15 Massive Cooking Mistakes You Probably Make Daily - Part 2

From over seasoning the meal to forgetting to clean the cooker after you've done with the cooking, we're all guilty in making some cooking mistakes. The question is whether or not we'll notice them and try to avoid them in the future. Because, let's face it – you're probably one mistake away from the perfect grilled cheese sandwich or the most delicious crock pot potato stew. Have no worries, because previously we've covered some of the cooking mistakes most of us make on a daily basis and today I've prepared for you another batch of cooking tips.

8. You put oil in a cooked pasta to prevent sticking

It's one of the greatest cooking mistakes if the recipe includes a delicious sauce, because it won't adhere to the noodles and they will remain tasteless.

Solution: you can still use this technique if you add more salt to the water while boiling your pasta. A great cooking tip, if you want to avoid adding too much salt, is to mix the noodles with the sauce when they're ready. And if you want to store them for later just rinse the pasta with cold water.

9. You skip your oven when cleaning the kitchen

True story. Almost all of us avoid the oven when we clean after we've cooked our favourite meals. We do this mainly because cleaning is a slow and daunting task. No one loves to clean the kitchen appliances and the kitchen range and all that stuff. We just leave it be. But this is a severe cooking mistake because it leaves us with a dirty stove for the next cooking experience. And can we take a second and just imagine how unhygienic it is to leave the cooker dirty.

Solution: make the task pleasant for you by playing some of your favourite music in the background. Or just leave it to professional oven cleaning company.

 

10. You use only your non-sticking pan

Here's the deal, the non-sticking pan tends to transfer the heat from the kitchen range slowly and this means that your meat will face less browning. This instinctively makes us want to cook the meat longer in order to get that golden brown and crisp look that we see in a recipe. The thing is that achieving this with a non-sticking pan equals overcooking the meat.

Solution: you can avoid this cooking mistake by using other utensils. You don't need to cook all of your food in a non-sticking skillet. Sure, some sticky things as fish and eggs, for example, will benefit from it, but try to use your regular pans as well.

11. You use cold eggs and dairy products when baking in the oven

I made this cooking mistake often back in the days. But it's not a good thing using them cold, you know? The result will be denser and thicker and that isn't the way we imagine our home-made bread for example. Except that, the colder temperature of dairy ingredients can prevent the even mixture you intend to make and ruin the recipe.

Solution: a great cooking tip is to take your dairy ingredients out of the fridge 30 minutes to an hour before the cooking. For a faster result, you can microwave a piece of butter and you can help the eggs by putting them into a bowl of room temperature water.

12. You don't wait after the meat is cooked

Waiting for the meat to soak again its own juices after being cooked in the oven is not a familiar thing to most people. But the fact is that the meat will turn even more delicious and moist if you let it sit for a bit. And not only because of the anticipation. Cooking isn't only about following the recipe.

Solution: the cooking tip that I received and works perfectly fine is to let the meat sit at least 5 to 15 minutes. So you better distract yourself. Why not set the table or make a freshly squeezed juice for the whole family?

13. You rinse your cooked pasta with water

We talked about pasta in the previous article and yes, whilst it's good to rinse it to prevent sticking it is a cooking mistake when you want to add some sauce. All that rinsing does is to remove the valuable starch that helps the pasta hold the sauce.

Solution: only rinse your pasta if you want to store it for a longer time, don't do it if you're going to serve it.

14. You get distracted when cooking

This is especially true when we're making some slow cooking deliciousness or leave the soup to simmer for a while. These cooking processes need almost no attention and it's likely that we'll forget that we started to cook in the first place. A messed up oven is not an exclusion. You may even need to clean the kitchen range and start the whole thing all over again.

Solution: I'll give you two cooking tips to solve this problem. You can either move your distraction activity in the kitchen or you can set an alarm clock. The first method is preferable because you'll still pay a bit of attention to what's going on in the kitchen.

15. You chop ingredients like a fifth grader

Don't be sloppy at cooking. There isn't a thing that makes a bad impression more than a randomly chopped potato pieces and whatnot. Not to mention that the veggies will have a hard time to cook evenly. Chopping unevenly is a cooking mistake that one makes when in a hurry or just isn't careful enough. A meal looks more appealing and well done when you put some effort in slicing the ingredients.

Solution: practice and patience. Over time, you will learn how to chop faster, but until then start 10 minutes earlier in order to take your time with the knife.