30 Common Food Mistakes Shared By Pro Chefs That Will Make You Realize You're Cooking Everything Wrong

Everyone makes mistakes. Sadly, most of us are not even aware that we're making them.

Take the mistakes in the kitchen as an example. Once you've explored insights from culinary experts, you'll realize that you're guilty of many common blunders!

As Chef J. Kenji López-Alt notes, "Understanding the science behind cooking can help you avoid many pitfalls." He emphasizes that even simple mistakes can lead to disappointing results.

In a recent discussion, professional chefs shared their thoughts on common kitchen errors, highlighting the importance of proper ingredient storage and preparation techniques. "Many home cooks underestimate the impact of ingredient quality and preparation methods," says Alton Brown, a renowned chef and food science expert.

You'll realize that there are practices you need to ditch, and some of them are things we've been doing ever since we started cooking.

We know that cooking is a rewarding activity, but at the same time, it can be challenging.

So whether you're a novice cook or you've been preparing meals for your whole family, there are ways to improve your cooking skills. These methods can be as simple as changing the way you do things in the kitchen.

1. A very important practice

Taste as you cook. Continually adjust seasoning (salt level) as needed. Acidity is also a very overlooked aspect of seasoning. Many dishes light up with a little lemon juice or vinegar.Bran_Solo, Disney

2. A thermometer helps when the recipe isn't reliable.

If you don’t have a good feel for how done meat should be, use a thermometer. Ignore any recipe that gives precise cooking times, because they’re rarely correct.Bran_Solo, Wikipedia

3. We've been stirring the wrong way!

Now, this one is a strange one, but everyone is guilty of it, even some professional chefs. Stirring. Everyone has been stirring things incorrectly for generations. If you have a large pot of something like stew, soup, or sauce, you probably stir in a circular motion, usually clockwise or counterclockwise, right? Perhaps along the edge of the pot, or in a spiral, either going inward or outward?Well, you’re doing it wrong. When stirring, do it in one of two manners: First, in small circles, working from the outside and going inward, similar to how you might draw a cloud or petals on a flower. Or, stir in a figure-8 motion. This is especially useful if stirring in an oval or square-shaped container. Also, stir upwards. How? Angle your spoon so that you’re bringing the part of the food that’s closest to the heat source up to the surface, and vice versa. This allows for quicker and more even heat distribution and helps to prevent burning.PatrickRsGhost, trekkyandy

4. The importance of sifting

Always sift your dry ingredients. This is especially important for powdered sugar when making buttercream, because you want the butter and powdered sugar to mix seamlessly.Reddit, chriswaits

5. How to make Top Ramen properly

Using too much water when making Top Ramen.Source: Single MaleTriangledCircle, bridget_palmer

6. Salt is an important ingredient.

Too much or too little salt can ruin a dish. Salt is one of the most magical ingredients known to mankind. It can make all the ingredients of the dish shine like stars. It can also ruin all your hard work by overpowering the other ingredients. Cooking, like everything else in the world, is about balance. It is the art of balancing flavors that complement each other.whatisthisidontevenf, Wikipedia

7. Even blunt knives are dangerous.

The most dangerous piece of equipment in a kitchen is a dull knife.notmy2ndacct, jaapdriest

8. Another important practice

Clean as you cook. Most dishes have some downtime while cooking; use that time to clean up the mess you made.

Bran_Soo, dejankrsmanovic

9. Why you should never put tomatoes in the fridge.

My pro chef and former chemist friend gave me an earful for putting my tomatoes in the fridge.He explained how the cold temperature changes the chemical composition and makes them taste worse.I no longer put my tomatoes in the fridge, and they are tastier.Reddit, ryan_tir

10. How to bake better cookies and brownies

You probably aren’t mixing certain things as much as you should be. Creaming butter and sugar isn’t just about combining them; you need to beat them until they’re fluffy. The same goes for adding eggs…you’ll get better cookies and brownies if you beat again until fluffy when adding eggs to your creamed butter and sugar. However, you don’t want to over-mix once you add the flour; just mix until no more dry flour is visible. Over-mixing the flour can make your end product tough. Reddit, Nicole Michalou

11. Burgers and knives

Pressing burgers to make them cook faster? Don’t you ever do that again.Also, sharpen your knives. It makes them safer and much less frustrating to use.Seriously though, don’t you ever press that burger again!RebelWarmaster, Nickelodeon

12. The benefits of lime, lemon, and vinegar should not be overlooked.

Not a professional chef, but if you’ve put enough salt in your dish and feel that adding more would over-season it, but you still feel it’s lacking in taste, add some sort of acid.Lemon juice/zest, lime juice/zest, balsamic/red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar – you’ll be surprised at how much this lifts the dish!When I was getting interested in cooking, I would skip the acid completely because I honestly couldn’t be bothered. I would always chuckle and joke at how much lemon/lime/vinegar chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Alton Brown put in their cooking.Then I tried it once.Now, every dish I make has some sort of acidity in it because it’s just not the same without!pinhead28, Dominika Roseclay

13. The beauty of using fresh mushrooms

I know one mistake I used to make was buying canned mushrooms and using those for recipes. The first time I used fresh mushrooms for something, I realized the dreadful error of my ways, and I haven’t bought canned mushrooms since!Always use fresh mushrooms, people!TakingItOffHereBoss, Pixabay

14. A couple of things you should learn

Hello, I am the chef at a five-diamond hotel in San Francisco. The biggest thing to learn when just starting to cook is mise en place, which means "everything in its place." This is ultimately to get food timings correct and precise, and for safety and control reasons. The second biggest thing to learn in the kitchen is safety. I once had a cook with 25 years of experience get complacent and splash hot oil on his face. Now we call him Two-Face. Cooking is a creative release when done outside of a professional kitchen, so take your time and don’t hurt yourself. The third biggest thing to learn, and I tell all my cooks this every day, is taste, season, taste. Taste your food, season it, and taste it again. Most people (whether they believe it or not) have the same taste thresholds, so what tastes good to you will taste good to someone else. The last thing I can add if you want to improve your cooking is to cook more! Cook every day, because practice makes perfect. Eat. Eat everywhere and anything.Reddit, cottonbro

15. How to build up speed

SLOW THE F**K DOWN! Just because you saw Gordon Ramsay chopping at a thousand miles a minute in a YouTube video doesn’t mean that you can do that. Cut first, go slow, and speed will come.I_smell_awesome, mshades

16. Practice logic in the kitchen

You frost hot cakes and always end up making a huge mess. Just stop. Be logical—if you apply icing to a hot surface, it will melt. The cake should be at the very least room temperature or even cold if you are doing more intricate decorating.Reddit, thestarshine

17. Lessen the peeking when baking

When you put something in the oven to bake, it’s very tempting to peek inside. Try to do this as little as possible. When you open the oven door, all the hot air escapes, thus lowering the temperature of your oven. It’s okay if that happens a couple of times, but if you keep checking… it’s going to take FOREVER to finish. Finally, invest in an oven thermometer to know the true temperature of your oven. Some ovens just aren’t accurate when reading temperature.Reddit, jaapstronks

18. What should go in first

Start with salt and pepper and get those right first. Seasonings make or break your food, but if you’re just throwing things in because they sound good, you’re going to have a bad time. Also, keep in mind that you can pretty much always add more later, but you can almost never take it back out.Reddit, rawdonfox

19. Heat up the pan first.

One really common mistake people make is putting food on a cold pan. You should let the pan heat up a bit before you put anything on it.-eDgAR-, jimwinstead

20. A cup can't weigh your ingredients.

You don’t weigh your ingredients. I cannot stress enough how important it is to weigh out all of your ingredients (all ahead of time, if you really want to bake like a pastry chef) on a digital scale. One cup of feathers does NOT weigh the same as one cup of pebbles, you know? It’s so easy to find volume-to-mass conversions online, and your baked goods will not only turn out better, but they will also be more consistent.Reddit, trenttsd

21. What preheating does

You take preheating the oven as a suggestion rather than a requirement. It can really affect the texture and appearance, as well as the timings. Not preheating can lead to flat/hard cookies and dense/unevenly cooked cakes, among other things.Reddit, thms

22. What a recipe is

A recipe is just a suggestion, not the law. If a recipe calls for garlic, and you don’t care much for garlic, leave it out or reduce the amount.PatrickRsGhost, Karolina Grabowska

23. Seasoning and reseasoning

Underseason your food, taste it, then reseason to what you think tastes good. THEN RETASTE IT AGAIN. There’s a reason there aren’t salt and pepper shakers in higher-end restaurants. The plate put on your table is what it SHOULD taste like.I_smell_awesome, hendry

24. Why you should refrigerate your cookie dough.

After you mix your cookie dough, REFRIGERATE IT so that the fat hardens and doesn’t melt like cookie brittle or brownie bark—unless you like it that way!Reddit, junklab

25. Everything in order

You throw all your ingredients together at once and mix them without thinking about their order. If you see butter (or any fat) and sugar listed first in a recipe, it’s a creaming method—which means you mix together the fat and sugar first until it’s light and kind of airy. When you add the eggs, add them one by one to make sure they mix in well and so that your batter keeps its light texture.Reddit, gusilu

26. Follow the recipe before experimenting

So many baking issues are solved by simply knowing what ingredients you need and when you’ll need them. And unless you really know what you’re doing, don’t mess with the recipe! Seemingly small changes—like decreasing the amount of sugar or substituting a different type of flour—can have huge effects on the finished product. I always recommend that the first time you try a recipe, you make it exactly as written. After you’ve done that successfully, THEN and ONLY then can you think about changing it up!Reddit, photos

27. Follow the suggested temperature

If the recipe says an ingredient is supposed to be room temperature, make sure it’s room temperature! Eggs are particularly important for this rule—room temperature egg yolks break more easily and incorporate better into whatever you’re mixing. And for something like cheesecake, or anything else with high fat content, cold eggs can actually harden the fat and make your mixture lumpy.Reddit, jonnyhunter

28. Don't do this!

Don’t overcrowd the pan.Reddit, Marco Verch

29. When it comes to baking, always follow the recipe.

Pastry cook here, on the sweet side of things, my biggest piece of advice is to follow the recipe exactly if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. Baking is basically science, and if you don’t calculate substitutions right, it’s never going to come out right. Also, make sure you have good ingredients. That box of baking soda from five years ago is not going to work that well anymore.freakykukki, billhr

30. They don't show the entire thing on cooking shows.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE MICROWAVE. Those cooking shows only show the highlights of cooking. Think of the Food Network as the Facebook of cooking. You don’t see the bad stuff that happens, only the highlights.I_smell_awesome, kfillinger

Making our meals tastier doesn't have to be complicated.

Once you follow the advice of these pro chefs on Reddit, your dishes will surely improve. You don't have to go through tons of practice to make them a tad tastier.

These practical tips are not just for improving the flavor of our food. Making changes to your methods also makes your job a lot easier too!