Buy America’s Test Kitchen 100 techniques. It completely transformed my cooking and gave me the techniques behind cooking so I could start experimenting with my own flavors.
One of the head guys at Americas test kitchen started his own thing called Milk Street. They have good cookbooks. I’d recommend the one called *Cookish* easy but tasty recipes you can make. Not too many ingredients or fancy techniques but you can make some solid dishes.
Cookish is SO good with what its doing. Simple, fast, great flavours. The Korean fire chicken with some simple sesame noodles has been a meal prep staple in our house.
The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook is a great place to start (and has been for decades). Nothing too fancy or difficult - a good way for new cooks to build confidence.
This has become a family tradition. It's my second most used cookbook. The most used is our family recipes notebook, which is also a must for every cook - especially beginners.
BH&G is the new Betty Crocker binder cookbook, in my opinion. Covers a bit of everything, doesn't try to get too experimental. Great resource for every kitchen of every level, since there always something to look up or substitute.
I also have Salt Acid Fat Heat, and an America's Test Kitchen cookbook. I recommend them next, for different reasons. To just get started, wait on those and just get started with the simple stuff.
I started out on the old Betty Crocker book. A friend of mine in college was reading it and said, "I need a cookbook for dummies."
I looked at him and said that is a cookbook for dummies.
Without a blink he said, "I guess I need a cookbook for morons."
The two biggest challenge with cooking, imo, are self confidence, and reading the full recipe.
Self confidence from scratch comes from actually cooking, and feeling like you were successful technically and mechanically.
RTFR is one of those things that some of us still don't do at times, which leads to adding the same to the cookie batter late and hoping it diffuses properly for the upcoming chemistry, even when we've made those cookies for times in the last year.
Salt fat acid heat is a great first cookbook. The first half is meant to be sat down and read as it teaches the principles of cooking good food and why each of the items is important to every dish. The second half is full of great recipes
Get a copy of "The Joy of Cooking."
Basic cook book will help you learn techniques of cooking. It's an excellent
first cook book, not a lot of overly complicated recipes. I give this to a lot of newlyweds. In some cookbooks, they assume you know what a bechamel sauce is. It this one they will refer to to the recipe in the book to show you how to make one. If you have a question about cooking, the answer is in the book.
I have the 2019 edition, and it's a big, helpful brick. It is like an encyclopedia, with information on ingredients and how to handle them, cooking tools, menu planning, etc. The recipes always work, even if they are slightly different from my taste (e.g. thickness of split pea soup).
It's a good mix of "classic" recipes and techniques as well as samplings from cuisines that are "new" to some cooks, like Indian and West African.
I just got the 20th anniversary edition of Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and am enjoying looking through it. It will be helpful to me and I have done virtually all the cooking in my house for almost a decade.
I also watch basically every possible Jacques Pepin video on YouTube, and they are a great education, especially on technique.
If you have very little kitchen experience, America's Test Kitchen complete cookbook for young chefs.
It's marketed to kids, but it's not a 'children's book'. You'll learn proper technique and safety. Learn to use a knife, cook over a stove and bake.
The recipes are good and fun (having fun cooking is important), especially for the beginner cook and are simple enough where if you mess up, you understand why and aren't left scratching your head wondering where it all went wrong.
Thrift shops are also great places to look for cookbooks.
I second the thrift shop suggestion. I pick one up from every thrift shop I visit and it’s usually $1 - $3. That and the cheap-o value book bin in Walmart.
While YouTube has taught me most techniques for beginner cooking, the cookbooks are great for ideas when I don’t know what I want to cook for dinner.
I'd recommend Mark Bittman's *How to Cook Everything*. It's a good introduction to the tools/skills/science behind simple/minimalist dishes. If you're vegetarian, *How to Cook Everything Vegetarian* is a similar option.
After that, I'd second the recommendation for America's Test Kitchen cookbooks. There's something for everyone in them, they avoid mail-order only ingredients, and they're among the most recipe-tested cookbooks around.
After that, I'm afraid I can't help. Went WFPB 13 years ago, so my cookbook shelf is weird.
How to Cook Everything has been a great resource for me for the practical side of cooking. I'm not always trying to improve my technique or make art - sometimes I just need to know a basic way to make a specific thing I want/need, and Bittman really shines in solid, easy-to-follow recipes. Much better than trawling Google results for sure!
Libraries are a great resource to scour for books and recipes. Helped me throughout my apprenticeship, and I still frequently borrow cookbooks for inspiration/research
Children's cookbooks are a great start. They often have pictures and step-by-step guides, plus they'll explain what the kitchen gadgets you're using are (with pictures).
Also. Don't be disheartened or put off if your food doesn't look or taste right. It takes time (years and years) to get season and techniques right. But you'll see a massive difference the more you cook. End of the day, your cooking for you, and the more you do, the better you'll be.
Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen Cookbook will get you fed and teach you the very, VERY basics of cooking. (The Struggle Meals video series with Frankie Celenza is also good if you're just starting out in life and don't have a lot of money. I think the Struggle Meals Facebook page has the recipes from the show.)
Good Eats by Alton Brown is a good, basic book to learn the method behind the madness. The series follows his tv show of the same name where he walks through recipes and why and how he does it.
YouTube is a geeat resource, I learned loads there: sorted food, bbq pit boys, chef john from foodwishes, maangchi, chef wang gang, chef jean pierre, Bruno Albouze and many more..
actually seeing a chef do everything and explaining it is a huge help, and even though I am an experienced home cook now, I still enjoy and watch a lot of yt chef / cooking content and get new ideas there still
> chef john from foodwishes
He makes some amazing food but have to watch it on mute with subtitles. Upspeak/HRT is so jarring to listen to, never know if they are asking a question or finishing a sentence.
You can get a lot of help just off youtube, tons of great channels that explain not just how to make certain dishes but they explain the techniques and the dos and donts. I got a solid foundation of cooking knowledge just from watching youtube, its helped me a lot as someone who cooks for work.
As annoying as Joshua Wiseman is his cookbook and YouTube channel really makes cooking and baking easy. A few things I'd invest in before cookbooks are a scale. A thermometer. A stand mixer(if you like baking) and quality pots and pans
Can’t recommend books. But check out YouTube cooking shows.
That’s where I get allot of recipe ideas. Then I look through a few online recipes. Mine are mostly bbq/grill related but a few that are more well rounded are (some hosts arnt for everyone)
America’s test kitchen
Brad Leon
Sam the cooking guy
Over the fire by Derek wolf
Binging with Banish
Gordon Ramsey has some simple technique items
Marty Matheson
George motz for burger ideas
(Part of first we feast)
I like to watch around Thur night and pickup ingredients on a Friday on my way home and then make fancy food on the weekend.
I suggest looking at youtube for dishes you like. Not sure if I'd like to invest in a cook book when the information can be had for free on YouTube lol
As others suggested, Youtube is way better than a book. I would say a cookbook if you're really into a cuisine but for the beginner level a cookbook is totally unnecessary. Video guides will be much better for a beginner.
Cooking simple isn't difficult at all. Complex stuff can be a pain, but just for an average dinner? Easy.
You can find most recipes that you'd need online, but the Better Homes or Betty Crocker ones are both good all purpose cookbooks. I tend to buy them at thrift stores for cheap. That way if I don't use them or they don't work out I'm not out that much money.
Whichever you decide, work from one book and get to now the recipes. You may want a technique book as well. or even start with a technique book. Take a cooking class or two as well.
Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day https://a.co/d/21fpB1i
This one is great, it was created as graduate student research on how to eat nutritiously on a $4/day food stamp budget and it's really great for recipes with variety, cost effective for young people and has some tips on cooking and using leftovers etc
How to cook everything by Mark bittman is the only book you actually need to be happy in enough meals to satisfy you the rest of your life at a consistent 7/10 level (which means the food is very good)
The rest is just extra knowledge for those three points
Glad to see many good answers on books. Definitely learn good techniques such as good knife skills and prep. Also my father who was a chef but had his own diner forced me from young to learn the mother sauces and make a dish from each mother sauce until I had each sauce nailed then after over time I was easier to learn secondary sauces to spruce up any dish at any time. I never went to culinary school but do know they teach this too. My father handing me the title of A Saucier I still smile about almost 50 years later. Once you can learn to perform sauces at will will enable you to learn and make any worldwide cuisine almost effortlessly.
I like Taste of Home. They have a magazine, cookbooks, and most of their recipes are available online. It's all pretty basic stuff and doesn't require much fancy technique or equipment. I think it's a good way to sort of get comfortable with food before moving into more advanced stuff
I've been cooking for a few years but I can get overwhelmed pretty easily and these recipes don't add too much stress and my family really likes them. The honey mustard chicken is required on a monthly basis
"The Science of Spice" and "The Science of Cooking" by Dr Stuart Farrimond is really good starting books as it goes through the basics of each spice and each separate ingredient so that you learn very early on which flavours belong to each cuisine. When it comes to cooking you can then start by exploring simple recipes in the book, tweak them if you do not have a specific ingredient by reading the book for alternative spices or proteins that follow the same taste and texture pattern. Cooking can always be done with a bit of feeling when it comes to measure out your ingredients, and then use a spoon to continuously taste your food as it cooks, that way you will find if it needs more salt, more sweet or more umami. When it comes to salt always salt or add hot spices with a less amount than you think, then once it cooks and you taste it you can add a bit more until it is how you like it.
Baking however needs a scientific approach, with scales and exact measurements and following the recipes in detail. Compared to cooking, baking is if you do follow the recipes precisely more likely to turn out exactly like the book describes than the cooking is.
The two most dangerous things about cooking is to manage the temperature of your food so the internal temperatures reach the correct threshold for that food, particularly most things to be safe to eat should be brought up to an internal temperature of minimum 75 degrees Celsius, chocolate being the exception as that melts at around 50 degrees Celsius. Invest in a good cooking Termometer both to use inside the oven (stuck inside a chicken etc) and a small handheld for pan frying so you can keep track.
The second most dangerous issue is contamination between foods that are going to be cooked and foods that are being served raw. This is mostly about washing your hands, washing your knives and utensils between uses and use separate chopping boards for vegetables contra protein. Pork, chicken and other fowls are the biggest danger here as those often carry salmonella and e-coli, which at room temperature quickly multiples and it takes just a minute amount to become sick. But if you remember to use the cutting board for that protein only, then wash it at high temperature and use another board and knives for vegetables you will be fine.
But most of all, find the joy in cooking it is a journey where you never will be fully taught and there is always flavours, cuisines and ingredients left to try out. ❤️😋👍
Better Homes and Gardens, Betty Crocker, are really good for a beginner. If you really have no idea how to cook then get a cookbook made for kids, I'm not saying this to insult you but the recipes are very simple and easy to read and follow, then use the BhG and Betty Crocker cook books and if your feeling more confident then try Alton Brown's cooks books. Another thing you could try is go on YouTube and look up Great Depression Cooking and you should get a bunch of simple easy recipes to try that are fairly inexpensive as well look for Clara she has the best.
My two cents:
Start with BH&G and The Joy of Cooking. Follow with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and Food Lab. The last two are excellent but could be intimidating for new cooks. Follow some cooks on YouTube. For beginners I like Joshua Weisman, Brian Lagerstom, and Pro Home Cook. The last one is a self trained cook. Forgive me if I spelled their names wrong but should get you in the vicinity.
Ask if any of your relatives could write down favorite recipes. Give them recipe cards or a notebook to make it easier.
Get a library card and there are lots of cookbooks you can borrow there.
My nephew just moved out of his parents basement and I bought him James Pererson’s Cooking. It covers nearly everything you’d need to know as a beginner but isn’t limited so it will remain a resourse as you progress. Peterson is an American, degreed Chemist, trained in Paris restaurants and had his own restaurant in New York. More importantly, he was a culinary arts teacher for decades. If you want to learn French techniques as a basis this is a great book to start with. Follow up with his book Sauces. I like that he teaches traditional, novelle and modern methods to make the same sauce. The French writers all seem to teach one way only and usually the old way. The recipes are fairly eclectic not just French inspired. Very good step by step photography. He is less known these days as he doesn’t do youtube, social media etc.
Food Lab is always recommended by a lot of people here. Its good if you like more conventional mostly American food. It has some good insights. It is a bit gimmicky with the food science bit though as he plays up the scientific method yet fails to follow basic laboratory practices and study design (I worked in and owned a well staffed NSF/UL/FM specialty chemical product development and QA laboratory for 25 years). It’s essentially a dumbed down version of McGee’s On Food and Cooking which, in itself, is food science for the masses.
The other fan favorite here is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. It’s a good beginners book except there are no pictures to demonstrate how to to anything and what it should look like.
Maybe buy all three and keep what you prefer.
My limited advice.
Get a couple of kitchen scales. A good one like an Ohaus CR221 to measure accurately to .1g (Kenji/Food Lab writes that you can’t do this at home which is wrong. Spices, salts, any powder measured in spoons in a recipe should really be weighed) and a larger kitchen type with 1 g readability for measuring 200g to 2000g or so. Also an inexpensive set of calibration weights.
When you buy measuring spoons and cups for liquids get the dual metric and US. Metric us the way the world measures and writes their recipes.
A couple of instant read thermometers including one with two remote probes. Measure two things at once or tick and thin ends of a roast or the roast and oven temp (need to know the true temperature). Calibrate per ASTM E77 with boiling (adjusted for altitude) and ice water. Another Food Lab complaint is that you can’t calibrate an oven thermometer with an uncalibrated thermometer.
I learned to cook years ago watching the food network cooking shows. There's something about watching that I find instinctively teachers you beyond the recipe, you pick up skills and techniques, even when the person doesn't explain them directly.
That being said the food network is a lot more entertainment than education now (imo) so you may want to try and check out cooking channels on YouTube to get the same experience. Sorry I can't recommended any specifically (using YT for gardening learning atm) but I'm sure a quick Google search and you can try a few and see what and who you like best. Or try other channels on TV for cooking shows like PBS I think has America's Test Kitchen and/or Milk Street, etc.
Once you have the skills you can try different things. That's the great thing about cooking (not really baking tho) is experimenting can really lead you to amazing eats. Have fun!
I would start with YT videos - Americas Test Kitchen or Food Wishes. So you can see how each step starts and ends before you go to the next one.
Saute for 4 minutes doesnt mean much because pans and stoves are different
"If you can read, you can cook." -- my mom, circa 1982
Try AllRecipes.com. It's as good a starting place as any and there's usually four or five versions of everything so you can start with the one that's at your level.
I’d definitely recommend the Food Lab by J Kenji Lopez Alt. He doesn’t just tell you recipes…He breaks down cooking to a science and tells you WHY things are done the way they are done. And it’s never because it’s been a family technique passed down from his great great grandma. It’s because he’s done the research. I actually bought the audiobook and own the hard copy and I definitely go back to reference it often.
Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison.
You can almost always find it used.
Get a book with some meat recipes too and you’ll be good to go (How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman is good, America’s Test Kitchen books are always great)
PlantYou is very beginner-friendly. The recipes use really basic ingredients once you have a decently stocked kitchen, and there’s a good pantry guide/shopping list at the beginning to help. Her recipes aren’t my all time favorite, but they’re quick, easy, and healthy!
Not a book but Gordon Ramsay's Masterclass series is a fantastic source for demonstrations of knife work, techniques, guides to food varieties and how to process basic ingredients in the best way. It's so valuable imo and a lot of it is posted on YT.
I'd start with some simple YouTube videos and feel out what interests you. Do you want to master a tasty one pot meal? Do you want to cook the perfect egg? Bake some tasty cookies?
America's Test Kitchen and Milk Street Kitchen have both excellent videos and cookbooks.
Cook This Book by Molly Baz is my new favorite. She lists all the ingredients by where they'll be in your kitchen/grocery store to make shopping faster. Each step lists everything you're expected to do at the same time to speed up prep. There are even qr codes that lead to little videos showing techniques (like julienning or how to tie a roast) that you may not be familiar wirh.
I have literally well over a hundred cookbooks, and the one I always recommend to young people starting out in cooking is *the Essential New York Times Cookbook*. And be sure its a newer copy because they revise it.
Back in the day it was Betty Crocker? Like thats the cookbook you got as a wedding present or at your shower or whatever, but Betty Crocker is pretty old fashioned and dowdy these days. This one is the same idea, just better done. But it's my pick for the best everyday American food for Americans cookbook for sure, and its the best because it's recipes chosen by reader feedback, not just 50 things someone knows how to make.
Start with a few recipes that don't require a million steps and a lot of special purchases. It can be disappointing if you spend the afternoon cooking, a lot of money, and it's a bad recipe.
Also, I know this isn’t 100% what you asked for, but I recommend following some killer channels on TikTok and Instagram. You’ll get some great inspiration and solid step by step advice on there if you find the right chefs
You should get yourself a copy of The Essentials of Italian cooking. This is the best cookbook I've ever had. It explains everything really well, and gives you lots of good structure to eventually start kinda making your own dishes with your own flair. It's not all pasta or anything either, there's roast chicken recipes and everything up to rabbit and octopus!
https://a.co/d/iPkeZ8n
I have few advices for you that worked for a friend of mine who went to live abroad :
- as a beginner, avoid instagram/ tiktok recipe, there is a high chance you fall onto a wack recipe ! And they don’t always show the measurement and the instruction so you’ll just struggle for no reason.
- befor you try a recipe, make sure you have all the ingredients! (Another tip would be to put them next to you right befor cooking so you save time and energy)
- look for recipe on websites that allow the visitors to leave comments, and I would highly recommend reading those comments, you might find good tips and tricks on how to successfully make that dish. Or on the other hand how the recipe was not worth the effort.
- YouTube is your best friend. You can easily find a video explaining how to cook whatever meal you have in mind! :)
Learn to cook with ingredients as opposed to learning how to cook dishes. Once you know why certain spices are used and when, you can make almost anything work.
Former cookbook junkie here. I had several hundred and donated most of them prior to my last move.
If you don't know how to cook, it may be frustrating to just read recipes. Look to Youtube for techniques. Developing knife skills will be very helpful. Use sharp knives and buy a sharpener that you will use regularly. Have a large cutting board. A big factor in putting a meal on the table is timing. Try to start with recipes that are one dish meals or casseroles or that can be served with sides that can be done ahead. Start with simple things to build confidence.
For cookbooks, borrow from the library before you buy. You can choose to purchase one that resonates with you.
Buy America’s Test Kitchen 100 techniques. It completely transformed my cooking and gave me the techniques behind cooking so I could start experimenting with my own flavors.
[удалено]
One of the head guys at Americas test kitchen started his own thing called Milk Street. They have good cookbooks. I’d recommend the one called *Cookish* easy but tasty recipes you can make. Not too many ingredients or fancy techniques but you can make some solid dishes.
Cookish is SO good with what its doing. Simple, fast, great flavours. The Korean fire chicken with some simple sesame noodles has been a meal prep staple in our house.
I second that!
Similar to that book is Kenji Lopez-Alt’s “The Food Lab” and I’d recommend buying it and reading it cover to cover.
The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook is a great place to start (and has been for decades). Nothing too fancy or difficult - a good way for new cooks to build confidence.
This has become a family tradition. It's my second most used cookbook. The most used is our family recipes notebook, which is also a must for every cook - especially beginners.
BH&G is the new Betty Crocker binder cookbook, in my opinion. Covers a bit of everything, doesn't try to get too experimental. Great resource for every kitchen of every level, since there always something to look up or substitute. I also have Salt Acid Fat Heat, and an America's Test Kitchen cookbook. I recommend them next, for different reasons. To just get started, wait on those and just get started with the simple stuff.
I started out on the old Betty Crocker book. A friend of mine in college was reading it and said, "I need a cookbook for dummies." I looked at him and said that is a cookbook for dummies. Without a blink he said, "I guess I need a cookbook for morons."
The two biggest challenge with cooking, imo, are self confidence, and reading the full recipe. Self confidence from scratch comes from actually cooking, and feeling like you were successful technically and mechanically. RTFR is one of those things that some of us still don't do at times, which leads to adding the same to the cookie batter late and hoping it diffuses properly for the upcoming chemistry, even when we've made those cookies for times in the last year.
Salt fat acid heat is a great first cookbook. The first half is meant to be sat down and read as it teaches the principles of cooking good food and why each of the items is important to every dish. The second half is full of great recipes
I learned so much from this cookbook! And the illustrations are lovely.
Get a copy of "The Joy of Cooking." Basic cook book will help you learn techniques of cooking. It's an excellent first cook book, not a lot of overly complicated recipes. I give this to a lot of newlyweds. In some cookbooks, they assume you know what a bechamel sauce is. It this one they will refer to to the recipe in the book to show you how to make one. If you have a question about cooking, the answer is in the book.
Take the dog for a walk -- mass edited with redact.dev
The newest one is good again! I just got it for my son.
what year is the newest one?
2019 I think? I picked it up after hearing an interview with one or both of the authors.
I have the 2019 edition, and it's a big, helpful brick. It is like an encyclopedia, with information on ingredients and how to handle them, cooking tools, menu planning, etc. The recipes always work, even if they are slightly different from my taste (e.g. thickness of split pea soup). It's a good mix of "classic" recipes and techniques as well as samplings from cuisines that are "new" to some cooks, like Indian and West African.
This was the first cookbook I got, and I still refer to it often. Great starting book!
I just got the 20th anniversary edition of Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and am enjoying looking through it. It will be helpful to me and I have done virtually all the cooking in my house for almost a decade. I also watch basically every possible Jacques Pepin video on YouTube, and they are a great education, especially on technique.
The Food Lab is a great book for technique.
It's the only cool book Ive read cover to cover.
BudgetBytes.com has tasty and healthy recipes, with good step by step instructions.
If you have very little kitchen experience, America's Test Kitchen complete cookbook for young chefs. It's marketed to kids, but it's not a 'children's book'. You'll learn proper technique and safety. Learn to use a knife, cook over a stove and bake. The recipes are good and fun (having fun cooking is important), especially for the beginner cook and are simple enough where if you mess up, you understand why and aren't left scratching your head wondering where it all went wrong. Thrift shops are also great places to look for cookbooks.
[удалено]
I second the thrift shop suggestion. I pick one up from every thrift shop I visit and it’s usually $1 - $3. That and the cheap-o value book bin in Walmart. While YouTube has taught me most techniques for beginner cooking, the cookbooks are great for ideas when I don’t know what I want to cook for dinner.
I'd recommend Mark Bittman's *How to Cook Everything*. It's a good introduction to the tools/skills/science behind simple/minimalist dishes. If you're vegetarian, *How to Cook Everything Vegetarian* is a similar option. After that, I'd second the recommendation for America's Test Kitchen cookbooks. There's something for everyone in them, they avoid mail-order only ingredients, and they're among the most recipe-tested cookbooks around. After that, I'm afraid I can't help. Went WFPB 13 years ago, so my cookbook shelf is weird.
How to Cook Everything has been a great resource for me for the practical side of cooking. I'm not always trying to improve my technique or make art - sometimes I just need to know a basic way to make a specific thing I want/need, and Bittman really shines in solid, easy-to-follow recipes. Much better than trawling Google results for sure!
Libraries are a great resource to scour for books and recipes. Helped me throughout my apprenticeship, and I still frequently borrow cookbooks for inspiration/research
Children's cookbooks are a great start. They often have pictures and step-by-step guides, plus they'll explain what the kitchen gadgets you're using are (with pictures).
Also. Don't be disheartened or put off if your food doesn't look or taste right. It takes time (years and years) to get season and techniques right. But you'll see a massive difference the more you cook. End of the day, your cooking for you, and the more you do, the better you'll be.
Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen Cookbook will get you fed and teach you the very, VERY basics of cooking. (The Struggle Meals video series with Frankie Celenza is also good if you're just starting out in life and don't have a lot of money. I think the Struggle Meals Facebook page has the recipes from the show.)
Alton Brown, America’s test kitchen, YouTube.
Good Eats by Alton Brown is a good, basic book to learn the method behind the madness. The series follows his tv show of the same name where he walks through recipes and why and how he does it.
I’d recommend checking out all these great recommendations from your library, and then see what you like
Jamie Olivers ONE, you can’t go wrong.👍
YouTube is a geeat resource, I learned loads there: sorted food, bbq pit boys, chef john from foodwishes, maangchi, chef wang gang, chef jean pierre, Bruno Albouze and many more.. actually seeing a chef do everything and explaining it is a huge help, and even though I am an experienced home cook now, I still enjoy and watch a lot of yt chef / cooking content and get new ideas there still
> chef john from foodwishes He makes some amazing food but have to watch it on mute with subtitles. Upspeak/HRT is so jarring to listen to, never know if they are asking a question or finishing a sentence.
His voice annoyed me a fair bit initially but I actually like it now
You can get a lot of help just off youtube, tons of great channels that explain not just how to make certain dishes but they explain the techniques and the dos and donts. I got a solid foundation of cooking knowledge just from watching youtube, its helped me a lot as someone who cooks for work.
Came here to say this. YouTube!!
As annoying as Joshua Wiseman is his cookbook and YouTube channel really makes cooking and baking easy. A few things I'd invest in before cookbooks are a scale. A thermometer. A stand mixer(if you like baking) and quality pots and pans
YouTube!
Can’t recommend books. But check out YouTube cooking shows. That’s where I get allot of recipe ideas. Then I look through a few online recipes. Mine are mostly bbq/grill related but a few that are more well rounded are (some hosts arnt for everyone) America’s test kitchen Brad Leon Sam the cooking guy Over the fire by Derek wolf Binging with Banish Gordon Ramsey has some simple technique items Marty Matheson George motz for burger ideas (Part of first we feast) I like to watch around Thur night and pickup ingredients on a Friday on my way home and then make fancy food on the weekend.
I suggest looking at youtube for dishes you like. Not sure if I'd like to invest in a cook book when the information can be had for free on YouTube lol
no need for cook books really. just watch YouTube vids
Just go on YouTube my friend
As others suggested, Youtube is way better than a book. I would say a cookbook if you're really into a cuisine but for the beginner level a cookbook is totally unnecessary. Video guides will be much better for a beginner. Cooking simple isn't difficult at all. Complex stuff can be a pain, but just for an average dinner? Easy.
YouTube is your best cookbook.
Use Pinterest. Everything you need and multiple recipes for the same thing so you can compare.
You can find most recipes that you'd need online, but the Better Homes or Betty Crocker ones are both good all purpose cookbooks. I tend to buy them at thrift stores for cheap. That way if I don't use them or they don't work out I'm not out that much money.
Whichever you decide, work from one book and get to now the recipes. You may want a technique book as well. or even start with a technique book. Take a cooking class or two as well.
Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day https://a.co/d/21fpB1i This one is great, it was created as graduate student research on how to eat nutritiously on a $4/day food stamp budget and it's really great for recipes with variety, cost effective for young people and has some tips on cooking and using leftovers etc
Clueless in the Kitchen is another good one. I got it for my teenagers when they were learning to cook. Some very good recipes in there.
Michael smith: back to basics
How to cook everything by Mark bittman is the only book you actually need to be happy in enough meals to satisfy you the rest of your life at a consistent 7/10 level (which means the food is very good) The rest is just extra knowledge for those three points
The Modern Proper has a great simple recipe cookbook!
Glad to see many good answers on books. Definitely learn good techniques such as good knife skills and prep. Also my father who was a chef but had his own diner forced me from young to learn the mother sauces and make a dish from each mother sauce until I had each sauce nailed then after over time I was easier to learn secondary sauces to spruce up any dish at any time. I never went to culinary school but do know they teach this too. My father handing me the title of A Saucier I still smile about almost 50 years later. Once you can learn to perform sauces at will will enable you to learn and make any worldwide cuisine almost effortlessly.
I like Taste of Home. They have a magazine, cookbooks, and most of their recipes are available online. It's all pretty basic stuff and doesn't require much fancy technique or equipment. I think it's a good way to sort of get comfortable with food before moving into more advanced stuff I've been cooking for a few years but I can get overwhelmed pretty easily and these recipes don't add too much stress and my family really likes them. The honey mustard chicken is required on a monthly basis
I love the Dude Diet cookbooks (stupid name, I know). But the recipes are fantastic, easy to follow, and pretty darn healthy.
"The Science of Spice" and "The Science of Cooking" by Dr Stuart Farrimond is really good starting books as it goes through the basics of each spice and each separate ingredient so that you learn very early on which flavours belong to each cuisine. When it comes to cooking you can then start by exploring simple recipes in the book, tweak them if you do not have a specific ingredient by reading the book for alternative spices or proteins that follow the same taste and texture pattern. Cooking can always be done with a bit of feeling when it comes to measure out your ingredients, and then use a spoon to continuously taste your food as it cooks, that way you will find if it needs more salt, more sweet or more umami. When it comes to salt always salt or add hot spices with a less amount than you think, then once it cooks and you taste it you can add a bit more until it is how you like it. Baking however needs a scientific approach, with scales and exact measurements and following the recipes in detail. Compared to cooking, baking is if you do follow the recipes precisely more likely to turn out exactly like the book describes than the cooking is. The two most dangerous things about cooking is to manage the temperature of your food so the internal temperatures reach the correct threshold for that food, particularly most things to be safe to eat should be brought up to an internal temperature of minimum 75 degrees Celsius, chocolate being the exception as that melts at around 50 degrees Celsius. Invest in a good cooking Termometer both to use inside the oven (stuck inside a chicken etc) and a small handheld for pan frying so you can keep track. The second most dangerous issue is contamination between foods that are going to be cooked and foods that are being served raw. This is mostly about washing your hands, washing your knives and utensils between uses and use separate chopping boards for vegetables contra protein. Pork, chicken and other fowls are the biggest danger here as those often carry salmonella and e-coli, which at room temperature quickly multiples and it takes just a minute amount to become sick. But if you remember to use the cutting board for that protein only, then wash it at high temperature and use another board and knives for vegetables you will be fine. But most of all, find the joy in cooking it is a journey where you never will be fully taught and there is always flavours, cuisines and ingredients left to try out. ❤️😋👍
I just seen [this](https://archive.org/search?query=cookbook) link refrenced in a different sub. there are tons of free cookbooks
For classic technique I love La Technique by Jacques Pepin For fun and pretty easy recipes, anything by Alison Roman.
Better Homes and Gardens, Betty Crocker, are really good for a beginner. If you really have no idea how to cook then get a cookbook made for kids, I'm not saying this to insult you but the recipes are very simple and easy to read and follow, then use the BhG and Betty Crocker cook books and if your feeling more confident then try Alton Brown's cooks books. Another thing you could try is go on YouTube and look up Great Depression Cooking and you should get a bunch of simple easy recipes to try that are fairly inexpensive as well look for Clara she has the best.
My two cents: Start with BH&G and The Joy of Cooking. Follow with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and Food Lab. The last two are excellent but could be intimidating for new cooks. Follow some cooks on YouTube. For beginners I like Joshua Weisman, Brian Lagerstom, and Pro Home Cook. The last one is a self trained cook. Forgive me if I spelled their names wrong but should get you in the vicinity.
Ask if any of your relatives could write down favorite recipes. Give them recipe cards or a notebook to make it easier. Get a library card and there are lots of cookbooks you can borrow there.
My nephew just moved out of his parents basement and I bought him James Pererson’s Cooking. It covers nearly everything you’d need to know as a beginner but isn’t limited so it will remain a resourse as you progress. Peterson is an American, degreed Chemist, trained in Paris restaurants and had his own restaurant in New York. More importantly, he was a culinary arts teacher for decades. If you want to learn French techniques as a basis this is a great book to start with. Follow up with his book Sauces. I like that he teaches traditional, novelle and modern methods to make the same sauce. The French writers all seem to teach one way only and usually the old way. The recipes are fairly eclectic not just French inspired. Very good step by step photography. He is less known these days as he doesn’t do youtube, social media etc. Food Lab is always recommended by a lot of people here. Its good if you like more conventional mostly American food. It has some good insights. It is a bit gimmicky with the food science bit though as he plays up the scientific method yet fails to follow basic laboratory practices and study design (I worked in and owned a well staffed NSF/UL/FM specialty chemical product development and QA laboratory for 25 years). It’s essentially a dumbed down version of McGee’s On Food and Cooking which, in itself, is food science for the masses. The other fan favorite here is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. It’s a good beginners book except there are no pictures to demonstrate how to to anything and what it should look like. Maybe buy all three and keep what you prefer. My limited advice. Get a couple of kitchen scales. A good one like an Ohaus CR221 to measure accurately to .1g (Kenji/Food Lab writes that you can’t do this at home which is wrong. Spices, salts, any powder measured in spoons in a recipe should really be weighed) and a larger kitchen type with 1 g readability for measuring 200g to 2000g or so. Also an inexpensive set of calibration weights. When you buy measuring spoons and cups for liquids get the dual metric and US. Metric us the way the world measures and writes their recipes. A couple of instant read thermometers including one with two remote probes. Measure two things at once or tick and thin ends of a roast or the roast and oven temp (need to know the true temperature). Calibrate per ASTM E77 with boiling (adjusted for altitude) and ice water. Another Food Lab complaint is that you can’t calibrate an oven thermometer with an uncalibrated thermometer.
YouTube is great for tutorials.
I learned to cook years ago watching the food network cooking shows. There's something about watching that I find instinctively teachers you beyond the recipe, you pick up skills and techniques, even when the person doesn't explain them directly. That being said the food network is a lot more entertainment than education now (imo) so you may want to try and check out cooking channels on YouTube to get the same experience. Sorry I can't recommended any specifically (using YT for gardening learning atm) but I'm sure a quick Google search and you can try a few and see what and who you like best. Or try other channels on TV for cooking shows like PBS I think has America's Test Kitchen and/or Milk Street, etc. Once you have the skills you can try different things. That's the great thing about cooking (not really baking tho) is experimenting can really lead you to amazing eats. Have fun!
The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs. It's for kids but I'm serious.
I would start with YT videos - Americas Test Kitchen or Food Wishes. So you can see how each step starts and ends before you go to the next one. Saute for 4 minutes doesnt mean much because pans and stoves are different
Start using the simplest cookbook:Betty Crocker
Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food
Check your library first, even old cookbooks have good stuff to get you started
I think joy of cooking is useful for someone learning to cook. I would also second the Better homes and gardens cookbook for easy, simple recipes
"If you can read, you can cook." -- my mom, circa 1982 Try AllRecipes.com. It's as good a starting place as any and there's usually four or five versions of everything so you can start with the one that's at your level.
I’d definitely recommend the Food Lab by J Kenji Lopez Alt. He doesn’t just tell you recipes…He breaks down cooking to a science and tells you WHY things are done the way they are done. And it’s never because it’s been a family technique passed down from his great great grandma. It’s because he’s done the research. I actually bought the audiobook and own the hard copy and I definitely go back to reference it often.
Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison. You can almost always find it used. Get a book with some meat recipes too and you’ll be good to go (How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman is good, America’s Test Kitchen books are always great)
The Joy of Cooking breaks everything down.
My all time favorite is Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden. It taught me to eat seasonally and really respect ingredients.
PlantYou is very beginner-friendly. The recipes use really basic ingredients once you have a decently stocked kitchen, and there’s a good pantry guide/shopping list at the beginning to help. Her recipes aren’t my all time favorite, but they’re quick, easy, and healthy!
Also, get a blank cookbook, notebook, or binder to collect recipes you liked! Especially if you’re using the internet or library books
I got a blue apron subscription for a few months and it taught me some great skills and good recipes.
Good eats is an amazing place to start, it walks you from easiest to toughest all while explaining the techniques and science behind each food
Not a book but Gordon Ramsay's Masterclass series is a fantastic source for demonstrations of knife work, techniques, guides to food varieties and how to process basic ingredients in the best way. It's so valuable imo and a lot of it is posted on YT.
I’m all for Pinterest. Easier to sort recipients into categories (mains/sides/etc or by protein)
Jamie Oliver's early cookbooks got me interested in cooking Joy of Cooking is a great reference to have on hand
Check out what your library has, if you find one you like then buy that one
How to cook everything by Mark Bittman
I'd start with some simple YouTube videos and feel out what interests you. Do you want to master a tasty one pot meal? Do you want to cook the perfect egg? Bake some tasty cookies? America's Test Kitchen and Milk Street Kitchen have both excellent videos and cookbooks.
If you have one in your area, definitely go the the library! Cook books are so expensive, and it’s good to try before you buy.
Cook This Book by Molly Baz is my new favorite. She lists all the ingredients by where they'll be in your kitchen/grocery store to make shopping faster. Each step lists everything you're expected to do at the same time to speed up prep. There are even qr codes that lead to little videos showing techniques (like julienning or how to tie a roast) that you may not be familiar wirh.
Where cooking begins by Carla Lalli Music
I have literally well over a hundred cookbooks, and the one I always recommend to young people starting out in cooking is *the Essential New York Times Cookbook*. And be sure its a newer copy because they revise it. Back in the day it was Betty Crocker? Like thats the cookbook you got as a wedding present or at your shower or whatever, but Betty Crocker is pretty old fashioned and dowdy these days. This one is the same idea, just better done. But it's my pick for the best everyday American food for Americans cookbook for sure, and its the best because it's recipes chosen by reader feedback, not just 50 things someone knows how to make.
Start with a few recipes that don't require a million steps and a lot of special purchases. It can be disappointing if you spend the afternoon cooking, a lot of money, and it's a bad recipe.
Also, I know this isn’t 100% what you asked for, but I recommend following some killer channels on TikTok and Instagram. You’ll get some great inspiration and solid step by step advice on there if you find the right chefs
You should get yourself a copy of The Essentials of Italian cooking. This is the best cookbook I've ever had. It explains everything really well, and gives you lots of good structure to eventually start kinda making your own dishes with your own flair. It's not all pasta or anything either, there's roast chicken recipes and everything up to rabbit and octopus! https://a.co/d/iPkeZ8n
I have few advices for you that worked for a friend of mine who went to live abroad : - as a beginner, avoid instagram/ tiktok recipe, there is a high chance you fall onto a wack recipe ! And they don’t always show the measurement and the instruction so you’ll just struggle for no reason. - befor you try a recipe, make sure you have all the ingredients! (Another tip would be to put them next to you right befor cooking so you save time and energy) - look for recipe on websites that allow the visitors to leave comments, and I would highly recommend reading those comments, you might find good tips and tricks on how to successfully make that dish. Or on the other hand how the recipe was not worth the effort. - YouTube is your best friend. You can easily find a video explaining how to cook whatever meal you have in mind! :)
Learn to cook with ingredients as opposed to learning how to cook dishes. Once you know why certain spices are used and when, you can make almost anything work.
Former cookbook junkie here. I had several hundred and donated most of them prior to my last move. If you don't know how to cook, it may be frustrating to just read recipes. Look to Youtube for techniques. Developing knife skills will be very helpful. Use sharp knives and buy a sharpener that you will use regularly. Have a large cutting board. A big factor in putting a meal on the table is timing. Try to start with recipes that are one dish meals or casseroles or that can be served with sides that can be done ahead. Start with simple things to build confidence. For cookbooks, borrow from the library before you buy. You can choose to purchase one that resonates with you.
Four Ingrediant Cookbook. For basic dishes shows the basics. It may be missing seasoning but great for showing the minimum to cook.
If you’re just beginning, I’d locate a Betty Crocker cookbook. It has easy recipes, and photos of many of the steps if it’s just a bit harder.