• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Recipe Hippie

Recipe Hippie

A free spirited approach towards Mediterranean diet recipes

  • Recipes
  • About
  • Must Have’s
  • Contact
  • Recipes
  • Must Have’s
  • About
  • Contact
  • Mediterranean Recipes
  • Chicken Recipes
  • Dinner Recipes
  • Healthy Recipes
  • Vegan Recipes
  • Mediterranean Diet Recipes
  • Chicken Recipes
  • Dinner Recipes
  • Vegan Recipes
  • Dessert Recipes

9 Habits For HoW To Be A Better Cook Overnight

October 31, 2020 by Elizabeth Murray | Affiliate Disclaimer
FacebookTweetPin

Are you wondering how to be a better cook? These 9 habits and tips are REALLY helpful and will seriously aid you in cooking better meals as soon as you implement them into your life! If you follow these 9 cooking tips and techniques, you will find yourself cooking better meals with less stress and more enjoyment!

Cut the food uniformley!

Whether you are chopping, juilienning, mincing, or slicing, do it the same for every single piece! Remember, if it looks the same, it cooks the same! Nothing worse than 1 potato that is pure mush and another that you can’t get your fork through!

Read The Recipe Through

Omg, I can’t tell you the amount of times that I skimmed a recipe and bought the ingredients, only to then see that in ‘step 5’ I needed an air fryer or smoker or other supply that I don’t have. It is so frustrating! Forcing yourself to read through the full recipe prior to making it allows you to ‘mise en place’ (fancy french talk for prepping the ingredients prior to cooking) and fully understand what is expected of you. This helps to prevent that frustrated ‘But I don’t know how to do that!’ or ‘I don’t have that supply!’ feeling that makes home cooking less enjoyable. There is nothing worse than having 30 minutes to prep dinner and realizing that the chicken needed to marinade for an hour!

A bunch of buffalo chicken pierogies that have been pan seared until golden brown on a metal serving dish. There is a small spoon topped with buffalo chicken dip, and a metal bowl filled with avocado dipping sauce.

Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pierogies

This is one of those recipes that you will want to read through before starting! It is a labor of love, but buffalo chicken pierogies are SERIOUSLY delicious and make a GREAT appetizer!

Read moreInstant Pot Buffalo Chicken Pierogies

And that brings me onto my next tip…

Marinade Your Chicken Breasts

I know…it’s something that I forget to do ALL the time. But when I manage to remember to make a marinade, my chicken meals are 10X better. Even if it’s last minute, I recommend letting the chicken sit in a marinade for 10 minutes prior to cooking. Even though it is best to marinade for a few hours and even overnight, I find that those 10 minutes can really make a huge difference!

A small bowl filled with brown lentil stew, with pieces of cooked marinated chicken, yogurt and parsley on top

One Pot Chicken and Lentil Stew

This one pot dinner marinades chicken in greek yogurt and citrus for a delicious chicken marinade that the whole family will love!

Read moreOne Pot Chicken and Lentil Stew

Add the garlic last

When a recipe calls for garlic, make sure you add it to the pan at the end, or right before the liquid goes into the pan. Garlic is an aromatic and can burn very quickly, so you want to saute it just long enough to smell its beautiful fragrance. At that point, it is time to take the food off of the heat, or add your liquid element to the dish.

Don’t stir your White rice!

I actually can’t stress this enough. If you stir your white rice, it will stick to the sides of the pan and burn. And if it doesn’t do this, you are lucky. White rice should be sold with that little sign they give you at hotels: ‘DO NOT DISTURB’. Let it do it’s thing. And when the liquid is completely absorbed and there are no more bubbles, the rice is done and can be fluffed. But at NO POINT prior to this should you touch the rice.

a blue and white flowered bowl filled with greek lemon and rice soup, with carrots, kale and chickpeas visible in the soup. There is another bowl in the background, and they are on a dark wooden surface

Greek Lemon Soup With Chickpeas

This vegan lemon rice soup uses regular white rice and is so healthy for you! It’s a great place to start if you do not make rice very often, because it is cooked in the soup!

Read moreGreek Lemon Soup With Chickpeas

Remember that Water follows salt

Its basic chemistry, water follows salt. This is why after eating take out Chinese food our bodies feel like they swell up. The h2o in our bodies (up to 60% of the human body is made of water) is retained by the excess sodium in the food, causing us to bloat. Ever wonder why your mushrooms or zucchini get soggy when you season them before they are ready? They retain a lot of water, so adding salt to them right away draws that water out of them and causes them to get soggy.

How To Prevent soggy vegetables from happening:

Salt and pepper them AFTER they have cooked off their excess liquid and have browned.

shallot pasta recipe
family pasta dinner ideas

Shiitake Mushroom Pasta With Lemon Butter Sauce, Honey Yogurt and Fried Capers

This is a great place to start, if you want to practice proper seasoning!

Read moreShiitake Mushroom Pasta With Lemon Butter Sauce, Honey Yogurt and Fried Capers

Deglaze the pan

When you are sauteing something and it sticks to the bottom of the pan, do not fret! Those little brown bits that are stuck to the pan are FULL of mouth watering flavor. To harness it, deglaze the pan by pouring liquid into the hot pan and scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. As for the liquid, get creative! You can use wine, broth, water, orange juice. Anything liquid that will help enhance the flavors of the dish!

Thrive Maket

Have you checked out ‘Thrive Market’ yet?! It’s an online grocery store that specifically sells quality items that are vegan, vegetarian, organic, paleo, whole 30 and much more! And everything is so inexpensive because they get the items straight from the manufacturer. It is a $60 membership fee (same as Costco and BJ’s), but most members say they make that money back in the first few orders. Afterwards, if you DON’T make it back, Thrive Market will refund you the difference! So what are you waiting for? Click the image below to learn more!

Sharpen your knives regularly

Knives are arguably the most important tool in the home cooks kitchen. Have you ever tried to cut a tomato with a dull knife? It’s the worst. Keeping your knives sharp will not only make prep work a breeze, but it actually decreases your chances of cutting yourself because they require less force to go through food. Now, it is recommended to only hand wash knives, because putting them in the dishwasher is too harsh for the blades to handle. But heck, I’ve DEFINITELY thrown my good knives in the dishwasher when swamped with dishes in the kitchen.

So if you are the same, make sure you are sharpening your knives regularly to prevent dulling and to make prep work a piece of cake!

Make a grocery list

Now how does writing a grocery list help you to become a better home cook? Simple. Holding yourself accountable for determining exactly what ingredients you need not only decreases waste (you won’t buy that 19th can of corn if it’s not on the list), but it also causes you to PLAN what you will be eating for the next few days/week. Having a plan helps you to know exactly what you will be making every day, leaving you accountable to use those ingredients. Having fresh ingredients readily available means less pizza and fast food and more PRACTICE in the kitchen.

And we all know: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!

If you are in need of a cute blank grocery list for your refrigerator, I have a FREE Printable grocery list based off of ‘My Plate’ HERE!

free printable grocery list

Wondering how to be a better cook or how to cook better at home? If you implement these 9 tips into your life now, you will see a difference in your enjoyment of cooking, and your skills in the kitchen!

Did you like this ‘9 Habits For How To Be A Better Cook Overnight‘ post? If so, go check out my ‘Best Gifts For Home Cooks‘ post! And it it is not the holidays, these gifts also work great for birthdays!

A wooden cutting board with a small bowl of olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes, garlic, vinegar, parsley, and mint

How To Start A Mediterranean Diet

A roasted butternut squash steak with yogurt sauce, pistachios and basil over a bed of couscous and a fork showing a piece cut off

Roasted Butternut Squash Steaks

A black plate with 4 kabobs on top filled with bright grilled vegetables and lemon dill chicken, with a greek yogurt sauce drizzled over the top

7 Ingredient Mediterranean Chicken Kabobs Recipe

A spatula taking a piece of mediterranean baked cod topped with tomatoes, olives and feta out of a blue baking dish

Mediterranean Cod Recipe with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Olives and Feta

how to make espresso tonic

Orange Coffee Tonic

A loaf of healthy meatloaf cut into two pieces

Gluten-Free Meatloaf Recipe

Category: Home Cooking Tips and Tricks
FacebookTweetPin

Affiliate Disclaimer

My posts may contain affiliate links. Every one of the affiliate companies is a company that I stand by and believe in. If you choose to purchase something through their link on my website, you won’t pay a penny more, but I will receive a small commission. It helps me to continue to create great content for you! Thanks!

Previous Post:wassabi roasted brussels sproutsWasabi Oven Brussels Sprouts
Next Post:Cranberry Lime Coffee Toniccranberry coffee spritzer

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michele

    November 1, 2020 at 11:25 pm

    Love the common sense ideas. Such helpful hints. I’ve learned NOT to stir white rice and have a grocery list before going to the store. Thank you. Look forward to more great ideas!

Sidebar

Hey, I’m Liz!

I am SO thrilled to meet you!

I’m a Physical Therapy Assistant turned food blogger, and love merging my intrigue for the human body with my passion for all things food! I’m here to show you that enjoying a Mediterranean diet doesn’t mean that you can only eat Mediterranean food! I can’t wait to show you how rewarding the MedDiet lifestyle can be!

Recipe Collections

close up shot of a cast iron skilled with cooked orzo, shrimp, shiitake mushrooms and baked olives recipe

Mediterranean Diet Recipes

Chicken Recipes

Dessert Recipes

lemon butter pasta

Dinner Recipes

white rice porridge

Healthy Recipes

Vegetarian Chili

Vegan Recipes

About Me

Hello! I am the recipe hippie, and I am here to give you a free spirited approach towards home cooking. When it comes to the ingredients you have available, I challenge you to reject your conventional notions around recipes and think outside of the box. Substitutions are encouraged! So open up your pantry, get creative and have fun. Some of the greatest things in life originated through improvisation!

Hello! I am the recipe hippie, and I am here to give you a free spirited approach towards home cooking!

  • Recipes
  • About
  • Must Have’s
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2020 · Recipe Hippie · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding