10 Cooking Tips for the Best Homemade Meals

Have you ever followed a recipe perfectly “to the T”–you measured every ingredient as needed and timed every step like clockwork, only for your result to fall flat? It’s not unusual! Even the most experienced chefs like Gordon Ramsey and Julia Child have been there. It has probably happened to them more than once before they could make great home cooked meals.

When it comes to the best homemade meals, it’s about intuition, understanding the ingredients, and adapting to your kitchen and tools. But don’t let that discourage you from giving your family a great home cooked meal. In this article, you’ll learn the 10 most important cooking tips for making tasty home recipes.

Read the Recipe Before You Start

Recipes are meant to guide you step-by-step. If you skip any step, it will usually lead to forgotten ingredients or wrong measurements. That’s why you should give a recipe a quick read-through before you start.

Besides, it can also help you form a mental game plan for how you will approach the recipe. And if you’ve access to step-by-step photos, it is even better. Visuals can clarify tricky steps and make preparing tasty home recipes smoother.

Use Fresh Ingredients

You can’t forego freshness if you want to cook the best meals at home. The flavour of your food depends on the quality of the ingredients. For example, fresh vegetables, herbs, and spices give the best results. Older or stale veggies, on the other hand, can dull a recipe’s taste.

Therefore, if you are preparing a tomato and egg-based recipe, use fresh and ripe tomatoes. They create a juicer and more vibrant sauce than canned or overripe ones.

Measure the Ingredients As Directed

Cooking can be more relaxed than baking. You can throw in a pinch of this or a dash of that and your dish might still turn okay!

Baking, however, is different. Here, getting your ingredients just right helps you achieve consistent results. For instance, too much flour can densify your cake, while not enough can make it flat.

For that reason, always use a kitchen scale for your dry ingredients and measuring cups for your liquids.

For dry ingredients, it’s also a great cooking tip to level them off with a straight edge to prevent overpacking.

Prepare All Ingredients Before You Start

Before you even turn on the stove, get everything ready. This means gathering, measuring, peeling, chopping, and prepping all your ingredients beforehand.

It might seem like extra time upfront, but it saves you from scrambling for ingredients and juggling multiple tasks. That way you can focus on cooking to avoid common mistakes like burning food or missing steps.

Make Use of All Your Senses

While recipes offer time and temperature guides, your senses are even more reliable. Ignoring the smell of burning honey chicken wings because the recipe says “Cook for 15 minutes” is a recipe for disaster, pun intended!

Instead, trust what you see, smell, and feel. For example, if sautéing vegetables start to smell burnt before the recommended time, lower the heat or remove the pan from the stove.

Taste as You Go

Ever notice how most tasty home recipes don’t give exact measurements for salt, pepper, and other seasonings? This is because seasoning is deeply personal. Adjustments are often needed based on individual tastes, dietary preferences, and health considerations

One of the best cooking tips for creating great home cooked meals is to taste as you go. This allows you to catch imbalances—like too much salt or not enough acidity—before you finish the dish.

Take Notes as You Cook

Building on the idea of using your senses and tasting as you go, you should document the small details of your cooking process. This helps you repeat or avoid certain choices in the future.

For example, if you added a pinch of cinnamon to your vanilla cookies and loved the result, a quick note in the recipe makes it easy to replicate next time.

Avoid Customizing and Experimenting

Cooking encourages creativity. But when trying our tasty home recipes, I recommend following the instructions closely when starting. Changing flavours, ingredients, or techniques too soon can change the final dish.

So, unless you’re making minor adjustments to heating or seasoning, stick to the recipe as written. Once you understand the basics, you’ll be well-equipped to experiment and make it your own.

Maintain Your Cooking Tools Well

You don’t need state-of-the-art equipment to create great home cooked meals. You can often make do with what you already have. For example, a whisk or wooden spoon works fine if you don’t have an electric mixer. Similarly, you can substitute a cooling tray or heatproof plate for a baking rack.

The key is to maintain your existing tools well. A sharp knife, even a basic one, is far more effective than a dull, expensive one.

Master Your Equipment

Another important cooking tip for creating great home cooked meals is understanding your kitchen appliances. You see, every kitchen equipment behaves differently. Your oven, for example, might run hotter than its settings, or your stovetop burner has uneven heat. These differences can impact cooking times, results, and even the flavour of your food.

For that reason, take the time to learn your equipment’s quirks. For instance, you can use an oven thermometer to verify your oven’s temperature or experiment with different heat settings on your stovetop. This will allow you to adjust your recipes for better homemade meals and fewer surprises.

Enhance Your Homemade Meals With Sprout n Eat

Now that you’ve got the tips to make cooking at home easier and more enjoyable, perhaps it’s time to put them into action! We have a collection of tasty home recipes waiting for you to try out. The delicious Tomato and Eggs Shakshuka for breakfast or the mouthwatering Orange Honey Chicken Wings for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Don’t be intimidated if a recipe seems complicated. Remember, preparation is everything, and your intuition is your greatest weapon in the kitchen. In case you come across unfamiliar words or ingredients, you can always look them up before you start.

Best Homemade Meals FAQs