The Obvious Yet Overlooked Tip To Master A Recipe

There are plenty of people who think cooking isn't for them. They believe it's too hard, they have trouble following a recipe, or perhaps they think they don't have the time to spend learning "how" to cook. But the truth is that cooking isn't such a difficult skill, but rather one that takes a bit of time. The secret to mastering that one recipe you love? Make it. Then make a whole lot more.

The only way to truly develop a skill is to keep honing it. If you absolutely love your grandmother's meatballs or that delicious vodka sauce you saw on a food website, then all you have to do is keep making the recipe until you eventually learn how to tailor it to your own taste buds. It's an often-overlooked solution to learning how to cook. Making something just once and thinking it turned out fine — but not great — doesn't mean you shouldn't make it again; it actually means the opposite. You've laid the groundwork for getting to know the dish, so now, you just have to refine it.

As with anything, learning how to cook a certain recipe takes time — and some recipes are easier than others. If you only want to master one recipe, then just cook that recipe over and over; each time you make it, you'll find something you didn't do previously, which will help you build confidence with that dish. The moment you taste test that first-ever recipe, you might immediately find things you would change. Apply those changes the next time you make the dish, and the second time will already be better than the first. By the third, and so on, the recipe will only continue to get better as you learn what to adjust.

You might need to make a dish up to 10 times to fully understand how the tiniest of changes can impact overall flavor. How long you let something simmer, how much salt you add, and even the quality of your basic ingredients all seem like small details, but they make a big impact.

If you want to develop an overall cooking skill, then learning just one recipe won't give you that — but it's a great start because it will teach you techniques. Another way to build on your cooking skills is to start with an easy recipe, and continue to challenge yourself.

For example, if you like pasta, then homemade Alfredo sauce is a great place to start, as it contains just three main ingredients: butter, cream, and Parmesan. From there, you can learn to cook more complex pasta sauces, such as homemade tomato sauce or fresh pesto, neither of which are much harder than the Alfredo sauce, but do use a little more technique. 

Starting slowly and building into more complicated dishes is another great way to build confidence in your cooking. Pasta is a great place to start because it's a generally easy dish to cook. Eventually, you can move into steak, scallops, and other more temperamental foods — and you'll soon learn to master those cooking techniques, too.