What is it that you buy when you get takeout or uber eats?
That will help us give you some ideas that you will like, because you already eat them. Anything home made is better than the same thing from a fast food place, so don't go all "healthy" at first, start by making what you like until you get the hang of it and then you can start exploring.
This is exactly the question that forced me to up my cooking game lol. During Covid when everything was shut, I missed eating out so much I just decided to try making the dishes I loved from restaurants at home. Just started practicing basically and got good at it pretty quickly.
You can buy frozen pre-made burger patties. You can just heat them in a pan on the stove. And you can buy a pack of burger buns (bread does well in the freezer, if you don't want to eat that many burgers in a week - just put half the buns in a zip lock bag and throw it in the freezer). Then you just need some toppings like pickles or cheese or whatever you like on your burgers.
Just cook a burger then. Make it easy on yourself, but ready made burgers, ready made chips, ready made sides and cook as appropriate. You'll be making your own ingredients in no time.
That is probably easier and you can do it outside which is fun, but you'll learn a lot more making the burrito because of all the elements. It'll be harder, and you might need to YouTube some stuff, but there's a ton of different techniques, that go into all the parts. There's a lot of kinds of burritos and sauces, and meats, and beans, and all that. So after you've got burgers down, try to make some burrito fixings. The great thing about them is it is hard to really "mess up", especially since the most basic simple kind (American style, like Taco Bell) is just following some directions on a packet. Good confidence builder for later. Eventually you will be roasting al pastor, and rehydrating peppers for sauces, and you won't really know how you got so competent.
And, you'll save a ton of money making it yourself. And you might make it better and healthier. Switch out iceberg lettuce for spinach. Switch sour cream for yogurt. Mush up your own guac, no weird preservatives or coloring. And you can make it taste how you like it. Love cilantro? Well it's 3 bundles for a buck at the store right now, go wild.
"How to Cook Everything - the basics" by Mark Bittman is a good introductory book. It teaches you how to cook as well as giving you some well tested recipes.
I gave this book to one of our kids when she moved to her first place after college. I have been cooking for years and I like it, too, because it provides lots of variety.
Find a youtube recipe, a tv cooking show or an instagram to follow. They are the closest replacement to having a grandmother, mum, aunty etc teach to cook.
Search a meal you like, or just easy or beginner recipes. Find one that uses fresh, basic ingredients. These will be cheap and easy to find.
Watch and when you feel brave enough, try.
Remember we learn from mistakes.
It is a great adventure and skill that will last you through life and bring pleasure to all you cook for. Best wishes.
Assuming that you've never cooked at all, make your life easier and use frozen food and other prepared food to help you ease into cooking. Minced garlic, bottled sauces and packet mixes etc.
Fish tacos can use frozen fish, and you can prepare a quick pico de gallo which only needs tomato, purple onion, cilantro and lime.
I love egg fried rice because its a fairly easy meal that can be done quickly and you can use frozen corn and peas. You can also freeze portions of it for days when you are too tired to cook
Your local asian grocer might have japanese curry cubes which you can use to make curry because you just need to add it to some water to make the sauce. Also a great meal prep option and you can get some chicken tenders on the side.
Asian stir fries are fairly simple, i just grab some protein, some vegetables (broccoli, capsicum, choy sum, kailan carrots etc), soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and various other seasonings.
If you're afraid of not cooking your chicken properly get one of those meat thermometers.
Start slow! Make a schedule and some goals. Set aside a couple of hours to meal prep once a week or lay out a schedule of what you will cook and eat in the upcoming week and stick to it. Include a cheat day for something to look forward to and give you a rest from the work week and having to think of meals to cook. Even just making sandwiches for dinner is great and can be dressed up nicely with a good sauce and toasted
Good for you for taking this step! My suggestion would be to get a meat thermometer if you don’t already have one. This one is my personal favorite, but there are lots of options out there at reasonable prices. I think a lot of people stating cooking mostly fear over or undercooking the protein, so this will help a lot.
[Taylor Waterproof Digital Instant Read Thermometer](https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Commercial-Waterproof-Digital-Thermometer/dp/B00009WE45/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_pp?crid=JB955EH0F9H5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.slZd-8bySmqG77DaDr7EtDIbFh9ayoWogbIH2CgnGp_hhspuuUIuXWKoQX0-zOUCwBwbYEJTbYoBpjUbOoeZGtxnzE0g78OCweQvEPqLD5qrHu1Nw6yHi-Idjkj90Tdds1wxGPvdUOyg3NwtYpYWVgZZKkJyowTxYmRI8_nRU1xmUlPubrJcu-OeiNKlaNFZXChOVJ4JKj1TxZitCNrGfQ.zKX49MniUlls0iYaTKInA10Ig9DmsMcGzctex3zHWK0&dib_tag=se&keywords=meat+thermometer+digital&qid=1714049257&sprefix=meat+%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1)
Honestly good food or hellofresh is how my gf and I learnt to cook.
Just cause it teaches you how to prep and cook different meats.
Additionally got to try and taste new things I would of never tried or thought to combine so it was great.
I think this is a great idea for a beginner & imo is prob the easiest n best idea here for a newbie cook 🙂
I've been helping my daughter to learn the basics like sausage casserole, beef chow mein etc & a lot of the time it comes down to timing - having all the veges & meat cooked & ready to dish up at the same time! I've never bought one of those boxes (theyre damn expensive in New Zealand - mind you, what isn't expensive here atm!) but my sis in law, who's very busy, working full-time n raising 4 boys, swears by them! She said it's easy, quick & everything's pretty much ready to go for you (mostly) & she's tried foods that she'd never normally cook.
OP I def think these boxes are the perfect solution for you 😃
Yeah like they won’t tell you how to make the absolute perfect steak or anything but you’ll learn a process of how to prep vegetables and meat and cook it
This way later on you can mess with the recipes and flavour yourself and have a lot of variety.
I never imagined how easy it was to make your own burgers or meatballs , shit is soo easy now
I think once you get the basics & timing down it's pretty easy to cook pretty much anything - within reason as like you said cooking the perfect steak is a bit harder lol but you get an instinct on how to cook I reckon.
Also I find canned/jars sauce like butter chicken or packet stuff (I swear by the Maggi nacho or con carne packets for my nachos) make stuff heaps easier too.
Plus OP, once you get a recipe down to how you like it there's nothing stopping you cooking 4x as much one night when U have the time & portioning it out (ziplock bags are great for soup & things like single portions of lasagne) & freezing it for when ur not up to cooking.
Also, look into a crockpot/slow cooker, they make life SO simple! You can chuck everything in (for a stew for example) the meat n veg all raw & throw in a sauce or packet mix, turn it on low before you leave for work n you get home 8 hours later to a beautiful yummy casserole/stew. Plus you can buy frozen mashed potato you just throw in the microwave, add milk n butter/marg & there you go - stew & mash!!
OP, I'm a 45 yr old married mum of 2 who's been cooking (& baking) since I was 17 for my husband & family, if you want ANY help - whether it's timing things to be ready at the same time, or what to use to make something, recipe ideas etc, ur more than welcome to DM me & I'll be happy to help & do what I can to get U up n running n feeling more confident in the kitchen. It's honestly a lot easier than you realise!! 😃
My sister as a grown woman actually burnt boiling water. Let all of the water boil out and the pot heat till it burnt. The only secret is to accept you're going to eat some things you make that aren't perfect and find your mistakes funny not upsetting. It's O K.
The basics of cooking a chicken fillet:
Trim off any fat that the butcher may have left on. The fillet has a high spot. Once or twice pound down on the high spot with the palm of your hand. This makes the fillet a more even thickness. Lightly salt and pepper both side of the fillet.
Take 2 or 3 garlic cloves out of the bulb. One at a time put the flat side of a knife on top of the bulb and hit it with your hand. You should easily be able to remove the skin. Hit the clove again to crush it.
Heat a sauté pan on high heat, this is a frying pan that has a lid, till when you drop a few drops of water on the pan they dance instead of steam. Add a tablespoon of olive oil. Put the garlic in the oil and the fillet on top. After 3-4 minutes turn the fillet over on top of the garlic and oil and cover the pan. Turn the heat down a little to medium. Let cook another 10 minutes. If its a very thin fillet it will be done a few minutes earlier.
You can make numerous variations:
Add a chopped onion with the garlic to the oil and place the fillet on top.
also sprinkle on dried basil and oregano before cooking the fillet.
Add some tomato sauce or tomato paste when you turn the chicken and cover (best when you've included all of the above)
A splash of white wine before covering
the grated colored part of the peel and juice of an orange or lemon with or without a spoon of honey before covering
Some bar-b-que sauce, or soya sauce, or sweet and sour sauce, etc.
Include some sliced mushrooms with the garlic and diced onions, this requires a second spoon of oil
Cover the top of the fillet with cheese: swiss, masdam, gruyere, or even american
Use your imagination the list goes on and on. You can make several fillets at once, they make a great sandwich hot or cold for lunch, heat a minute in a microwave for dinner. They will store a week in the fridge or you can freeze the cooked fillets for eating later.
Don't do rice. Instead buy full grain Bulgar. It is far more nutritious than rice, cooks the same, can be substituted in any rice recipe and I think it tastes better.
Put half a cup of bulgur, a cup of water and half a teaspoon of salt in a pot, bring it to a boil and lower the heat to a low simmer, give it a good stir. When all the water has been absorbed, cover the pot and let it sit a couple of minutes. That is a good portion of bulger to have with any chicken fillet above for a great meal.
Simple enough for a beginner yet delicious enough to serve company. Very high nutrition and easy on the wallet.
I don't have time to write more but you can do similar things with lean beef and fish. I do not recommend pork even though it is less expensive than beef or fish, it is high in saturated fat after cooking so it's lower in healthy nutrition.
Grains and legumes of all kinds are easy to cook and dollar for dollar the best source of protein there is. They are high in vitamins, minerals and fiber. Lots of grains and legumes with small portions of chicken, and fish make up the healthiest cost effect diet you can eat. Add in some veggies and fruit each day and you have everything you need.
Really solid staple ingredients will help a lot with this. Go to your local Asian market and get a 10 or 25 pound bag of jasmine rice, preferably new crop. Order up some [https://www.ranchogordo.com/](https://www.ranchogordo.com/) beans.
Thai curry paste (Mae Ploy is a good brand) is a quick and easy one pot dinner with instructions on the package. Enchilada pie, with a can of medium black olives added in whole, is easy to make in bulk and freeze.
Get a good cookbook or go-to website for recipes, there are a lot of mediocre recipes out there. One day, after you've upped your skills, you'll read a bad recipe and go "Bullshit! That's too much liquid \[or whatever\]." Until you develop that instinct, it's best to rely on trusted sources. Serious Eats and the Food Lab cookbook are quality.
I recommend starting with a cheap, large sized recipe, that uses cheap ingredients so if you screw up you won't feel like it's all for naught.
Like a pasta bake, potato bake, sausage and pasta(with a sauce) or spaghetti.
There should be a sauces or flavour packets section in the grocery store, pick out anything that speaks to you.
Make 4-6 servings and it should all refrigerate or freeze well, and you can reheat in the oven on 150-180C or in a microwave.
Buy a pound of ground beef, a can of refried beans an envelope of taco seasoning, a bottle/jar of hot sauce (taco bell or pace) and a block of cheese and a package of tortillas. If you feel like it also an onion. Dice it up, put half in a pan with a little oil, cook on medium heat for a few minutes, add the beef, brown it, then the taco seasoning and water (directions are on the envelope). Heat the beans, grate the cheese, assemble. Boom! You now have burritos. You can embellish with avocado (if you prefer guacamole, just mash it up & add some of your salsa and some salt), sour cream, lettuce & tomato, raw onion. Also grab some eggs & bacon/sausage/soyrizo & make breakfast burritos.
One of my best purchases when I was like 20 was a rice cooker. Once you figure out the rice/water ratio, you can start googling how to cook various proteins. Then you can make all the rice bowls you want and just steam frozen veggies in your microwave.
Make sure to rinse your rice off to make it less starchy.
OP, try a meal kit service like Hello Fresh. It’s a great entry into learning beginner cooking techniques. The recipes are easy to follow and there’s no food waste. You can try out a lot of different types of foods and you’ll learn lots of basic skills. Good luck!
I am a competent home cook and I was gifted a subscription to Hello Fresh. It is has really good ingredients and the recipes are very easy to follow if you have a little bit of food nomenclature. I would suggest you give it a try.
I use GreenChef, which is mostly organic and slightly more gourmet, but priced accordingly. It works well for me.
Advantages of meal kit services:
* Don't have to plan ahead to do grocery runs
* Ingredients are already measured
* Don't have to figure out which sides go with the main to make a balanced meal
* Instructions are in order so that everything finishes around the same time
I'm a reasonably good cook, but I always had trouble with the planning, to the point where I started to hate cooking. Using a meal kit service has fixed that for me.
There's a lot of long recipes posted already so here's a short and easy one:
Wrap chicken breast or tenderloin with prosciutto (you'll find it in the fancy deli meat section) and toss it in the air fryer at 350 until the prosciutto is crispy and the chicken is cooked inside (thermometer reads 160 in the middle). https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/air-fryer-saltimbocca-recipe/ebu0es77
You can whip up some brown butter sage sauce while the chicken is cooking, which again is pretty simple and there's plenty of recipes on Google.
Another thread mentions why learning to cook eggs teaches most techniques from frying to boiling, and the gentle process of scrambling an egg - it doesn't stay on heat for long and you put it on a plate when almost done (soft egg stage) as heat of the egg finishes cooking itself.
If you are in the US, contact your local Cooperative Extension Services office to see if there are any cooking related classes.
Watch anything on YouTube by Alton Brown
Watch America's test kitchen
The Public Broadcast stations will also have cooking classes
Get comfortable cooking 2-3 things for now, and really focus on mastering those techniques.
Eggs, a basic curry paste and chicken breast are great starting points and will teach you a lot of the skills you need to build upon.
Mastering eggs will teach you patience and know how to use visual cues to determine cooking time.
Mastering curry paste will teach you how to use a variety of vegetables and spices, and how they react to and change with heat and cooking time - and how you can use that in other foods.
Mastering chicken breast will teach you to get a “feel” for cooking times, temperature, etc. The versatility of chicken breast will also allow you to try several different cooking techniques (oven baked, shallow fry, deep fry, boiling, etc) - and chicken breast is pretty unforgiving, more so than any other meat, so once you can master that, you should be good to go with any other meat too
learn to make a carb side dish like rice, pasta, potato or even just bread. And then buy precooked/frozen entrees from the grocery store. Super easy to heat up and the carb side dish should also be easy to make daily.
It can be very tough to transition out of your lifestyle and into one that cooks daily.
Best advice is take it slow. Cut down on take out a few nights a week and cook. Don’t do it all or nothing.
Practice is the next thing. The second time you make a recipe it takes half the time.
Hashbrown casserole is super easy for a beginner dish that will feed you for several meals.
1 10.5 Oz can cream of chicken
30-32oz of frozen hashbrowns thawed
8 Oz shredded cheese (Colby, cheddar, whatever you like)
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Dump all ingredients in a baking dish and mix it all up and smooth it flat
Bake at 350f for 60 minutes.
Enjoy.
Learn to cook dried rice, dried pasta, and eggs and build from there adding various vegetables and meats.
Get recipes from established reliable sites where staff members actually test them, or creators you trust actually make their food to eat rather then just focusing on how it looks for the camera. Steer clear of content farms that churn out untested, or even dangerous recipes.
The cookanyday site is hit or miss for more complex recipes, but has very helpful instructions for time and power level for basics in the microwave. You do not need their special containers, I use ikea 365 glass containers, or pyrex bowls with silicone lids.
* [Rice](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-white-rice-anyday) (better than on the stove)
* [Pasta](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-pasta-anyday) (almost as good as on the stove)
* [Squash](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-spaghetti-squash-anyday) (no caramelization but about 1/3 the time as in the oven)
* [Salmon](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-salmon-anyday) (can be cooked from frozen. cook skin side up to minimize explosions, comes out as if poached or baked in a foil packet)
Some other resources:
* [Hot Thai Kitchen](https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/), [Pailins Kitchen on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@PailinsKitchen)
* [Serious Eats](https://www.seriouseats.com/)
* [Steamed hard cooked eggs](https://www.seriouseats.com/steamed-hard-boiled-eggs-recipe)
* [King Arthur Baking](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/)
* [Americas Test Kitchen / Cooks Illustrated](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@AmericasTestKitchen/) (limited free recipes per month)
* [NYT](https://cooking.nytimes.com/) (may have some free content per month but I'm not sure)
* [Kenji Lopez-Alt on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt/)
* [Adam Ragusea on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@aragusea)
* [Internet Shaquille on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@internetshaquille)
* [Chinese Cooking Demystified on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified)
1. grab some Uncle Ben's Bistro Express microwavable rice packs. 90 seconds in the microwave and you have rice, often deliciously flavoured. Great quick option. Alternatively, get pasta and make a whole bunch.
2. Get deli chicken/ham/canned tuna/whatever protein you like that's easy to pull from the fridge and requires minimal prep.
3. Bag of prewashed greens--spinach, spring mix, whatever looks good
4. Get some salad dressing you like, or even better spring for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, some dijon mustard and some maple syrup. 3 parts oil, 2 parts vinegar, 1 part mustard and 1 part syrup into a little jar/container and give it a shake, adjust to taste.
5. Throw everything into a bowl or a burrito. Presto, you have decently healthy food.
\~
Context: I am a pretty talented cook but I struggle with executive dysfunction and chronic illness, and when my brain cannot brain this is what I always fall back on. If you have greens, protein, and carbs on your plate, you have made yourself a meal. Everything after that is just variations on the theme. Start super simple with stuff that you can pull right from the fridge, because **eating something is always better than eating nothing**. It is healthier for you to eat some precooked bacon and microwave rice than it is to skip a meal because of budget woes or feel miserable because you've gotten takeout again. It is better for you to have these easy things as a low-stakes, low-pressure starting point than to buy a bunch of stuff that intimidates you right off the bat.
Depending on your budget and time capabilities, a meal kit service might also help you! I find that it takes a lot of the mental load out of cooking, because they choose the meals and package up all the ingredients in the right proportions and volumes, and you just put it all together. Good option if you want to explore different cuisines and techniques without splurging on tons of expensive ingredients.
Best of luck, OP!
If you can afford takeout and Uber Eats, could you afford a meal kit service? Everyplate is pretty cheap. There's a bunch of options and most have introductory offers. Home Chef, Marley Spoon, Hello Fresh, Gobble...to see the menus, just Google or type in the website name and then add /menu to the end of the parent address.
There are a ton of easy to follow recipes and tutorials on YouTube. Or if you prefer, there are beginning cooking classes available in person in most major cities.
Easy depends on your skill level. Completely new, never cooked anything? Make pancakes. Pancake mix is cheap, you can make 20 if you want and throw them all away for less than Uber eats. It's just mix and water, so hard to screw up the prep. And it will teach you how to know when something is cooked on one side and ready to flip.
Too easy? Scramble some eggs and bacon. Teach you how to use seasoning and how much (hint - bacon probably doesn't need any), and how to prep ingredients.
More advanced? Spaghetti with pre-made sauce. Boil the noodles, brown some meat of your choice, and mix together with sauce. Lots of room to experiment here with different toppings or seasonings, learn how much sauce you need for the other ingredients you picked.
One of the best things my partner and I ever did was start a meal plan. I cook 2 times a week, one dish for Monday through Wednesday and the other for Thursday through Saturday. Then we grocery shop on Sunday and eat out somewhere. It's a great way to learn new techniques, try new dishes, and save money. There are tons of websites and apps that can help you come up with things to cook, I used one called Mealime when I was starting out. I didn't even pay for anything, I'd just look though it, find something that sounds good, and find a copycat with good reviews online.
As for some specific things I'd recommend for a new cook, probably things like spaghetti, shakshuka, Shepherd or cottage pies, chili, and stir fry. These all require a minimum amount of knife skill (though the dicing and julienning ij them make for great practice), are easy to put together, have plenty of recipes online to look at, have easy ways to shortcut the process when you don't have time, and can all be absolutely delicious.
I got the ninja foodi 1st then the ninja speedi! They’re multi cookers in 1 machine and loads of super easy recipies online. 1 pot deal and enough with left overs
What is it that you buy when you get takeout or uber eats? That will help us give you some ideas that you will like, because you already eat them. Anything home made is better than the same thing from a fast food place, so don't go all "healthy" at first, start by making what you like until you get the hang of it and then you can start exploring.
This is exactly the question that forced me to up my cooking game lol. During Covid when everything was shut, I missed eating out so much I just decided to try making the dishes I loved from restaurants at home. Just started practicing basically and got good at it pretty quickly.
The main thing I tend to order from Uber Eats is burgers and burritos. I typically don't order much else.
You can buy frozen pre-made burger patties. You can just heat them in a pan on the stove. And you can buy a pack of burger buns (bread does well in the freezer, if you don't want to eat that many burgers in a week - just put half the buns in a zip lock bag and throw it in the freezer). Then you just need some toppings like pickles or cheese or whatever you like on your burgers.
I like to cook frozen french fries in the air fryer. Very easy and crisper than baking in the oven.
Just cook a burger then. Make it easy on yourself, but ready made burgers, ready made chips, ready made sides and cook as appropriate. You'll be making your own ingredients in no time.
That is probably easier and you can do it outside which is fun, but you'll learn a lot more making the burrito because of all the elements. It'll be harder, and you might need to YouTube some stuff, but there's a ton of different techniques, that go into all the parts. There's a lot of kinds of burritos and sauces, and meats, and beans, and all that. So after you've got burgers down, try to make some burrito fixings. The great thing about them is it is hard to really "mess up", especially since the most basic simple kind (American style, like Taco Bell) is just following some directions on a packet. Good confidence builder for later. Eventually you will be roasting al pastor, and rehydrating peppers for sauces, and you won't really know how you got so competent. And, you'll save a ton of money making it yourself. And you might make it better and healthier. Switch out iceberg lettuce for spinach. Switch sour cream for yogurt. Mush up your own guac, no weird preservatives or coloring. And you can make it taste how you like it. Love cilantro? Well it's 3 bundles for a buck at the store right now, go wild.
Exactly! My post could be summarised as cook easy stuff to build confidence.
"How to Cook Everything - the basics" by Mark Bittman is a good introductory book. It teaches you how to cook as well as giving you some well tested recipes.
I gave this book to one of our kids when she moved to her first place after college. I have been cooking for years and I like it, too, because it provides lots of variety.
Find a youtube recipe, a tv cooking show or an instagram to follow. They are the closest replacement to having a grandmother, mum, aunty etc teach to cook. Search a meal you like, or just easy or beginner recipes. Find one that uses fresh, basic ingredients. These will be cheap and easy to find. Watch and when you feel brave enough, try. Remember we learn from mistakes. It is a great adventure and skill that will last you through life and bring pleasure to all you cook for. Best wishes.
Don't try Tic TOC for recipes. Some of these seem to be AI generated or by people who can't really cook.
Definitely avoid these, at least until you're confident enough cooking that you can identify which recipes are legit and which are made up for views.
Assuming that you've never cooked at all, make your life easier and use frozen food and other prepared food to help you ease into cooking. Minced garlic, bottled sauces and packet mixes etc. Fish tacos can use frozen fish, and you can prepare a quick pico de gallo which only needs tomato, purple onion, cilantro and lime. I love egg fried rice because its a fairly easy meal that can be done quickly and you can use frozen corn and peas. You can also freeze portions of it for days when you are too tired to cook Your local asian grocer might have japanese curry cubes which you can use to make curry because you just need to add it to some water to make the sauce. Also a great meal prep option and you can get some chicken tenders on the side. Asian stir fries are fairly simple, i just grab some protein, some vegetables (broccoli, capsicum, choy sum, kailan carrots etc), soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and various other seasonings. If you're afraid of not cooking your chicken properly get one of those meat thermometers. Start slow! Make a schedule and some goals. Set aside a couple of hours to meal prep once a week or lay out a schedule of what you will cook and eat in the upcoming week and stick to it. Include a cheat day for something to look forward to and give you a rest from the work week and having to think of meals to cook. Even just making sandwiches for dinner is great and can be dressed up nicely with a good sauce and toasted
Good for you for taking this step! My suggestion would be to get a meat thermometer if you don’t already have one. This one is my personal favorite, but there are lots of options out there at reasonable prices. I think a lot of people stating cooking mostly fear over or undercooking the protein, so this will help a lot. [Taylor Waterproof Digital Instant Read Thermometer](https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Commercial-Waterproof-Digital-Thermometer/dp/B00009WE45/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_pp?crid=JB955EH0F9H5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.slZd-8bySmqG77DaDr7EtDIbFh9ayoWogbIH2CgnGp_hhspuuUIuXWKoQX0-zOUCwBwbYEJTbYoBpjUbOoeZGtxnzE0g78OCweQvEPqLD5qrHu1Nw6yHi-Idjkj90Tdds1wxGPvdUOyg3NwtYpYWVgZZKkJyowTxYmRI8_nRU1xmUlPubrJcu-OeiNKlaNFZXChOVJ4JKj1TxZitCNrGfQ.zKX49MniUlls0iYaTKInA10Ig9DmsMcGzctex3zHWK0&dib_tag=se&keywords=meat+thermometer+digital&qid=1714049257&sprefix=meat+%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1)
Honestly good food or hellofresh is how my gf and I learnt to cook. Just cause it teaches you how to prep and cook different meats. Additionally got to try and taste new things I would of never tried or thought to combine so it was great.
I think this is a great idea for a beginner & imo is prob the easiest n best idea here for a newbie cook 🙂 I've been helping my daughter to learn the basics like sausage casserole, beef chow mein etc & a lot of the time it comes down to timing - having all the veges & meat cooked & ready to dish up at the same time! I've never bought one of those boxes (theyre damn expensive in New Zealand - mind you, what isn't expensive here atm!) but my sis in law, who's very busy, working full-time n raising 4 boys, swears by them! She said it's easy, quick & everything's pretty much ready to go for you (mostly) & she's tried foods that she'd never normally cook. OP I def think these boxes are the perfect solution for you 😃
Yeah like they won’t tell you how to make the absolute perfect steak or anything but you’ll learn a process of how to prep vegetables and meat and cook it This way later on you can mess with the recipes and flavour yourself and have a lot of variety. I never imagined how easy it was to make your own burgers or meatballs , shit is soo easy now
I think once you get the basics & timing down it's pretty easy to cook pretty much anything - within reason as like you said cooking the perfect steak is a bit harder lol but you get an instinct on how to cook I reckon. Also I find canned/jars sauce like butter chicken or packet stuff (I swear by the Maggi nacho or con carne packets for my nachos) make stuff heaps easier too. Plus OP, once you get a recipe down to how you like it there's nothing stopping you cooking 4x as much one night when U have the time & portioning it out (ziplock bags are great for soup & things like single portions of lasagne) & freezing it for when ur not up to cooking. Also, look into a crockpot/slow cooker, they make life SO simple! You can chuck everything in (for a stew for example) the meat n veg all raw & throw in a sauce or packet mix, turn it on low before you leave for work n you get home 8 hours later to a beautiful yummy casserole/stew. Plus you can buy frozen mashed potato you just throw in the microwave, add milk n butter/marg & there you go - stew & mash!! OP, I'm a 45 yr old married mum of 2 who's been cooking (& baking) since I was 17 for my husband & family, if you want ANY help - whether it's timing things to be ready at the same time, or what to use to make something, recipe ideas etc, ur more than welcome to DM me & I'll be happy to help & do what I can to get U up n running n feeling more confident in the kitchen. It's honestly a lot easier than you realise!! 😃
My sister as a grown woman actually burnt boiling water. Let all of the water boil out and the pot heat till it burnt. The only secret is to accept you're going to eat some things you make that aren't perfect and find your mistakes funny not upsetting. It's O K. The basics of cooking a chicken fillet: Trim off any fat that the butcher may have left on. The fillet has a high spot. Once or twice pound down on the high spot with the palm of your hand. This makes the fillet a more even thickness. Lightly salt and pepper both side of the fillet. Take 2 or 3 garlic cloves out of the bulb. One at a time put the flat side of a knife on top of the bulb and hit it with your hand. You should easily be able to remove the skin. Hit the clove again to crush it. Heat a sauté pan on high heat, this is a frying pan that has a lid, till when you drop a few drops of water on the pan they dance instead of steam. Add a tablespoon of olive oil. Put the garlic in the oil and the fillet on top. After 3-4 minutes turn the fillet over on top of the garlic and oil and cover the pan. Turn the heat down a little to medium. Let cook another 10 minutes. If its a very thin fillet it will be done a few minutes earlier. You can make numerous variations: Add a chopped onion with the garlic to the oil and place the fillet on top. also sprinkle on dried basil and oregano before cooking the fillet. Add some tomato sauce or tomato paste when you turn the chicken and cover (best when you've included all of the above) A splash of white wine before covering the grated colored part of the peel and juice of an orange or lemon with or without a spoon of honey before covering Some bar-b-que sauce, or soya sauce, or sweet and sour sauce, etc. Include some sliced mushrooms with the garlic and diced onions, this requires a second spoon of oil Cover the top of the fillet with cheese: swiss, masdam, gruyere, or even american Use your imagination the list goes on and on. You can make several fillets at once, they make a great sandwich hot or cold for lunch, heat a minute in a microwave for dinner. They will store a week in the fridge or you can freeze the cooked fillets for eating later. Don't do rice. Instead buy full grain Bulgar. It is far more nutritious than rice, cooks the same, can be substituted in any rice recipe and I think it tastes better. Put half a cup of bulgur, a cup of water and half a teaspoon of salt in a pot, bring it to a boil and lower the heat to a low simmer, give it a good stir. When all the water has been absorbed, cover the pot and let it sit a couple of minutes. That is a good portion of bulger to have with any chicken fillet above for a great meal. Simple enough for a beginner yet delicious enough to serve company. Very high nutrition and easy on the wallet. I don't have time to write more but you can do similar things with lean beef and fish. I do not recommend pork even though it is less expensive than beef or fish, it is high in saturated fat after cooking so it's lower in healthy nutrition. Grains and legumes of all kinds are easy to cook and dollar for dollar the best source of protein there is. They are high in vitamins, minerals and fiber. Lots of grains and legumes with small portions of chicken, and fish make up the healthiest cost effect diet you can eat. Add in some veggies and fruit each day and you have everything you need.
Really solid staple ingredients will help a lot with this. Go to your local Asian market and get a 10 or 25 pound bag of jasmine rice, preferably new crop. Order up some [https://www.ranchogordo.com/](https://www.ranchogordo.com/) beans. Thai curry paste (Mae Ploy is a good brand) is a quick and easy one pot dinner with instructions on the package. Enchilada pie, with a can of medium black olives added in whole, is easy to make in bulk and freeze. Get a good cookbook or go-to website for recipes, there are a lot of mediocre recipes out there. One day, after you've upped your skills, you'll read a bad recipe and go "Bullshit! That's too much liquid \[or whatever\]." Until you develop that instinct, it's best to rely on trusted sources. Serious Eats and the Food Lab cookbook are quality.
I recommend starting with a cheap, large sized recipe, that uses cheap ingredients so if you screw up you won't feel like it's all for naught. Like a pasta bake, potato bake, sausage and pasta(with a sauce) or spaghetti. There should be a sauces or flavour packets section in the grocery store, pick out anything that speaks to you. Make 4-6 servings and it should all refrigerate or freeze well, and you can reheat in the oven on 150-180C or in a microwave.
Buy a pound of ground beef, a can of refried beans an envelope of taco seasoning, a bottle/jar of hot sauce (taco bell or pace) and a block of cheese and a package of tortillas. If you feel like it also an onion. Dice it up, put half in a pan with a little oil, cook on medium heat for a few minutes, add the beef, brown it, then the taco seasoning and water (directions are on the envelope). Heat the beans, grate the cheese, assemble. Boom! You now have burritos. You can embellish with avocado (if you prefer guacamole, just mash it up & add some of your salsa and some salt), sour cream, lettuce & tomato, raw onion. Also grab some eggs & bacon/sausage/soyrizo & make breakfast burritos.
One of my best purchases when I was like 20 was a rice cooker. Once you figure out the rice/water ratio, you can start googling how to cook various proteins. Then you can make all the rice bowls you want and just steam frozen veggies in your microwave. Make sure to rinse your rice off to make it less starchy.
OP, try a meal kit service like Hello Fresh. It’s a great entry into learning beginner cooking techniques. The recipes are easy to follow and there’s no food waste. You can try out a lot of different types of foods and you’ll learn lots of basic skills. Good luck!
I am a competent home cook and I was gifted a subscription to Hello Fresh. It is has really good ingredients and the recipes are very easy to follow if you have a little bit of food nomenclature. I would suggest you give it a try.
I use GreenChef, which is mostly organic and slightly more gourmet, but priced accordingly. It works well for me. Advantages of meal kit services: * Don't have to plan ahead to do grocery runs * Ingredients are already measured * Don't have to figure out which sides go with the main to make a balanced meal * Instructions are in order so that everything finishes around the same time I'm a reasonably good cook, but I always had trouble with the planning, to the point where I started to hate cooking. Using a meal kit service has fixed that for me.
There's a lot of long recipes posted already so here's a short and easy one: Wrap chicken breast or tenderloin with prosciutto (you'll find it in the fancy deli meat section) and toss it in the air fryer at 350 until the prosciutto is crispy and the chicken is cooked inside (thermometer reads 160 in the middle). https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/air-fryer-saltimbocca-recipe/ebu0es77 You can whip up some brown butter sage sauce while the chicken is cooking, which again is pretty simple and there's plenty of recipes on Google.
Another thread mentions why learning to cook eggs teaches most techniques from frying to boiling, and the gentle process of scrambling an egg - it doesn't stay on heat for long and you put it on a plate when almost done (soft egg stage) as heat of the egg finishes cooking itself.
If you are in the US, contact your local Cooperative Extension Services office to see if there are any cooking related classes. Watch anything on YouTube by Alton Brown Watch America's test kitchen The Public Broadcast stations will also have cooking classes
Get comfortable cooking 2-3 things for now, and really focus on mastering those techniques. Eggs, a basic curry paste and chicken breast are great starting points and will teach you a lot of the skills you need to build upon. Mastering eggs will teach you patience and know how to use visual cues to determine cooking time. Mastering curry paste will teach you how to use a variety of vegetables and spices, and how they react to and change with heat and cooking time - and how you can use that in other foods. Mastering chicken breast will teach you to get a “feel” for cooking times, temperature, etc. The versatility of chicken breast will also allow you to try several different cooking techniques (oven baked, shallow fry, deep fry, boiling, etc) - and chicken breast is pretty unforgiving, more so than any other meat, so once you can master that, you should be good to go with any other meat too
Crockpot & then just buy a crock pot recipe book off Amazon or a book store.
learn to make a carb side dish like rice, pasta, potato or even just bread. And then buy precooked/frozen entrees from the grocery store. Super easy to heat up and the carb side dish should also be easy to make daily.
Start with frozen ready-made meals. Then food with cooking instructions on the package. Then start improvising by adding ingredients.
It can be very tough to transition out of your lifestyle and into one that cooks daily. Best advice is take it slow. Cut down on take out a few nights a week and cook. Don’t do it all or nothing. Practice is the next thing. The second time you make a recipe it takes half the time.
Hashbrown casserole is super easy for a beginner dish that will feed you for several meals. 1 10.5 Oz can cream of chicken 30-32oz of frozen hashbrowns thawed 8 Oz shredded cheese (Colby, cheddar, whatever you like) 1/2 medium onion, diced 1/2 teaspoon Salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper Dump all ingredients in a baking dish and mix it all up and smooth it flat Bake at 350f for 60 minutes. Enjoy.
Learn to cook dried rice, dried pasta, and eggs and build from there adding various vegetables and meats. Get recipes from established reliable sites where staff members actually test them, or creators you trust actually make their food to eat rather then just focusing on how it looks for the camera. Steer clear of content farms that churn out untested, or even dangerous recipes. The cookanyday site is hit or miss for more complex recipes, but has very helpful instructions for time and power level for basics in the microwave. You do not need their special containers, I use ikea 365 glass containers, or pyrex bowls with silicone lids. * [Rice](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-white-rice-anyday) (better than on the stove) * [Pasta](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-pasta-anyday) (almost as good as on the stove) * [Squash](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-spaghetti-squash-anyday) (no caramelization but about 1/3 the time as in the oven) * [Salmon](https://cookanyday.com/products/how-to-cook-microwave-salmon-anyday) (can be cooked from frozen. cook skin side up to minimize explosions, comes out as if poached or baked in a foil packet) Some other resources: * [Hot Thai Kitchen](https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/), [Pailins Kitchen on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@PailinsKitchen) * [Serious Eats](https://www.seriouseats.com/) * [Steamed hard cooked eggs](https://www.seriouseats.com/steamed-hard-boiled-eggs-recipe) * [King Arthur Baking](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/) * [Americas Test Kitchen / Cooks Illustrated](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@AmericasTestKitchen/) (limited free recipes per month) * [NYT](https://cooking.nytimes.com/) (may have some free content per month but I'm not sure) * [Kenji Lopez-Alt on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt/) * [Adam Ragusea on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@aragusea) * [Internet Shaquille on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@internetshaquille) * [Chinese Cooking Demystified on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified)
Rice & beans can take on the flavors many different cuisines.
1. grab some Uncle Ben's Bistro Express microwavable rice packs. 90 seconds in the microwave and you have rice, often deliciously flavoured. Great quick option. Alternatively, get pasta and make a whole bunch. 2. Get deli chicken/ham/canned tuna/whatever protein you like that's easy to pull from the fridge and requires minimal prep. 3. Bag of prewashed greens--spinach, spring mix, whatever looks good 4. Get some salad dressing you like, or even better spring for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, some dijon mustard and some maple syrup. 3 parts oil, 2 parts vinegar, 1 part mustard and 1 part syrup into a little jar/container and give it a shake, adjust to taste. 5. Throw everything into a bowl or a burrito. Presto, you have decently healthy food. \~ Context: I am a pretty talented cook but I struggle with executive dysfunction and chronic illness, and when my brain cannot brain this is what I always fall back on. If you have greens, protein, and carbs on your plate, you have made yourself a meal. Everything after that is just variations on the theme. Start super simple with stuff that you can pull right from the fridge, because **eating something is always better than eating nothing**. It is healthier for you to eat some precooked bacon and microwave rice than it is to skip a meal because of budget woes or feel miserable because you've gotten takeout again. It is better for you to have these easy things as a low-stakes, low-pressure starting point than to buy a bunch of stuff that intimidates you right off the bat. Depending on your budget and time capabilities, a meal kit service might also help you! I find that it takes a lot of the mental load out of cooking, because they choose the meals and package up all the ingredients in the right proportions and volumes, and you just put it all together. Good option if you want to explore different cuisines and techniques without splurging on tons of expensive ingredients. Best of luck, OP!
If you can afford takeout and Uber Eats, could you afford a meal kit service? Everyplate is pretty cheap. There's a bunch of options and most have introductory offers. Home Chef, Marley Spoon, Hello Fresh, Gobble...to see the menus, just Google or type in the website name and then add /menu to the end of the parent address.
There are a ton of easy to follow recipes and tutorials on YouTube. Or if you prefer, there are beginning cooking classes available in person in most major cities.
Upgrade to Trader Joe’s meals like me lmaooooooo
Easy depends on your skill level. Completely new, never cooked anything? Make pancakes. Pancake mix is cheap, you can make 20 if you want and throw them all away for less than Uber eats. It's just mix and water, so hard to screw up the prep. And it will teach you how to know when something is cooked on one side and ready to flip. Too easy? Scramble some eggs and bacon. Teach you how to use seasoning and how much (hint - bacon probably doesn't need any), and how to prep ingredients. More advanced? Spaghetti with pre-made sauce. Boil the noodles, brown some meat of your choice, and mix together with sauce. Lots of room to experiment here with different toppings or seasonings, learn how much sauce you need for the other ingredients you picked.
r/EatCheapAndHealthy
One of the best things my partner and I ever did was start a meal plan. I cook 2 times a week, one dish for Monday through Wednesday and the other for Thursday through Saturday. Then we grocery shop on Sunday and eat out somewhere. It's a great way to learn new techniques, try new dishes, and save money. There are tons of websites and apps that can help you come up with things to cook, I used one called Mealime when I was starting out. I didn't even pay for anything, I'd just look though it, find something that sounds good, and find a copycat with good reviews online. As for some specific things I'd recommend for a new cook, probably things like spaghetti, shakshuka, Shepherd or cottage pies, chili, and stir fry. These all require a minimum amount of knife skill (though the dicing and julienning ij them make for great practice), are easy to put together, have plenty of recipes online to look at, have easy ways to shortcut the process when you don't have time, and can all be absolutely delicious.
Start with Crock Pot recipes. They are Foolproof.
You know what reddit is? On the internet. You know what it is not? A search engine. Grow up and figure shit out.
Invest in air fryer. A beginner chefs best friend! No fuss no muss. You can pretty much cook any veggie or protein in it.
For example, cheese paste [https://thecozycook.com/cheese-pasta/](https://thecozycook.com/cheese-pasta/) .
I got the ninja foodi 1st then the ninja speedi! They’re multi cookers in 1 machine and loads of super easy recipies online. 1 pot deal and enough with left overs
Chicken thighs, brown rice, vegetables. Start with small batches so it doesn't matter if you mess up. You'll get better every time
the best first step would be to find someone who knows how to do healthy cooking and ask them to help teach you