How to learn to cook when you have never enjoyed it.
It is six in the evening, you have no plan and no interest, and takeout wins again. You would like to cook. You have never enjoyed it.
This is learning to cook for beginners who would rather not: start with five foods you already like, learn one dish at a time, find one teacher you like watching, and give cooking one night a week.
I did not enjoy cooking either, but I realized I needed to start getting into it. When I was learning to make deviled eggs, I watched the Divas Can Cook videos on YouTube a million times. Pausing, rewinding, watching her hands. That is allowed. Watching the same video until it makes sense is how most people learn anything.
Start with five things you already like to eat.
Most beginners start with a recipe that looks impressive. Then it takes two hours, the kitchen is wrecked, and the lesson learned is that cooking is miserable. Start with what you actually order, actually reach for, actually miss.
Write down five foods you already love. Not foods you think you should make. Foods you would be happy to eat on an ordinary Tuesday. Scrambled eggs. A grilled cheese with tomato soup. Pasta with a red sauce. Tacos. Roast chicken with potatoes.
Circle the easiest one. That is your first dish. The other four are your next two months.
Learn one dish at a time, and cook it three times.
The fastest way to get better is to repeat one dish until it belongs to you. New recipes every night keep you a beginner forever, because you never get past reading the instructions.
THE THREE TIMES RULE
- First time: follow the recipe exactly. Watch the video before you start, not while the pan is hot. Write one line afterward: what was hard.
- Second time: same recipe, same steps. Notice what you no longer need to look up. Change one thing you did not like.
- Third time: keep the recipe nearby but try not to read it. If you cook most of it from memory, it is yours.
Three times in one month is plenty. After that, the dish moves from something you are trying to something you make. Then you pick the next one from your list.
One dish you can make without thinking is worth more than ten you tried once.
Find a teacher you like watching.
A video teacher is free and endlessly patient. You can watch the same step ten times and nobody sighs. The trick is to pick one or two and stay with them for a month, so you learn one way of doing things instead of seven.
BEGINNER FRIENDLY COOKING CHANNELS
| Channel | What it is good for |
|---|---|
| Divas Can Cook | Southern and soul food classics and comfort dishes, shown step by step in a warm, encouraging way. Good for deviled eggs, cornbread and holiday sides. |
| Natasha's Kitchen | Reliable everyday dinners with clear steps and close shots. Good when you want a weeknight meal that works the first time. |
| Food Wishes | Classic dishes narrated calmly, with the reason behind each step. Good once you want to understand why a recipe works. |
| Basics with Babish | Foundations one at a time: rice, eggs, knife skills, simple sauces. Good for filling the gaps nobody taught you. |
| Preppy Kitchen | Baking above all, plus everyday recipes, explained cheerfully and clearly. Good for your first cake or batch of cookies. |
| Pro Home Cooks | Cooking for a real week: using what you have, cooking without a recipe, planning ahead. Good once you have a few dishes down. |
| Downshiftology | Calm, tidy make ahead cooking and simple prep for the week. Good when you want to cook once and eat twice. |
If you are starting from zero, begin with Divas Can Cook, Natasha's Kitchen or Basics with Babish. Save the others for month two.
Learning to cook for beginners: the few tools you need first.
You do not need a kitchen full of gadgets. You need a handful of things that work, and you can add the rest when a recipe asks for it twice.
- Worth paying a little more for: one sharp chef's knife and a large pan that heats evenly. A dull knife and a thin pan make every dish harder than it is.
- Fine at any price: a cutting board that does not slide, a medium pot with a lid, a sheet pan, measuring cups and spoons, a wooden spoon, a spatula and tongs.
- Wait on: specialty appliances, matching sets and anything sold as the one tool you need. If you are still reaching for it in six months, then buy it.
Before your first cooking night, check what you already own against that list. Most kitchens are missing only the knife.
Give cooking one night a week on Sunday's plan.
Cooking becomes a skill when it has a time. Left to whenever you feel like it, it waits until you never do.
On Sunday, choose one night this week for your dish. Write it down. Make the grocery list from the recipe right then, so the ingredients are in the house when the night arrives. Pick a night that is usually quiet, not the one with the late meeting.
It can be one of your three small promises for the week: "Cook the pasta on Wednesday." If you keep a weekly planner, it belongs under Herself or Her Home. The Year of You, an undated planner that opens each week on Sunday, gives you room to plan it and a place at the end of the week to write how it went, with no grades.
Learning anything as a grown woman feels awkward at first. That is part of it. If you want more on that, read how to get better at something as an adult.
ONE THING FOR THIS WEEK
Write down five foods you already love and circle the easiest. Watch one video of it today, and put the night you will cook it on this week's plan.
One dish. Three times. Then it is yours.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Cari Hawthorne is the founder of Discover HER Collection and the creator of The Year of You, an undated planner for the woman who is ready to come first in her own life.