r/cookingforbeginners

Every recipe I've ever followed says cook onions until translucent, about 5 minutes. Mine take like 20. Every single time I have a normal nonstick pan, medium heat, I cut them roughly the same size as the pictures show. After 5 minutes they're just sitting there looking exactly like they did when I put them in. After 15 they finally start to soften by 20 they look like what the recipe described at step one. I genuinely do not know if I'm doing something wrong or if every recipe writer is lying. I was playing on my phone yesterday standing over the stove for what felt like an hour waiting for them to "just become translucent" for a soup I was making, and I kept second-guessing myself. Is my heat too low? Is the pan wrong? Am I supposed to add water? I asked my mom and she just said they take however long they take which is not helpful when the recipe is telling me 5 minutes.

If you're an actual experienced cook can you tell me whether the recipe times are real or are they like the times printed on a frozen pizza box that everyone knows are a lie.

My mom cooked every meal for my brother until she got sick and then he ate tv dinners for 7 months until she died. Now he's 31 and doesn't know how to cook. My husband and I work, so he's pretty much on his own for breakfast and lunch. And many nights he doesn't want to eat what I cook for dinner.

He's eating bagels, pop tarts, and premade breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, but I'm sure he would like more variety.

He can make sandwiches, air fry chicken tenders, and microwave anything that has directions on the box. He can bake a pizza or lasgana.

He likes processed food but doesn't want to eat another TV dinner ever. He doesn't eat rice or beans and he won't eat vegetables plain. Mom tended to cook southern comfort food.

What are some simple things I can help my brother to cook to improve his diet?

I need a pot simply put but can’t decide between a Dutch oven, an instant pot, a slow cooker or a Korean clay pot, I have limited kitchen space, it’s my first pot I’m buying that’s not a hand me down and I need something to help me cook stews, lentil curry and I want to try making some Korean recipes! I have been looking at a Dutch oven but they do weigh a bit and I’m not the strongest, the our place 8 in 1 pot has caught my eye but can’t justify the price and the more reviews I look at for instant pots and slow cookers have me confused so if anyone can help an idiot like me understand then please help me 🙏🏽

Which is best? Olive oil? Virgin olive oil? Sunflower oil? Vegetable oil? Rapeseed oil? That spray stuff? Why is it all so complicated...

Ok to start this off, I consider myself a fairly season cook on the right equipment.

The problem is the house I've recently rented has an electric stove when I'm used to gas stoves.

This stove seems to really struggle to get things past a simmering.

Water is fine but when I try to cook bolognese etc it struggles to get it past a simmer, especially annoying when I try to make chicken katsu as it really struggles to get up to a decent temp for that

Am I just missing something here? Or is it just a scrappy stove?.

Hi! I’m pretty new to cooking and, as the title states, I only really have free range access to the kitchen about once per week due to family.

I tend to buy my own ingredients, but I often struggle to finish them all within their recommended period because I can only cook so often.

Do you guys have any recommendations for dishes that mainly feature ingredients with a decently long shelf life? Or just recommendations in general for a beginner chef!

Thanks in advance!

Is it possible to make pasta that was made with jarred pasta sauce taste top level, like it was made in a restaurant? Or is it just common sense that no, you need to make your own sauce from scratch?

Edit: I have a bunch of jars of Classico, otherwise I'd make my own.

I’ve been trying to get into cooking more at home lately instead of always ordering out, and an air fryer seems like the easiest place to start.

The problem is when I started looking, there are so many brands out there I’ve never even heard of. Some are super cheap, some are expensive, and most of them look almost identical online, which makes it hard to tell what’s actually good.

I’m not really a cooking expert, so I can’t tell if I’m just unfamiliar with the names or if a lot of these are just low-quality products that won’t last more than a few months.

What I’m really looking for is something simple, reliable, and durable. I don’t need anything fancy, just something that can handle everyday use without breaking down or feeling cheap.

So what’s the best air fryer you’ve personally used that actually holds up over time?

Every day I see posts here from serial karma farming bot accounts that are low effort and minimal engagement constantly posting rehashed posts from previous weeks and they somehow get hundreds of likes in minutes.

Reporting them doesn’t seem to do anything. Have looked them up and they have been banned by botbouncer already.

Are the mods active here still?

Edit: or at the very least, is there a way we can ban some of them.

After extensive research about the best instant gravy I took the plunge and purchased a 2kg tub for $35 (AUD). We made bangers and mash tonight and although we followed the Maggi Gravy instructions on the side of the tub it didn't thicken on it's own. I fixed it up with some corn flour slurry - but don't want to have to do this extra step each time if possible.

Does anyone have any experience or advice on this? Thanks from sunny Brisbane, Aust.

Let chicken thaw in the fridge over night

Washed the chicken thighs

Seasoned them and put them in the oven at 400 F for 45 minutes.

The part that was on the pan looks palish and smooth (skin side down)

The other part had some nice texture but was light brown but had some dark brown spots as well.

The taste was good, but a little chewy and rubbery as well.

It reached 190 degree when I used the thermometer.

Why is my chicken so ugly and not fun to eat?

Looking for advice on how to make oven baked spare ribs for the first time. I’ve been getting a lot of mix reviews regarding preparing the meat and cooking method.

-I see some people remove the membrane and or trim the meat. I hate the husky part of ribs so I’ll definitely be looking to do that. What do you prefer?

-Should I use liquid smoke or is there an alternative?

-Do I need to use apple juice or beer? What is the purpose of that?

-I’m also leaning towards cooking my ribs on a wire rack for the first hour or so and then covering with foil. Is there a down side to this? Some of the videos I’ve seen with the ribs covered the entire time, seem to have soggy seasoning.

-What oven temp would you recommend and for how long?

Is there a good way to defrost frozen vegetables for salads? I've seen multiple threads talk about how to defrost broccoli for hot meals without it getting mushy, but I love adding spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and corn to salads, and don't want it to get mushy. Would I just be able to microwave it quickly, pat dry, and then put it in the fridge?

I want to start cooking rice loose in the pot, not the rice that you have in bags you put in water, and I saw a picture for measuring the ratio water to rice when cooking it, and it showed someone sticking their finger into the rice with water and that was it. Is it actually some kind of method of measuring with your finger? How does it work?

im not the best cook at all, but i make a pretty banging hot dog. tonight i’m making 10 for my family. usually i put two in our air fryer oven thingy for 6 minutes at 400 degrees. since i’d be doing more than 2 like a lot more do i increase the amount of time im cooking them for? spare me if this is a dumb question i genuinely know nothing

So i learned kung pao chicken recipe last week, i made it with cubed chicken breast and the cubes took a lot of time to fry so this time i have thigh pieces and i wonder if maybe i can fry the thigh pieces as they are and then cut them into cubes and toss them in the sauce, would that work or is there some huge disadvantage I'm not seeing because I don't wanna feed everyone a bad dry meal.

I have recently started to get into chopping up vegetables and freezing them but I would like to cut the broccoli finely and I was wondering if it would be a good idea? I don’t care much about texture or that stuff. Opinions are appreciated

I've been trying to make those tender, juicy beef stir-fries like your average takeout place does, but mine always comes out tough no matter what I try. I've used flank steak, sliced it thin against the grain, and cooked it hot and fast. Still chewy. Am I missing a step like velveting or baking soda? Is my pan not hot enough or am I overcrowding it?

What's the actual trick here that restaurants use but most recipes leave out? I don't want to keep wasting good beef on disappointing dinners.

Grocery shopping has gotten expensive enough that I am trying to be smarter about what I always keep around at home. I feel like I somehow end up with random ingredients that sounded useful in the moment but then just sit there forever while I still have no actual meal ideas.
I have the obvious basics like rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, garlic, onions, eggs, and a few spices, but I feel like experienced home cooks always have those random pantry things that magically turn a boring meal into something solid without much effort.
For example, I only recently discovered how useful soy sauce is for adding flavor to vegetables and rice without needing a whole complicated recipe. Same with having lemons around for things that taste weirdly flat.
What are the pantry staples you wish someone told you to buy earlier as a beginner?

I marinated pork loin with all the fat, it was a large 50$ cut, on sale for 30 something dollars, and froze 20 thick 3/4 inch steaks. My boyfriend is warming up to pork since it’s cheap but never really liked it until now.
He put a bag of 4 into a bowl with “marinade” (he says he was a chef for years at a local restaurant) with curry, paprika, oregano, salt, and like four to six cups of water… after a day I drained it and just threw it in a bag with paprika, onion powder, soy, and parsley. It’s been in the fridge for like three days.

I don’t want to waste it but I’m getting ready to make him lunch soon and don’t want to waste it. He doesn’t finish things he doesn’t like.

So my question is, likely over marinaded meat, I wanted to use the smoking box on my bbq, how can I gently render out the fat and keep it from being tough, and cooking long enough to cook some Smokey flavour in, hopefully cancelling out the weird curry spice he added in WATER without sugar, and cooking long enough it with out making it tough. Am I beyond salvation????