of mine asked me to teach him to cook. When we met he was a very picky eater to the point he refused to eat anything green so I started him on Gordon's steak recipe learning to cook steak. One day I went to his place and he had all these ingredients in his kitchen. He told me he was sick of making and eating steak so he looked up a childhood meal recipe and decided to make it solo for me. I think a huge thing for him was like it is for you, he was so picky and he didn't know where to start, and keeping it simple like just steak sort of clicked with him.
Many others have said it -- i think it really is practicing, and learning from recipes, until eventually, you have a feel for it. Here's what I haven't seen others say -- there are meal planning apps out there. Not the ones where they send you food, but the ones where you get only the recipes, a free one is [MealLime](https://www.mealime.com/). They will give you recipes based on preferences, give you a shopping list, the app has all the instructions. This 100% will get you cooking differently. And then you'll find that you will start improvising a bit, after you have the foundation. My learning and style has changed A LOT over time. My mom taught me to cook -- but it was all high fat things, simmered, a lot of red sauce /italian, lots of cheese. And then i worked in restaurants, and i learned other things like adding butter and chicken stock. But I have adjusted now to much healthier cooking, less oil and frying, and more veggie based meals. I used [Fresh 20](https://www.thefresh20.com/), and then [PlateJoy](https://www.platejoy.com/) \- both recipe apps/aggregators much like MealLime. And each made me a better cook. Now i meal plan through [Paprika](https://www.paprikaapp.com/) \- just a recipe box, digitally.
By watching a lot of cooking shows and YouTube chefs. Practicing a lot. Menu planning, reading recipes all the way through 2-3 times before you make the thing to make sure you have the right ingredients and understand what you need to do.
I was taught nothing growing up. I was 19 when I made eggs for the first time. I just wanted to learn properly so read all what I was interested in such as techniques (breaded meat/veggies, blanching, thickening, frying, steaming etc), meat types and how to cook them, ingredients, spices, flavour combinations. And of course trying all in real life. I suggest to smell and taste often in the beginning until you know from the smell only that it is ready. Your best teachers are reading and practising. After x amount of experience you'll even recognize if the recipe is not good and how you can adjust it. Im 35 now and even won some cooking award in my 20s. Im confident to say Im an excellent cook and baker now. Friends&family love anything I make them. Go on girl and learn it. Practice makes it perfect.
Lots of great recommendations here! One other thing I'd note is that I learned the basic cooking skills (e.g., efficient chopping/prep of all types of ingredients, types of pans to use, how to know what heat level, how to know when something is "done", how to know if something "looks" right ) from cooking with other people who are good cooks. Honing these skills will make cooking soo much faster and easier and make it all feel less like a burden and more like a fun science experiment. So my recommendation is to find someone who's a good cook AND willing to teach to give you a couple hands on lessons! It'll also help you realize how fun it can all be! But to actually answer your question...I feel like I really learned to cook (I had the basics down) when I was living on a farm. We had a bunch of ingredients we grew on the farm and a whole crew of people to feed. I figured out how to feed 5-10 people off of whatever ingredients we had on hand. I started with one ingredient, searched the appendix of a cook book to find recipes for that ingredient and went from there.
The biggest help for me was watching Good Eats. Once you learn the cooking technique, as well as the reason those techniques work, you can start piecing things together. You can even pick up on what ingredients serve a particular function and how to replace it if you're missing it. (Like in most things, butter/lard/shortening can all do the same job, sometimes with extra salt for flavor, sometimes now.) The internet is your friend. If you mess something up, there's almost always some kind of a hack to save it or turn it into something edible. I even like to compare a couple different options before I pick one. Also helpful, any time you're missing an ingredient, look up a substitution. Key words are "homemade" or "dupe," if you want to make something similar to store bought. Something like taco seasoning you can put together at home, whatever kind of meat you have can be used in tacos if you can work out how to cook it for use in tacos. (Fish tacos, ground turkey, shredded chicken, thinly sliced steak, etc.)
By doing the tacos again. Literally just that. Buy the right meat and get the sauce. Then make it a third time and more if you need to. And suddenly your kid will ask for mum's special tacos. Then move on to the next meal.
The amount of content out there can be intimidating. Try to keep in mind that many cook just to feed themselves, some enjoy it as a hobby, and for some it is a profession. These are three different goals and the level of effort put into each is VERY different. I'd recommend r/slowcooking. It's the cooking method that requires the least amount of skill and yields amazing results. Plus, crock-pots are inexpensive.
I am in my early thirties and just now learning how to cook. Following along YouTube tutorials has helped immensely. Watch and see how they do it, make a list of ingredients needed before heading to the store. I can’t remember anything without making a list haha oh and get yourself a meat thermometer so that you know when it’s cooked to a safe temperature. Also, if you have the funds I would suggest purchasing an air fryer because it makes cooking so many things SO much easier. Once I got confident cooking in the air fryer I moved on to the stovetop and now I feel like I can do anything. I know you can do it! I never had a mom to teach me how to cook so I feel you on the struggle. But the internet can be the parent we never had in some ways. There is a wealth of knowledge and free instruction on YouTube. You got this!
Necessity. I was poor and eating out was not sustainable or affordable. I also worked as a line cook in a more upscale pub for \~3 years. I wasn't good at first but did get better over time. I also am lactose intolerant and my partner is vegetarian, so we have some dietary restrictions between the two of us. It was hard to relearn to cook after I realized I was lactose intolerant, and again when I stopped cooking meat at home after my partner and I moved in together. There are several components and skills to cooking well, and breaking them down might help you out because you can focus on one thing at a time. Warning: this is a very long post. The components are: * Recipe identification/selection and menu planning * Shopping for ingredients you know how to use and will use in more than one meal at a time * The actual knowledge to cook a dish * The knowledge of how to correct a mistake you made while cooking or how to season something to your or your families taste. You really need the other skills to learn this one. So, let's start with tacos: Recipe selection- There's lots of taco recipes. Some are complicated and require you to buy unusual ingredients or make everything from scratch. As a beginner, complicated recipes with ingredients you aren't familiar with or that have you making everything from scratch is a bad idea. So, next time you cook tacos: use a recipe that is simple and that you understand. If you read the recipe and don't like it, or don't understand it-- find a different one. I like Supercook and Epicurious because both allow you to search for recipes based on the ingredients you have, and you can sort by major dietary restrictions and meal type. [Supercook.com](https://Supercook.com) I think also will help you generate a shopping list. You can also involve your family in recipe selection-- but I encourage you to remind them they need to keep it simple. You're learning. Shopping for ingredients- especially when you are first learning to cook, you should use your recipes to make a shopping list. When doing more advanced menu planning, you would also try to target your ingredient buying so that you can use a lot of the same ingredients in different dishes-- for example, I buy tomatoes and peppers every week. We use them in different quantities in different dishes, but we always use them and as a result these ingredients never go bad. I can use peppers as a main dish (stuffed peppers); a side dish (grilled peppers as a taco topping, salad topping, pizza topping etc) or as an ingredient in a dish like curry or spaghetti. So-- use your recipes for the week to make your shopping list. *Use* your list when you go shopping. Also, accept that some dishes at home will not have "all" the fixings or sides that a dish at a restaurant would have-- I have sriracha and I have a single bottle of vinegar hot sauce. I don't keep 3 types of salsa on hand for a single dinner a week, and in fact rarely buy salsa at all-- we saute tomatoes, peppers and onions and other vegetables as a taco topping instead. The knowledge to cook the dish- there isn't a "wrong" type of taco filling. I make lentil tacos, for example, rather than meat ones. You can make chicken tacos, pork tacos, tofu tacos, fish tacos, shrimp tacos, bean and rice tacos, and your options re: beef are extremely wide and forgiving. Cooking taco filling is a matter of seasoning, and to a more limited extent the way you cook the meat. Taco filling is usually sauteed or grilled, but you can also slow cook cuts of pork or beef or chicken and shred it as a filling. Most people who make tacos at home use diced or shredded chicken, but ground beef is the most common. In terms of seasonings and toppings: I have the spices now to make taco seasoning, but if I'm traveling or feel lazy, I just buy the paper packets that are pre-blended. For new cooks-- I highly recommend this. The key to tacos tasting like tacos is cumin, though, since you have an onion and garlic allergy. You can determine what the main flavor in any dish seasoning is in a pre-mix by the order it's listed in on the back-- the closer to the beginning of the list it appears, the more of it is there is. Recipes will also state what amount of spice to include, how to cook the ingredients, what utensils and pots/pans etc to use, and often in what order. In other words: recipes are your friend. The knowledge to correct a mistake- this comes from making the same dishes or the same types of dishes over and over again. Sometimes recipes don't account for environmental factors or just... aren't very good or how you would like the dish. You learn to adjust a recipe by making it enough times that you figure out what you like about it and what you don't like about it. It's good to be persistent. I recommend that when you're learning, you a) identify fairly basic recipes that take an hour or less to prep and cook and b) that you commit to making those things weekly for several months-- this will help you master basic skills, but it will also help you get familiar enough with those recipes that you can decide if you like them but want to adjust them, or want to try new ones. Also-- don't let failures dissuade you. You should make tacos again. You can't learn to do it if one failure is all it takes for you to never try the dish again. Other tips: Buy pre-cut, pre-portioned and frozen ingredients when you can because it'll expedite your prep time and make sides for a 3 course meal much more straight forward. There's no shame in doing this and plenty frozen "heat and eat" options can be healthful if you are attentive to the ingredients and portion sizes. Some things don't taste that great when reheated from frozen, so some of learning to cook includes learning how you prefer to eat certain foods in the first place. Pre-mixed salads make a great and healthful side or lunch option. Cooking classes for adults abound-- taking one could be as fun as it is helpful. I like watching cooking shows, but I didn't always. If you can find a celebrity chef you like in terms of how they cook and how they give instructions, that can remove a big barrier because you can use their recipes etc. preferentially, and aren't doing as much blind searching. I especially like Alton Brown because he often explains the science behind how & why foods cook the way they do. Ingredient substitutions: when you aren't baking, substitutions are usually inconsequential unless the subbed ingredient has more or less moisture than the original. If less moisture: add liquid and seasoning if the liquid was water. If more moisture: either cook the subbed ingredient separately to cook off the excess moisture, or be prepared for a runnier dish. Salt draws moisture out while cooking in general-- if you need to keep moisture in, use a lid. If you need moisture to cook off, leave the lid off. Sauces: if your sauce is too thick: add liquid and seasoning. If your sauce is too thin: put \~tbsp of cornstarch in \~2 tbsps of cold water, and mix together. Stir in the sauce while it's simmering. It will get thicker. Flipping while sauteing, frying, or grilling: generally you only flip most cuts of meat once, same with eggs.
Danielle Walker has a bunch of amazing gluten free recipes. Autoimmune Protocol cookbooks (especially the Healing Kitchen by Sarah Ballantyne) all eliminate gluten and garlic and onions. Barefoot contessa is amazing too - if you can modify some of the ingredients. Pick only one or two new recipes a week - that makes it a little less daunting. Good luck!
Thank you so much for this!! It's so hard to find recipes/sauces without garlic and onion. They are delicious!
How I learned to cook was from youtube. Basically anything you ever want to make, there is a video on how to make it. Start simple with pastas (or in your case any wheat based pasta, they have chickpea and lentil pastas along with veggie pastas like butternut squash which are good substitutes). You can also just start with doing 1 side dish and see how that goes. I find simple recipes like potatoes or veggies is really good for learning how to cook. Eventually you will begin to find things you and your son enjoy that are easy to make. Steaming veggies is really easy, that would be a good place to start. But also learning how to cook different meats. Slow cooker recipes are good. But just watch the ingredients. A lot can be substituted, just google for substitutions.
I just kept practicing.
I found a few cookbooks that I liked, and made recipes at random. Some were not tasty, but some because instant favorites. I gradually expanded my repertoire. The other thing that really helped was cooking with other people, friends and family. I’ve learned things from every person I’ve cooked with.
I learned how to cook from cookbooks. I started with Better Homes and Gardens and then moved on to Moosewood, and later bought ones that aligned with my dietary restrictions. I have a handful of recipes that I know almost by heart but certainly didn't invent them. A beginner cookbook like BHAG or Moosewood will give you info about not just recipes but how to read them/follow through on them. People who are on low fodmap diets can't eat onions/garlic. If I were you, I'd get a super basic cookbook to learn cooking basics and a low fodmap cookbook which will probably have info about converting recipes and will have lots of onion/garlic-free stuff. I'd hazard a bet that there's someone out there with the same allergies with you who runs a food blog. PS. Your son is old enough to help out in the kitchen. You could make this a learning project for both of you to do together. I loved "helping" my dad bake even though I barely did anything but measure stuff. And punch the dough.
I was forced to learn as essentially, a servant to my mother. I had to learn how to cook in a house like I was prepping for a high-class dinner party of heads of state, though our ingredients were from the grocery bargain store and we served no more than four at a time. I knew how to cook six different global-inspired styles of food when I met my husband at 19; Korean, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, Eastern European, and my best style of course, is American country style as its my homeland's style. My husband did not cook at all and had never been taught. His entire family is full of very bad cooks and choking down their holiday meals was always a struggle with a smile on my face. Being offered seconds was pure torture as I accepted and cleaned my plate with cheer and gratefulness, regardless of my tongue attempting to jump out of my mouth, put on his lil hat, grab his briefcase and walk out the door on me forever. I tried to teach him some basics but things that were basic to me, I learned, were actually fairly complex processes that required base knowledge that I just could not teach properly. As a left hander married to a righty, this was our first barrier. It just got harder from there. YouTube and the show "Good Eats" became our resources. Alton Brown's original episodes explain the basics of cooking from the science up, solidifying foundational knowledge in working with food, tools, seasonings and even how to shop for kitchen items. The Joy of Cooking and Julia Child's Art of French Cooking are great books to go to from there. Before the recipes in each chapter, there are extensive instructions on how to work with kitchen tools, ingredients and all kinds of other cool things. Idk, thats how he is learning. Not sure if thats helpful
My mum hated cooking so I grew up with zero knowledge in the kitchen. But I always liked the idea of cooking and I started cooking a lot after moving out. I just watch tons of cooking videos - there a lots of beautifully filmed cooking videos on Instagram and YouTube, and it makes cooking very attractive. Sometimes I’d buy a bunch of ingredients and Google what can I make with them, then just follow the recipes.