10 Things I Learned in Culinary School That Made Me a Better Home Cook

Professional Japanese knife on cutting board and fresh vegetables: tomato, bell pepper, cucumber — Photo:
Ilya Rocket/ Getty Images

It wasn’t until I was a full-fledged adult (and then some) that I got into cooking. I took a few recreational cooking classes before finally taking the plunge and attending a professional culinary school. Fast forward several years, a few jobs, and five cookbooks, and I’m the food director at REAL SIMPLE, with a goal of helping home cooks make delicious meals without a lot of fuss. Despite the fact that most of a culinary school education is geared towards people who want to be chefs in restaurants, I still remember—and use—the lessons I learned in culinary school on a daily basis. Now you can too.

01 of 10

Always Taste Food Before Serving

From day one, my chef-instructor drilled this rule into his students’ heads: always taste the food before serving to see if it needs a little zhuzh. Is the soup flat? Add a squeeze of lemon or spoonful of vinegar. The salad bitter? It needs salt. The pasta dry? Drizzle on some olive oil. The point is, you’ll never know what it needs unless you taste it. Confession: occasionally when I’m rushing to get dinner on the table I skip this step, and I always regret it.

02 of 10

Wipe the Edge of the Plate

Spatters are inevitable when you’re transferring food from a pot to a plate or a shallow bowl. And you may think, who cares if there are drops of spaghetti sauce around the rim if it’s just my partner or kid or myself who’s eating it? But, taking two seconds to wipe off the spatters with a clean cloth or paper towel makes the dish instantly more appealing. You spent time on this food; do it proud on the plate.

03 of 10

Harness the Power of Salt

One of the reasons that restaurant food usually tastes so good is that the chefs understand how to use salt. Occasionally that means using a lot of it, but more often it means understanding when and how to use it. There’s no denying that salt brings out the flavor of food, so don't be afraid of using it. I could write a whole article about salt (and I have), but here are a few initial tips: if you’re boiling vegetables (except potatoes), the water should taste like the sea. For pasta, it can be a little less salty, but not much. And a sprinkle of flaky sea salt like Maldon on a dish before digging in can make the flavors absolutely pop.

04 of 10

Don’t Take the Cooking Times in Recipes So Seriously

When we got started on a recipe in culinary school one of my fellow students would inevitably ask, “How long does it take to cook?” The instructor would shrug and say, “I don’t know.” It was frustrating, but also made total sense. Cooking time depends on so many factors, including the precise heat level of your burner and pan size and material. This is why most good recipes offer both time specifications and visual or temperature cues for knowing when something is finished cooking. Use the times as a general guide and rely more heavily on the other cues.

05 of 10

Label Everything

It’s tempting to think you’ll remember what’s in that food storage bag or container going into the freezer (it’s obviously chili) or what that creamy concoction is that you’re stowing in the fridge (leftover salad dressing, of course). But, guess what? You probably won’t. The easy low-tech solution is to have a roll of masking or painter's tape and a Sharpie handy in the kitchen and to label everything with its name, and ideally, the date. This is also extremely useful if you’re living with other people, so they know what things are too. Maybe they’ll even label things! A girl can dream….

06 of 10

Use the Right-Sized Cutting Board

In the case of chopping, one size does not fit all. Chopping broccoli on a small or even medium-sized cutting board is a recipe for disorganization and mess. Tiny floret pieces will fly all over your counter, and there won’t be room on the board to slide over the already cut pieces while you move on to a second head. Instead, as we did in culinary school, just use a big board. I know it feels like a pain to wash, but trust me, it’s more efficient in the end. It’s also worth investing in a small and medium-sized board too, small for things like apples and medium for things like zucchini.

07 of 10

Keep Your Knives Sharp

It seems counter-intuitive, but you’re less likely to cut yourself with a sharp knife. A dull knife is more apt to skid into your thumb while you’re chopping an onion, for example. But a razor-sharp one will penetrate the onion with barely any pressure from you. It’s a win-win: intact fingers and easier, almost effortless, chopping. In culinary school we learned to sharpen and hone our own knives. I admit I have not kept up with that practice. Instead, I regularly take my knives to be sharpened, and so should you. Kitchen supply stores are often a good bet.

08 of 10

Skip the Oven Mitts

There are no oven mitts in culinary school. Just like in restaurants, students use (dry! always dry!) dish towels to remove roasting pans from the oven or grab the handle of a sizzling cast iron pan. Since I’ve had that training, oven mitts drive me bananas. What a waste of time, pulling them on like gloves! I want to just grab and go. I will use dry dish towels in a pinch, but more often I reach for a set of oversized pot holders. They’re about 9 inches by 6 inches, so protect my hands all the way from the wrist to the tip of my middle finger. (Don’t bother with a square pot holder. It's too easy to get burned.)

09 of 10

Weigh Your Ingredients When Baking

You may have heard that weighing ingredients for baked goods allows bakers to be more precise and, hopefully, end up with more successful results. Amen to that. But, as I learned in culinary school and am delighted to remember every time I bake at home, a scale also means you can skip the fuss of using measuring cups and then having to wash them. It’s much easier to drizzle a specific weight of honey into a mixing bowl than to squeeze it into a measuring cup and then have to wash said measuring cup.

10 of 10

Consider Texture

When we’re deciding if a dish is "good," we usually think we’re considering taste, but we’re actually considering so much more than that. Aroma, of course, and also texture. Think about a plain butternut squash soup and then butternut squash soup topped with toasted pepitas. Or Romaine lettuce tossed in Caesar dressing and then that same salad with crispy croutons mixed in. Adding an element of crispy-crunchiness makes most foods so much more exciting to eat, and it’s easy to do with a sprinkle of chopped nuts, sesame seeds, toasted breadcrumbs, or even flaky salt.

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