16 Tricks From Chefs That Will Simplify Your Life

Written by Colin Leggett

Everybody should be able to enjoy cooking. It’s definitely a life skill that can become very useful throughout your life. Getting some cooking advice from people who do it all the time can certainly help. These cooking tips will give you a leg up in the kitchen, and help to improve your overall cooking skills.

The cooking advice from chefs compiled in this list will not only make you look a lot cooler when you’re cooking, but it will also make cooking easier overall. Sometimes the techniques can be tricky to learn, but once you get the hang of them, you’ll find that you enjoy cooking much more than you used to.

Try out these 16 cooking tips the next time you find yourself in the kitchen, and you may be surprised at how much better you become at preparing a delicious meal. Otherwise, you might just end up microwaving everything for the rest of your life. Who would really want to do that? Give this cooking advice a shot instead!

1. Here’s a piece of cooking advice on how to make your knives easier to use: wrap some rubber bands around the handle and you’ll be able to get a better grip.

2. Here’s another tip for keeping your kitchen knives in shape: use the bottom of a mug to sharpen your blade. The ring at the bottom is usually harder than metal and will file down the blade, creating a new edge.

3. Let’s say you’re making soup and you add too much salt. Obviously, he soup is ruined, right? Wrong! Just drop in a raw, peeled potato. It will absorb a good amount of salt content.

4. Here is some indispensable cooking advice: when baking, it is better to measure your dry ingredients by weight than volume. This is due to the fact that packing a dry ingredient like flour in a measuring cup can yield varying weights depending on how compressed it is.

5. Steak is expensive, but the best cut of beef is not entirely necessary for a delicious steak dinner. Try something like a hanger steak or tri-tip. With the right marinade and cooking process (fast and hot), you’ll end up with delicious meat (don’t forget to slice against the grain).

6. Avoid shells in your omelets by cracking your eggs on a flat surface rather than against the side of the bowl. By doing this, you create a nice even crack around the center of the egg.

7. Making breaded chicken for chicken parmesan? Here’s an easy way to keep your hands clean: arrange your flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs from left to right, and use one of your hands to dip the chicken in the dry ingredients, and the other for the wet.

Think that fancy glass cutting board would make a great addition to your kitchen? Think again! Glass cutting boards are terrible for your knives. Use wooden or plastic cutting boards (bamboo cutting boards are a great choice).

9. Strain your eggs. That sounds crazy, but it works! Cracking your eggs into a wire mesh strainer will help remove any excess liquid, and will leave you with firm, picture-perfect egg whites.

10. This tip comes from Rachel Ray herself: use a garbage bowl while you’re cooking. Just have an empty bowl on your counter that you can throw your peels, seeds, and shells into for easy disposal when you’re done prepping.

11. If you’re freezing anything for later use, try and make it as flat as possible. Soups and sauces that are flat frozen will thaw more quickly. They will also suffer less cellular damage by freezing faster. You can also put ground beef in freezer bags and flatten it out for the same effect.

12. If you’re roasting a whole chicken, get it as dry as possible! Pat the bird dry with paper towels, apply some salt, and rest it uncovered in the fridge for a few hours. You’ll wind up with a juicy chicken that also has deliciously crispy skin.

13. When deep frying foods, don’t just move them onto a plate when they’re done. Instead, put them on a wire cooling rack. This will prevent steam from making your breading soggy.

14. Slicing up some beef to throw in your stir fry? Here’s a tip: lightly freeze the meat for 10 to 15 minutes before you start cutting it. This will firm the meat up without sacrificing texture or flavor.

15. Peeling garlic can be a tiring and tedious process if you don’t know how to do it properly. Just crush the unpeeled cloves with a knife using the heel of your hand and the peel will come right off.

16. Peeling ginger with a knife can be dangerous, because of it’s irregular outside texture and shape. Instead, scrape the skin off with a spoon. It’s just as effective and may save you some fingers.