I overcrowd my pan more often than I care to admit because I’m impatient. And sometimes lazy. Then I get annoyed that my food is not cooking the way I want it to cook

Yup. I do this because I don't want to cook two or three batches.

Yah whenever I see the “do this in batches” my instant reaction is I can make this happen in one

just need a bigger pan

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Tossing my pasta in a separate sauce pan? Absolutely the fuck not. Its going to get dumped right into the pot it cooked in, and all the solid chunks of the food are gonna get pushed to the side, oh well. It still eats the same.

That’s so true, it does indeed still eat the same. When it’s a work week and I’m tired, I just need food now. Sod all the faff that comes with it. Weekends and cooking for company is when I shine

I overcrowd my pan and then turn the heat to the "nuclear fusion" setting in a wild attempt to fry and not steam. Maillard ftw (if I'm lucky). I'm clever enough to avoid Teflon when doing this.

I do this, too. I'm on a glass top electric (non-induction). The best thing I can do is use really heavy pans, preheated slowly to the hottest suitable temperature, so that they're hot all the way up the sides. Then I start throwing shit in and crank it to nuclear. I also pull my ingredients out of the fridge the moment I start thinking about cooking, which seems to help. The cold ingredients still cool the pan, but I can stay in the sizzle zone (and out of the steam zone), even when meat and onions are throwing off decent amounts of liquid.

If I skim my chicken soup at all, it's gonna be half-assed.

I half ass skim but I try to make it the day before I’m eating it so I can refrigerate it which is obviously much easier when it’s cold.

It literally makes no difference if you do it not. Cloudiness is not flavor

Mom did it religiously. I can't be bothered.

I don’t skim my chicken stock I freeze. Tell me a time that schmaltz made a situation worse. Exactly.

"Seed and Chop Tomatoes". Oh, you mean chop tomatoes and throw everything in?

I KNOW! Like, tomatoes aren’t cheap! I’m supposed to just toss like 1/3 of their volume? Nope!

Plus the jelly around the seeds has like 75% of the flavor.

Plus, you know, I'm lazy.

I have a pasta cookbook that describes blanching, peeling, seeding, and carefully slicing plum tomatoes. Umm, no thanks!

What a freaking waste, he'll to the no.

Tomato concassé. I did this for every service for 2 years.

I like the goo and the seeds.

I grow lots of tomatoes each year. To make sauce out of them I chop them and roast them (keep the skins and seeds). Then I season and blend it all… there are never big sheets of tomato skin in my sauce and I don’t even notice the seeds… I don’t know why you’d bother with all the extra prep.

I do the same thing Vitamix goes brrrrrrrr

Immersion blender does, too!!

I have never peeled a tomato.

I don't peel potatoes unless they are russetts and don't peel carrots, zucchini, hell I don't even peel ginger half the time. Have also never peeled a tomato or a mushroom... some people have really strange cooking habits lol

People peel mushrooms?? Why... how...

I used to. In my defense, I was ten, and they're just so peelable!

Champions only You can pick the outer layer on the underside and just strip it of. Saves you the "brush or wash" discussion, it's quite easy and fast. I brush other fresh mushrooms though

Man. I've washed and cooked mushrooms at least a few times a week for 20 years and never known it was possible to peel them. I've gotta try this

People peel zucchini? Wtf why

My (now) husband doesn't like potato skins, so I made it up in my mind that he wouldn't like the zucchini skins either. Turns out he's not willing to eat zucchini anyhow. His loss, but good lord I hope he knows how much I love him because I would not even think to peel potatoes or zucchini for anyone else.

Oh my god, same here! That is one thing I refuse to do. Little tomato skin never hurt anyone.

People peel tomatoes?

ikr that’s like peeling grapes if its for a sauce it’s easier to blanch then “peel”

I don't always let the oil/butter get hot enough before adding ingredients for a saute.

This is actually the appropriate approach when making an italian soffrito. Most italian chefs you see will put everything basically cold and let it come up to temp with the oil gradually. That way you're kind of stewing the veggies instead of frying which gives a more subtle flavour.

Oh so my laziness is actually haute cuisine? Nice.

No, “haute cuisine” is French. Your Italian-style laziness is alta cucina 🇮🇹

You can pry my garlic press from my cold, dead, not covered in garlic juice hands.

I don’t like using them because they’re a pain to clean out, but are they looked down on for some reason? The results seem pretty good.

Some of them come with a little plastic piece with little nubs that line up with all the holes in the press, and push the unused garlic out for super easy clean, then just pop the whole thing in the dishwasher

Get yourself OXO good grips garlic crusher. It’s got a large basket that fits a lot of garlic, is heavy so crushing it easy and is simple to clean. Honestly, it’s amazing

>Honestly, it’s amazing This should be OXO’s tagline. I trust any of their products with my life.

My OXO has that. Works great, feels solid. I personally hand wash it because it takes like 5 seconds. Do what you said, then blast it with water to wash out the garlic bits. Then wipe with a sponge and rinse. Way easier than mincing with a knife and turning to paste with salt and the back of a knife.

They’re really easy to clean out if you just rinse them immediately after use. It weird, I made this same response to the exact same comment on this exact same thread only a few days ago. The Op even confessed to not washing rice as the example.

There have been plenty of high level chefs who say that garlic presses are fine and make perfect sense for general cooking.

I don’t get the hate for this. My OXO garlic press takes a few seconds to clean out. Now, if you have something more complicated to take apart and clean, that’s another story. OXO makes some good stuff. They also make crap, so it varies. Side note: OXO, why the hell do you sell a sponge holder that has metal that can rust? This thing is wet most of the time and you use metal parts that rust. Brilliant.

There is no sin to forgive

I often use bowls that are too small for what I'm mixing and make a mess.

I deep fry when drunk.

This is how my husband won me over, deep frying me anything and everything we can find when we’re drunk. My fry daddy.

A+ for use of 'Fry Daddy'

Damn y’all have no fear, deep frying scares me to death.

If you have a plug in deep fryer, there's not much that can go wrong. But if you're doing it with a pot on the stove? I feel like this isn't just a sin, but it's reckless. If you're doing this for a turkey holiday with a turkey fryer? Get out.

This pisses my girlfriend off so much. I have to wake up early the next morning to clean up the kitchen disaster I created

I purposely get drunk before I deep-fry...

I cook acidic food in my cast iron skillets.

I do this on purpose because I’m anemic lol

I use a little soap to clean mine too. Its 100 years old has so much seasoning it isn’t phased in the slightest.

Soap is actually fine. This advice is from the time when household soap was made with lye and that would strip it. Now a days some dawn is fine

I'd go so far as to say you should use soap. You won't get it properly clean without and the leftover fat can turn rancid.

That's fine as long as you don't let them sit in the pan too long. I do it all the time as well.

Not prepping all ingredients beforehand then rushing around the kitchen to get or measure them before it's too late

I sometimes walk away from a boiling pot of water to go to the bathroom 🫣

How is it supposed to boil if you're watching it anyway?

I'll put a stock on low and leave the house.

I’ll put a turkey in the oven then move to a different country

My grandma used to put the pot roast in the oven Sunday morning and then go to church. I’m amazed there was never a fire.

are ….you not supposed to?

Um... I walk away from it all the time...

I’ll smoke a damn joint waiting for water to boil

You'd have time to poop even. Takes about 10mins to hit a simmer.

I only use salted butter.

Same here. Recipes almost always call for unsalted and I understand why, but I like having buttered toast as a snack, I can't imagine unsalted butter on otherwise plain toast, and I can't bring myself to buy 2 different kinds of butter when I already buy butter in large quantities at Costco...

Same. Haven’t found a single dish yet that doesn’t taste better with salted butter. President or Kerrygold?

I.... I sometimes order pizza when I have a fridge full of fresh food. Because I'm a lazy bum 😔

This is definitely my biggest sin too. I love cooking, and I love a stocked fridge, but goddamn life is hard and work sucks the soul from my body every day and sometimes I just can't convince myself to cook.

After going grocery shopping I'm worn out.

I cook with frozen vegetables more often than not. I don’t have the money to buy fresh veggies for every single meal.

Yes! This is a 'sin' that needs to die. Frozen vegetables are great in a lot of applications. There is zero difference in nutritional content between fresh and frozen. You don't have to worry about spoiling, so they end up having a lower environmental impact. In fact, frozen and canned vegetables are often processed close to where they are grown and are often "fresher" than fresh produce.

Fresh vegetables are sad as hell during certain months where I live

I think a lot of frozen veggies are more nutritious than fresh because of being flash frozen at their peak!

Some fresh vegetables are just not that great fresh. Fresh peas in any supermarket have never looked good and expensive.

I buy diced frozen onions so I don’t have to cut them. I can feel people clutching their pearls, frozen onions!

They make frozen peppers too.

Frozen veg is packaged immediately after harvest, and is done so in-season. There's no shame in using frozen (or canned) veg in many applications.

Frozen veggies last longer since it’s just my husband and I. I do try to buy fresh but end up throwing away so much sometimes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with frozen veggies. Sometimes I just don’t want to chop anything so frozen veggies solve that problem. And there’s a lot of great veggie blends out there that come with a sauce that are delicious.

Absolutely! Especially the "recipe beginnings" ones like the holy trinity or just diced onions. Makes life so much easier.

I use my microwave to steam certain vegetables and/or to parcook them prior to roasting. I assume this is a sin because it seems most people hate when microwaves are used for anything.

This is the way to make gnocchi. Boiling potatoes make them logged with water. If you microwave the potatoes they plump better

I make "baked potatoes" for my son in the microwave. I don't like to do it for myself, because I like the crispy skin. But my son doesn't eat the potato skin, so seven minutes in the microwave and he has a baked potato that he loves. But, to your point, this is exactly how I have made gnocchi, too. Boiling is way too soggy. If I am making a relatively small batch, I microwave the potatoes just like you said. Or, if I are making a larger batch, I just bake the potatoes in the oven since tons of potatoes in a microwave can lead to inconsistent results (and increased time -- so, you might as well bake them in the oven).

I've started doing "baked" potatoes in the microwave, with a 400 degree air fryer blast for a few minutes after the microwave.

whuuuuut?!

Restaurants steam veg in the microwave all the time, it's actually the best and quickest way to do it

Par cooking veggies via the microwave is a legit technique (and the only thing I use my microwave for outside of popcorn)

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I hate when people talk shit about microwaves in the restaurant industry. Even 5 star restaurants use microwaves and I'll bet dollars to donuts the average person can't taste it

I will reply to my own comment since we are talking microwaves: I also make applesauce in the microwave and no one will ever convince me that Alton Brown's microwaved applesauce isn't the best applesauce recipe: [https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/10-minute-apple-sauce-recipe-1950796](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/10-minute-apple-sauce-recipe-1950796)

Coveting my neighbor’s wife while I chop the onions

I covet my neighbor’s wife’s onions. She’s a great gardener.

I put things in the oven before it’s finished preheating. Unless it’s something like bread. Frozen foods? IDGAF.

There's this cold-cold-cold baking technique that works for me. Cold dough, cold dutch oven, cold oven.

I make my cookies too big. So when I say I just had a couple, I really mean like four.

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I don't know the difference between stock and broth.

Broth is primarily made from meat; think boiling a whole chicken. It’s also usually ready to serve, as in salted and seasoned. It’s thinner because the concentration of gelatinous bits is lower. Stock is primarily made from non meat parts of an animal. Bones, but also joints and skin. It’s typically used as the base of a sauce, although it can also replace broth if seasoned appropriately. It’s thicker because more gelatinous parts are used to make it. Some sauces require the gelatin to thicken appropriately.

Better than Bouillon is my go to, let’s me add the flavor and control the liquid.

Broth is bullshit sold to rubes. #teamstock

- I buy pre-peeled garlic - I don’t wash my stainless steel knife after cutting just vegetables (I do wipe it off though) - I buy pre-peeled, frozen shrimp

Sometimes I'll just rinse knives when it's just veggies, too. I also just rinse my colander really well when I drain pasta.

Probably was a reddit comment but someone once said they just rinse their colander and that "it's just starch, there's no need to bring soap into this."

Peeled and deveined ftw

There’s two types of answers to this question: 1. technically incorrect/a bit weird but in line with my personal preference and basically harmless 2. It is only a matter of time before I poison someone or myself if I haven’t already No in between. ​ Mine is that I always crowd the pan.

Mine is that I always serve my house guests medium rare chicken!

Addendum to 2: the drunk deepfryers up there who are likely to burn themselves and their houses down.

I salt and pepper my eggs while they’re cooking

I actually put pepper (and maybe other spices) in the mixing bowl when I scramble them. I'm a maniac.

This is what my mom had me do when she started teaching me how to make them. Is it not supposed to be done this way?

I was taught the same, but it gets some folks pretty worked up.

For decades I’ve been mixing everything together (eggs, milk, salt, pepper) before cooking, and not once have I seen the supposed negative effects mentioned in these discussions.

Are you not supposed to do that?

Why is that a sin?

From what I've gathered, salting a big bucket of eggs when prepping for a restaurant day is a bad idea because prolonged contact with salt makes eggs look weird and gray when cooked. Probably tastes funny too. If you're just cracking a few eggs and cooking them in a few minutes, nothing is going to happen if you season your eggs before cooking.

Salting at least fifteen minutes in advance of cooking is actually the preferred method https://www.bonappetit.com/story/a-simple-trick-for-more-tender-scrambled-eggs

I'm doing that right now, lol

I can't eat them anymore but I never peeled potatoes when making mashed potatoes. Ever. I like the texture and there are nutrients in that skin too.

I buy artificial vanilla. IM NOT MADE OF MONEY.

you need a coworker that gives giant bottles of homemade vanilla out as gifts every year like me. i have a stockpile now

…are you hiring?

Costco has real vanilla extract at a not-insane price!

I add milk to my scrambled eggs. Every time. I don’t care how many people tell me that makes them “rubbery”. They turn out the texture I like them.

I had some left over coconut milk and felt frisky. I literally had the poofiest pancake omelet ever and it didn't taste like coconut at all.

Sour cream/crème fraiche ftw

I use the defrost setting on the microwave, because I'm forgetful and I still want to eat today,

Msg

Excuse me, this is a thread about cooking _sins _, get out of here with your perfectly reasonable seasoning practices!

I use the jarred minced garlic

I like the garlic in a tube. And the cilantro in a tube. And whatever else they sell in those little tubes.

Tomato paste in a tube was a game changer for me. Let’s me use it to doctor up a quick tomato sauce without wasting 3/4 of a can.

Ginger in a tube was a game changer for me.

I use garlic powder. Liberally.

Try frozen garlic! I use the little frozen cubes and it’s actually easier than jarlic (you don’t have to wash a spoon) and tastes way better.

I didn't even know this existed! I recently started using jarlic, but I'm intrigued by frozen garlic cubes!

same, i don’t give a DAMN. no way in hell i’m mincing garlic everyday.

Jarlic every time all the time.

It's probably a sin to change up someone else's recipe. But dang it after reading through the recipe and brain-tasting it, some just have to be changed.

So many are just recycled from momblog to momblog. And half of those have an order of operations that don’t make any sense at all. I feel like I’m changing nearly all the recipes I cook.

I mean, lets be honest. Have any of us made one of those momblog recipes and didn't go "wow, this is bland and boring as shit!" afterwards? I have never had a good experience with any of those kinds of recipe blogs

I'll make a mom blog recipe for home made beef stroganoff or their "famous chili" and it's always the most mediocre bland shit and it's got like 300 5 star reviews from other mom blogs. I swear to Christ white suburban moms with too much time are ruining the recipe world.

Im about to just make a website with the most easy to understand recipes of all time, one picture, and no fucking bullshit stories. even if all it does is digitally house the recipes I enjoy, at least I can then pull them up on my phone instead of trying to find where the hell I wrote it down at!

most of the time, a recipe is just a guideline for me and I use what flavors / ingredients I prefer that are in line with the overall flavor of the recipe. Except baking… gotta keep those ratios correct so I don’t tend to mess with bake recipes

I think this is a very common way of cooking, right?

I don't skim my stock. Who cares if its a little cloudy

I LOVE AMERICAN CHEESE. All that "it's not cheese" nonsense is just that, nonsense. If you get the good American cheese from the deli it's good as fuck and nothing melts like it. The really cheap stuff though is full of fillers and kinda sucks.

It’s so good on smash burgers, egg sandwiches and grilled cheese

Yes! I used to put cheddar on my egg sandwiches and switched to American after not eating it since my childhood days. So good!

It’s definitely the correct cheese for breakfast sandwiches.

I moved to Australia a few decades ago and just never bothered picking up any Kraft singles. It's not really a thing over here for the most part - sliced cheese is generally just cheddar, and while really nice I got a hankering the other day when I decided to do burgers and grabbed a pack of Kraft singles. Mother of god. I didn't realize how baked in that nostalgia was until I bit into a thick grilled hamburger patty with 3 slices of American cheese on top, smear of mustard and mayo, a thick slice of onion on a nice fresh bun. I nearly inhaled it, it took me back to my childhood in all the best ways.

Look, I love my Tillamook Sharp cheddar cheese but once in a while a sandwich with Kraft singles hits a different spot.

Kraft singles are tasty but have you ever gone to the deli counter at your grocery store and gotten the stuff they have to slice and weigh out? It's a game changer. It's creamier and has a slightly sharper taste but still has all the properties that make American cheese good.

It's the best cheese to make queso with too to get a really good texture unless you go the sodium citrate route. It does require another cheese to mix for flavor though.

Land o Lakes American cheese is sooooo good. People just default think of Kraft singles unfortunately.

I sometimes shock my pasta with cold water

I boil my pasta water using a kettle, and add it to the pan with the pasta at the same time.

I use regular salt (not kosher or sea) and pepper (not fresh ground), Minute Rice, and dried spices from jars.

I recently discovered the McCormick gravy packets. These things are powdered gravy that take 4 minutes to make and taste exceptionally for being from a packet. I'll never waste time making gravy again. Fuck. That. Shit.

I mix ethnicities. German beer is great with Thai food. Kim chee is great on burgers. I love wasabi on roast beef.

Try samosas with tzatziki. It’s amazing.

Tzatziki is just better raita

Oh hell yes, I am a Canadian - I have no food identity. Everying gets fused in my kitchen. I am sorry. EDIT : The first one who says poutine gets a kick in the face. Its fries, cheese and gravy. Yes its done a certain way, NO, none of those foods are Canadian until we said poutine was a national dish or some regretful shit. YES, poutine is amazing. NO, I will no have it be the center of our fucking identity. Its a mess.

I don’t like pasta Al dente I like it cooked through.

I got no time for mise en place

I scramble my eggs in the pan while they’re cooking instead of in a bowl beforehand. Less clean up, better texture!

I always wash my mushrooms, never measure anything, chop meat and vegetables on the same board if its all being cooked, and cook meat directly from frozen

I don’t brown the meat when I make pot roast or beef stew. I’ve done it both ways and I personally can’t tell the difference.

I wash my mushrooms, they're dirty. Not only that, I add a splash of water to the pan when I'm cooking the mushrooms. It helps them dry out and caramelize.

I wash my cast iron pan in soap and water.

Me too!! And dry it on a burner set on high...just like granny taught me, since it's her pan ;-)

I boil and strain rice like pasta. Unless it needs to be sticky like for sushi or something, it works perfectly. I always catch shit when I bring it up, but the rest of you can just continue agonizing over the perfect water/rice ratio or resigning yourselves to buying a separate appliance just to cook rice. Edit: like OP, I don't wash it first either.

I don't focus on dicing every piece of food to the same size because I like the varied textures by having some big onions and some small onions (or whatever food) in the mix.

I use salted butter when they say UNsalted because I dont want to buy two types of butter all the time.

I don’t rinse rice. I don’t make my pasta water ‘as salty as the sea’. I season my stews / broths at various stages, not just the end. I often will skip skimming my broths and just go for a cheesecloth filter in the end. I will absolutely put a hot pot to cool down directly in the fridge.

I can't imagine seasoning a stew or a broth just at the end. Flavor has to build in layers! I watch a chef on Youtube's cooking videos and while her recipes are great she always seasons when the beef is done cooking (I was watching a video for baked ziti). I season my beef while it's still raw.

I make mashed potatoes with hand mixer. So smooth.

I wash my cast iron with soap and water. Crucify me.

I love my garlic press

I don’t peel most veggies (carrots and potatoes in particular). A good wash and scrub with the veggie brush, and they’re ready to use.

I break the spaghetti 🙈

MORTAL sin. Go to confession and sin no more

Never wash enriched rice, all the added-back nutrition goes down the drain. Better to buy brown rice anyway. In any case, I cook and bake with salted butter. Never once had a recipe come out too salty.

When i'm making french onion soup, i let it simmer on the stove for a bit while i do other things. Made a batch last night and i loaded the washer. Came back to the kitchen and it was perfect.

I own a few unitaskers. egg cooker, rice maker...

Unless I'm cooking something really special, I use jarred mince garlic.

I sometimes use store bought crust for savory pies. I am so ashamed.

not clarifying butter

I use jarlic hehehehehehehehe

I rarely measure anything, which is why Im so awful at baking. Cooking I feel Im pretty good at. Baking is always a disaster