The 3 Essentials To Be A Better Home Cook

**Collaborative post**

Most people are decent cooks and are just trying to get through dinner time with food that is at least good enough to eat. What many people don’t realize is that it doesn’t take much extra effort to be a better cook and make mealtime more exciting and rewarding. It just takes having a few specific things and making some changes to your cooking habits. 

You don’t need to be a professional chef to make better food at home. With the right tools and some creativity in the kitchen, you can expand your repertoire and cook food that isn’t dull. In this article, we will go over some of the things you should have to be a better home cook. 

1 – Have a good knife set

A good knife is essential when you plan to cook a lot. This is because a good knife makes the prep work much easier so cooking is less of a chore. A dull knife makes chopping vegetables and cutting meat more difficult than it needs to be. In fact, a dull knife can be very dangerous since you have to use a lot of force to cut and chop which raises the risk of getting cut. 

Get yourself a good knife made out of carbon steel. It will last a long time and stay sharp for longer than a cheap kitchen knife. If you add a knife sharpener then you can make sure that you never use a dull knife again. 

Look for a set that has an all-purpose kitchen knife, plus a paring knife and boning knife and you have everything you need to do your prep. 

2 – Cast iron pots and pans

Not only are cast iron pots and pans long-lasting and can even end up as heirlooms, but you will also cook better food in them. They have a reputation as being hard to maintain but once you have the routine down then they are not difficult to take care of. 

In fact, when you use them regularly, they will develop a patina that makes them easy to clean and even nonstick. When you need to sear some meat or brown some veggies then you can get better results with cast iron than with a regular non-stick pan. 

They work great for frying foods and roasting meats and vegetables in the oven. For long cooking braises and stews, a cast iron Dutch oven has no equal. 

3 – Organise like a restaurant

A restaurant is built for efficiency so if you follow the example of one then you can make mealtime a much easier thing to pull off. Organize your kitchen the way a restaurant would by having everything exposed for easy access. The first step is to use shelves that are open instead of putting things in cabinets. 

Use containers with labels to store your dry goods and it will be much easier to grab what you need, portion it out, and put it back without making a mess. It is also better for you to always know what you have in stock to make shopping easier. 

Speaking of organisation, you want to make sure that you are organising your fridge and your ingredients well also. For example, make sure you’re storing your snow crab properly to avoid it going off, and not placing it with anything that could taint it. The same can be said for all other produce.