Avoid these cooking blunders to ensure your cuisine is as close to perfect as possible.
Morgan Cutolo
Adding too much salt
Adding too much salt to your dish doesn’t only make you want to chug a glass of water, it’s also really unhealthy. Add a little sprinkle of salt as you cook your food and taste it to know when you’ve added the right amount.
Pasta has been overcooked.
Nothing ruins a meal more than soggy spaghetti. If you overcook your pasta, run it under cold water for a few minutes to stop the cooking process and compact the starch. When you add tomato sauce, the pasta will become heated again. If your mushy spaghetti can’t be fixed, toss it into a pot of minestrone or chicken noodle soup.
Not sifting the flour
If you don’t sift your flour when cooking it can lead to lumps. People often run into this problem when making gravies and sauces. If your sauce has a lot of lumps, throw it in a blender to smooth it out.
Checking on your food while it’s in the oven
It’s very tempting to open the oven to check on your food and get a whiff of what’s to come, but it could cause your food to be undercooked. Every time you open the oven door it releases enough heat to change the temperature. If you want to be able to see your food, turn on the light and look through the oven window.
Using parchment paper instead
It is slightly easier to place your cookies straight on the pan rather than using parchment paper, but if you want complete cookies, use parchment paper. The cookies will stick to the pan and break apart if not lined with parchment paper. If this occurs, consider using them as a cookie crumble on top of a cake or in an ice cream sundae. When cooking, you should also be concerned about safety mistakes.
Adding too much water to rice
Adding too much water to your rice when cooking can make it turn out soggy. But don’t worry; your meal isn’t completely ruined. Add some cooked shrimp or meat to it, for little balls, and fry them or wrap them in wontons and steam them.
Forgetting to stir
If you forget to stir your stew—or whatever dish you’re cooking on the stove—the bottom of the pan can burn and become completely black. You can save your stew by transferring the part that isn’t burnt to a new pan. Make sure to do this as soon as you notice some has burned, though, because it could ruin the taste of the whole dish
Not greasing the cake pan
Forgetting to grease the cake pan before pouring the batter in can lead to a crumbly mess when you take it out of the oven. It won’t be able to easily slide out of the pan and onto the drying rack. If you’re crafty you can try “gluing” the pieces of the cake back together with frosting.
Overcooking veggies
If you accidentally overcook your vegetables it can make them dry and bland. Cool them in ice water and then reheat briefly in hot stock to make them edible again.
Adding too much sugar
If you add too much sugar when cooking it can make your dessert extremely unhealthy. If you have a sweet tooth, try satisfying it with fruit-centric desserts. Sugar addiction is a real thing!
Making use of the “low-fat” option
Cooking with low-fat ingredients is unhealthy; there is such a thing as good fat. In reality, not using enough fat when cooking is a common blunder. Fat is an important source of energy and aids in vitamin absorption in your body.
Using a small pot to cook pasta
If you add a large handful of pasta to a small boiling pot of water it can cause the water’s temperature to drop fast, and it will take longer to start boiling again. As the noodles sit in the lukewarm water they will start to get mushy and clump together.
Skipping the meat thermometer
Even if you’re a grill master, you probably can’t accurately tell when meat is ready just by looking at it. If you poke it with a fork to check the inside, you risk releasing some of the flavors. Use a thermometer instead to make sure your meat is finished and safe to eat.
Prepping ingredients as you cook
To avoid ruining your food you should have all of your ingredients pre-measured and prepped before you start. If the recipe calls for minced garlic and you take the time to mince the garlic mid-step, it could ruin the recipe.
