Professional chefs were asked about the biggest mistakes made by home cooks – 20 culinary crimes to avoid

Unless you’re rich enough to have a private chef or lazy enough to live entirely from microwave meals, you’ll have to do at least a minimal amount of cooking at home. But are you making it harder for yourself than it needs to be?

Over on the AskReddit page, user Mrkayne posed this very useful question:

Professional chefs of Reddit, what are the top 3 mistakes you see the average home ‘chef’ commit?

And lots of cookery experts weighed in with some tips that will transform your kitchen experience for the better.

1.

‘Sharpen your fucking knives.’
–Top_Chef

2.

‘Not using a kitchen scale for baking is asking for trouble.’
–baconbitsy

3.

‘Thinking they can caramelize onions in 10 minutes. Thinking they can caramelize onions in 20 minutes. Thinking they can caramelize onions in 45 minutes.

Yo that shit takes forever to do properly and if it doesn’t, you didn’t actually caramelize the onions.’
–kr2c

4.

‘Trying a dish for the first time when entertaining. Practice, practice, practice! Trial it with your family or neighbours before you attempt to make soufflés for the first time for 30 guests.’
–Efficient_Fig9

5.

‘Keep it simple, keep it clean. Don’t muddle every dish with the same sauces and mixed spices. Realise that cooking is subjective and not objective. Doesn’t matter if its the worlds best recipe, sometimes grandma’s meat balls is what hits right.’
–t4ngl3d

6.

‘Don’t crowd the fucking pan you donkey.’
–neodraykl

7.

‘Either not preheating pans or going the other way and getting pans too hot, people seem to be obsessed with cranking the heat up to the max in the belief it will cook faster.’
–broadarrow39

8.

‘Not enough butter. No, more. Still, more. Keep going. Almost there…’
–PurfuitOfHappineff

9.

‘Scraping the chopping board with the sharp side of the knife. It INFURIATES me.’
–qbnaith

10.

‘Learn to season as your cooking and not just at the end. Organise your area before doing anything else, if your area is cluttered your gonna have a hard time. Clean as you go. Most of the time you need a lot more herbs and spices than you think.’
–LordAxalon110