I am not a good cook but I want to be

October 7, 2015 2:14 PM

Most everything I cook has little or no flavor. It never tastes bad; it just doesn't taste. Like there is only texture.

It makes no difference if I use fresh ingredients and follow the recipe exactly. I just don't seem to know how to make things tasty. I'm not new to cooking and other's cooking is often quite good.

I don't really want to take a cooking class. I think there are some basic concepts I don't know about. What are your best tips and tricks to making food yummy?

Oh, and I am a vegetarian.

Thanks!

posted by GernBlandston to Food & Drink (43 answers total)

Can you share a few examples of recipes you've found to be bland when you cook them?
posted by DarlingBri at 2:17 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are you adding salt at all? Salt doesn't just make things salty, it enhances other flavors. I use salt in everything I cook or bake and it makes a huge difference.

Also, do you think about how you cook things to generate flavor? For instance, grilling or sauteeing veggies instead of steaming or boiling them makes a huge difference to how they smell and taste.
posted by yogalemon at 2:18 PM on October 7, 2015 [22 favorites]

More salt. Lots and lots more salt. And butter.

But the fact that you're following recipes exactly and things don't have any flavor? Could it be possible that maybe you're a bad taster or anosmic? What foods DO have flavor to you? Which specifically don't? Can you link to those recipes?

Or it could be technique. I really like spiced baked goods, but for whatever reason, the amount of spice recommended by most recipes is just entirely underwhelming to me. Something about the baking process just saps it completely. I regularly ramp up the spices (I'm talking things like cinnamon and cloves, etc) by a factor of 10 in baked goods to get the spice hit I want. It takes some experimenting.
posted by phunniemee at 2:19 PM on October 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Salt, pepper, butter. And sometimes shallots.
None of these things is thought to be especially bad for you these days (unless taken to excess).
posted by pipeski at 2:20 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

If you want to get the most flavour from (most) vegetables, roast them. Caramelisation does wonders. But you also need to be liberal with the seasoning.
posted by pipeski at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'd also like some examples, but honestly, salt and fat are usually key unless you go through some serious culinary gymnastics. Fat carries flavor in some chemistry way that I don't fully understand, but beyond just "human brains like fat, fat good."
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's possible you're just following poorly-written recipes. Not all recipes are good. Where are you finding them?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:23 PM on October 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

Seconding DarlingBri that it would help greatly to have you post the last three or so recipes you produced and a little more specific description of how they were lacking.

Also, where are you finding these recipes? the internet has vastly increased the number of recipes out there (and made accessing them easy) but its like 99% noise - as in mostly nonsense thats not worth your grocery dollars.

Check out Smitten Kitchen's meatless posts - her recipes tend to work great AND the descriptions include suggestions/tweaks/future considerations based on the outcomes.

I think a reasonable strategy would be to pick a cookbook author or single book that produces recipes you love and work through it all - you should get a sense of freedoms within their structure/flavor profiles and gain some confidence. For a vegetarian i'd highly recommend you look at any of the Ottolenghi cookbooks (i LOVE jerusalem and plenty, and there are several more).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:24 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

nthing salt. Just a pinch of salt can make flavors pop without making food taste salty.

Add herbs near the end of cooking -- adding them early, especially in stews or baked meats, can diminish their flavor.
posted by erst at 2:25 PM on October 7, 2015

garlic (not garlic powder), cooking wine, lemon juice or vinegar, more spices appropriate to whatever you're making
posted by ghostbikes at 2:25 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also, I'd like to recommend the book "The Elements of Taste". It's not just a cookbook, it gives explanations of how different flavor profiles work together. I absolutely loved it, and I've loaned it to several friends who said it changed the way they cooked.
posted by erst at 2:27 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Go watch some Alton Brown episodes of Good Eats, or America's Test Kitchen and follow the instructions to the letter. Don't improvise or substitute. At all. This includes ingredients and tools.

The key here is to do it right once, being super persnickety, so you can learn where you're going wrong, and what improvisations or substitutions you can do. But start with a baseline that's known to work.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:30 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would be really really surprised if the answer to this wasn't salt, plain and simple. Early in my career as a home cook I couldn't figure out why crock pot recipes were so bland and I kept adding all these herbs and spices and stuff but finally I realized I just needed more salt.
posted by something something at 2:38 PM on October 7, 2015 [8 favorites]

I cook a lot of recipes I find on the internet, and I've decided most of them don't call for enough salt, or spices, to suit my taste. For me, a recipe is like a base that I'm probably going to elaborate on in some way.

I have enough experience to know what I like now, and to know I can kick 1/2 teaspoon of cumin up to a near tablespoon, and I also know what "salt and pepper to taste" means for my family. (It means a lot of salt!)

If a recipe only calls for one spice, I'll often toss in some others I feel are in the same group. Recipes that call only for cumin also get some coriander and some chili pepper. Recipes asking for basil might also get some oregano and a little rosemary. I've definitely been through a process of discovery with cooking.

Many recipes will ask for onions to be cooked until soft, or golden, but now don't stop there. I usually cook them for longer on higher heat so they start to caramelize to add more flavor.
posted by Squeak Attack at 2:39 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, and if you're vegetarian try Isa Chandra Moskowitz's book Appetite for Reduction. I generally follow her recipes exactly and they're all good. She is the best type of cookbook author, one who tells you exactly how much salt to put in, rather than "to taste."
posted by something something at 2:40 PM on October 7, 2015

Nthing salt and fat. For veggies especially, an acidic ingredient is also helpful (balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, tomatoes, etc). Generally, a higher temp for longer than you think will yield better results (see, e.g., maillard reaction). For the salt, go for a larger crystal - kosher or sea salt.

For reliable vegetarian recipes, try Plenty.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:41 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

SAAAAAALT. Salt. Everyone's so scared of sodium levels, but salt is what will make your flavors pop. Very few recipes call for enough salt. Personally, I always like to use a bit of MSG or mushroom seasoning -- they don't call it "flavor enhancer" or "umami powder" for nothin'.

Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end. Chop up some fresh parsley and throw it on there, too.

Don't use water, use vegetable broth. Better Than Bouillon is amazing, I put a dollop in most everything I cook.

Toast your spices.

Start every savory dish you cook by frying a bunch of sliced onions and minced garlic in a big glug of olive oil. Alternately, for whatever type of dish you're cooking, start with a mirepoix appropriate for that region's cuisine.
posted by divined by radio at 2:41 PM on October 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

Vegetarian food is tricky. The answers are still: salt; fat; caramelization from roasting. But EVEN MORE SO, like much more so; and most recipes don't deliver on the caramelization at all. Like all the recipes that say to brown the onions for 8-10 minutes... that will never work. Or maybe it works over industrial flame, I don't know; but in my kitchen, it takes a good 50 minutes to brown onions correctly; and the oft-cited shortcuts like using a slow cooker just do not work at all. So look for those elements and amp them all the way up.

Oh, and spices always need to bloom in hot fat to taste right.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:42 PM on October 7, 2015 [9 favorites]

When making new recipes at home from cookbooks, magazines, websites, I regularly add salts (table, kosher, sea salt, smoked salt, etc.), peppers (black, red, white, chipotle, etc.), garlic, onions, citrus, and hot sauce to recipes so things taste the way we like them. Plus it helps reads the comments on a web recipe to see if others who have tried it commented about the need to change or add something.

Start adding small amounts of flavors you know you enjoy. Add them to recipes and see how it tastes. Sample a lot as you are cooking.

Find something you like at a restaurant or party? Ask for the recipe. Many restaurants will give customers recipes. And friends are always happy to share.
posted by narancia at 2:43 PM on October 7, 2015

Also, what are some things that you've had cooked by others or in restaurants that you enjoyed? It might be that they are the type of things which often have a trick to them.

Once I had some yams and they were the best yams. How did you get these yams so good, I asked the person who made them. I used Better than Bouillon vegetable flavoring, she said.

It might be that other people are jazzing their dishes up with sauces that are not obvious. Sometimes just a tablespoon of wine or some black bean paste or a little hot sauce can deepen flavors, but not to the degree that you can necessarily identify the taste.

Some things I keep on hand:
Several types of hot sauce - just a drop or two in eggs or yams or soup or pasta sauce
Garlic black bean sauce, fermented black bean sauce - a spoonful here or there, generally in Chinese-inflected dishes
Sweet and regular soy sauce
Several kinds of vinegar - cider, balsamic, black, various Chinese ones
Better Than Bouillon
Tomato and chili pastes in a tube
Lemons
Sweet paprika
Wine (I buy a cheap bottle of white and freeze it, then scoop out a spoonful or two for soups, stews, gravies, etc)
Chilis in adobo sauce
Jarred mole - just the ordinary kind from the supermarket, several varieties


All these things last a really long time. If I had to pick only a couple, I'd go with red hot sauce, lemons, sweet paprika, frozen wine and green mole.
posted by Frowner at 2:45 PM on October 7, 2015 [9 favorites]

Seconding: Salt and reputable cookbooks/recipes rather than just grabbing stuff from the internet. (I find a lot of vegetarian recipes online to be from the 70s-bland-hippie-commune school of cooking.)
posted by jaguar at 2:52 PM on October 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

If the cooking of friends/relatives tastes good to you, I'd try:
a) asking them for their recipes that you've liked (try this more with younger people - older relatives often don't use recipes or have adapted them a ton but not written it down)
b) if that still doesn't work, ask them to hang out for an afternoon and cook with you, and cook through a couple of recipes with you.
posted by rainbowbrite at 2:58 PM on October 7, 2015

I probably shouldn't answer this since a dog on the street knows more about cooking that I do, but I posted a question long ago about cooking. For that question, one of the people posted an answer about fresh herbs was especially helpful, and although I still really don't cook, the few things I occasionally cook or prepare are a tad more flavorful (here is looking at things like basil and chives). Other answers to the question might help you, too (ie, people talked about grinders for spice, or putting it into oils); if that interests you, poke around the rest of that thread.
posted by Wolfster at 3:03 PM on October 7, 2015

Practice. Yes, also salt and browning and acid and fat and seasonings, but also don't just make a thing once. Make things repeatedly so you can try varying the salt and heat and acid and fat to see how flavor is made.

And do look to the more sciencey cooks - Kenji Lopez-Alt, Alton Brown, America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated. Read/watch and pay attention to what they say when they explain why they do something this way instead of that way, because what they're talking about is building flavor and preserving a palatable texture.

But you can probably make a serious difference straight out of the gate by doing four simple things:
salt and season at multiple stages in the process
include at least one component that is browned
use some good fat with flavor (butter or olive oil to cook, sesame or nut or really good olive oil to finish where appropriate)
always use onion or shallot
posted by Lyn Never at 3:13 PM on October 7, 2015

When I started cooking, I wanted a distinct and "strong" taste - but the things I did to get there were completely wrong, I didn't like the results, and I turned to bland which was boring.
Also, I'm allergic to MSG (which means I'm allergic to sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan cheese, stock-cubes and many other tasty things).
The way I built up my understanding was similar to Cool Papa Bell's suggestion, but since this was before the internet, there was no Alton Brown or America's test kitchen videos, so I used a book with very accurate and detailed recipes, and cooked my way through it systematically.
After that, I knew the principles of taste and could cook whatever.
However, I keep learning new things: right now I am learning a lot about time, as fingersandtoes says, getting onions to the right texture and taste takes a lot more than ten minutes - and I hate browned onions, so this is just getting them to the sweet taste and softness which will make my food rounder and mellower.
I also prefer adding dried herbs with the moisture, or just after if the dish needs to be skimmed of impurities. That means I add a lot more than those who add the herbs later in the process. Fresh herbs are a completely different thing - I like to chop and add those at the last minute.
If you don't have time, a pressure cooker can be a wonderful thing, and chefs claim that some foods are better when made in the pressure cooker. Red sauce is one of them. Lentil dishes another.
For vegetarians, one thing to notice when studying recipes is the prep style. If the recipe says finely chopped, you need to do that, it will be a completely different dish if the elements are chunky. Other recipes - like the sauce for cous-cous - call for chunky.
I learnt about spices from an Indian friend - she cooked the dish (for instance dal) without spices, and then roasted the spice mixture in a small separate pan and poured this into the dal (or whatever), the last 5-10 mins before serving. I don't always do it that way, but it is certainly a very flavorful method.

About the salt thing: most people use too little salt, as almost everyone above says. Many do it because of health recommendations. But there is an element of absurdity here: if you are mainly eating home-cooked food, or restaurant food from local places, you are rarely in danger. The thing is that fast food chains and frozen food industries over-salt their products vastly, because their methods of production kill taste. And because the authorities see a real problem, which exists, their recommendations are very conservative and anti salt. But the result is that home cooks have to compensate for the problems created by food chains - and those who cook at home use industrial food products very rarely.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 PM on October 7, 2015

The answers are still: salt; fat; caramelization from roasting.

Yup. What you're missing, almost certainly, is umami. This can be enhanced through the addition of salt, but is also highly dependent on cooking for a long enough time and to a brown enough colour. More than anything else, most recipes just fucking lie about how long stuff needs to cook to taste good. I am regularly praised as a cook, and I'm pretty sure that it all comes down to being prepared to keep cooking stuff until it actually starts tasting cooked.

Mushrooms at a case in point. Cheap supermarket mushrooms (brown ones have more taste but even white ones) are really good as long as you cook them until they're actually starting to brown and caramelise (technically a maillaird reaction, I think, but it's pretty much just caramelisation of some sort), but that can take up to 30 minutes on a medium to high heat to achieve.

Also add Marmite and soy-sauce to stuff in moderation and early in cooking. Also a tablespoon of tomato paste makes a big difference, but it must cook for at least 40 minutes.

Shallots are the most versatile of the alliums, so if you want a rounder, deeper and sweeter taste, and aren't sure how to get this, chop and sweat (for about 20 minutes, shallots cook faster than onions) a few shallots until they're pretty much a paste. Then add them early on to whatever you're cooking.
posted by howfar at 3:13 PM on October 7, 2015 [8 favorites]

Nthing the suspicion that it's not enough salt. The only thing I can add is If you're making a dish with lentils or beans or what not, it's going to want an amount of salt that might seem like a lot. Keep adding until it stops tasting better :)
posted by ftm at 3:16 PM on October 7, 2015

If it's beans or tomatoes and you're adding salt, only add salt AFTER it's all cooked all the way through. If you add it before, it'll make the skins tough.
posted by blnkfrnk at 3:21 PM on October 7, 2015

Salt, acid (vinegars, citrus), and fat. Those three ingredients make flavors taste more like flavors.
Cook your foods with plenty of tasty fat -- good olive oil, butter, bacon fat...mmmmm.

Play with salt and acids at the end to finish whatever you've made: add little by little to experiment. Your goal is to add just enough salt or acid, stopping before you can taste Salty or Acidic. Obviously you learn through trial and error.
posted by Grandysaur at 3:35 PM on October 7, 2015

Here is a more detailed explanation of how to play with salt and acid that I think is pretty great.
posted by Grandysaur at 3:37 PM on October 7, 2015

Do you have a problem smelling things? A drop in your ability to smell would also affect your ability to taste food. Just sayin'.
posted by summerstorm at 3:39 PM on October 7, 2015

oh yeah, that's another thing I forgot about vegetarian cooking. There are additives that add umami and you pretty much need to have at least one, maybe more, if you don't have meat and you're going for full savory flavors. These include:

- soy sauce
- tomato paste
- miso
- aaaand the secret nobody wants to admit to: MSG, which I think is still sold under the trade name Ac'cent, AND its alter ego, "modified food starch", which is the main ingredient in garlic salt and many vegetable broth/bouillon products. I use garlic salt all the time and it makes a HUGE difference.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:05 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you use black pepper (and you should) get a grinder and grind it fresh. You can get black pepper in a plastic grinder that works just fine.

Black Pepper is a wonderful flavor that works very well with vegetables. Don't skimp on it.

Another secret is green peppercorns. It's the same source but they treat it differently. It has the same flavor as black pepper but less heat, so you can use more of it. (Yum!)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:17 PM on October 7, 2015

Always salt your beans.
posted by Carillon at 4:22 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

You can get bags of MSG at your local pan-Asian food store. There's nothing wrong with MSG, as long as you're not allergic - for the majority, "MSG headaches" are psychosomatic. It's fun to experiment with, although you'll soon learn the taste of an over-MSG'd dish.

But I'd start with the usual lemon/salt/fat...acidic notes like citrus, wine and vinegar can be just as important in finishing a dish as salt or fat.

Oh - "finishing" a dish - that's adding in some strong-tasting ingredients right at the end so that they don't get their flavor cooked into a dish. If you're making soup, try "finishing" it with a dash of lemon or hot sauce, or a spoonful of dairy. You can finish a lot of cooked vegetable dishes with a little freshly minced garlic for a strong garlic flavor, or with a quick grating of cheese.

I like to use lemon, paprika and nutritional yeast to finish pasta or sauteed vegetables.

Do you have a friend you can invite to cook dinner with you? I learned a lot of cooking tricks from my best friend when we first met in college.
posted by Frowner at 4:27 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

In addition to everything everyone else said --- yes salt, yes fat, yes brown --- the other simple principle to keep in mind is contrast and balence. It's a lot like colours; a room painted blue may seem dark, dull; add in a few small yellow details and all of sudden the blue seems brighter. When it comes to flavor, you want to a bit of contrast to heighten. A dash of spice and heat to bland things (cayenne pepper and mustard in a the cheese sauce) something fresh and sharp with heavy things (lemon and chopped parsley on stews or lentils) something pungent or savory with light things (toasted walnuts in a salad). Before you serve something, ask yourself what you could add to it that would be the opposite of the main flavor of the dish.

Also the best veggie cookbooks I know for this are Denis Cotter's -- he has an amazing sense for how to accent flavors. You also might want to try Yottem Ottolenghi --- he's the new hotness for interesting textures and flavours, and is mostly veggie.
posted by Diablevert at 5:02 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

A phenomenon I've noticed is, food that you don't cook tastes better. My inexpert opinion is that when you've smelled it for however long it took to cook, it cuts down on your ability to taste it or enjoy what you're tasting. So while the answer may indeed be "more salt", over-exposure to what you're cooking could also play a role.
posted by cecic at 5:08 PM on October 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Okay, so, yeah, salt, but, the vegetarian angle raises a few of questions.

Are you cooking things for too long in too much liquid? Because that could remove all flavor from your veggies.

How is your tap water? I once dined a lovely woman's home. She had an old well. Her whole house smelled of her well. And so did her food. Every single thing that she cooked tasted like that smell. I could tell that she was an experienced cook. The colors were right, the texture was there but the food was inedible to anyone with a working nose. Try adding a filter to your tap.

Speaking of your nose- do you use those gosh awful glade plug ins in your home or other such chemical stink devices like dryer sheets or fancy diffusers? Because they could also affect how your food tastes.

Start adding wine to your dishes. A good rule of thumb is to drink the first glass out of the bottle as you begin to cook. Keep drinking as you cook. Near then end, when it is time to add the wine, pour whatever is left in the bottle into your dish.
posted by myselfasme at 9:10 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Also, if you're cooking vegetarian, the fault might well be in the recipes. I'm Indian, and I find most Western vegetarian food to be crap. A large part of it is that people tend to overestimate cooking times, based on meat, and wind up with flavourless mush.

I would recommend looking into ethnic cuisine. And not the BS marketed towards white people, either- get thee some Indian/Mexican/Middle Eastern cookbooks written by people from those regions (Manjula's Kitchen on Youtube is good for Indian, off the top of my head) and see if that makes a difference.
posted by Tamanna at 10:55 PM on October 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

It's my turn to be the most stereotypical Mefite ever: is there any chance you could be depressed? I've had more than one episode of losing confidence in my cooking, only to realize that it's just my brain erasing the taste for me.

If not, fresh herbs, pickles, and caramelized/burnt bits are the way to go.
posted by pickingupsticks at 1:39 AM on October 8, 2015

Start working through the Food Lab's vegetarian recipes. Read the articles Kenji writes to accompany his recipes, as he explains what he tried that did and didn't work. I would bet big money that your cooking skills will increase exponentially after a few weeks of doing that.
posted by Silvertree at 11:53 AM on October 8, 2015

I know you said you use fresh ingredients, but I'd make sure your spices are relatively fresh as well. They lose their efficacy over time (1-2 years for ground spices). Also, I've found that some spices work especially well if they are freshly ground (and even better if you toast them first).

The difference between a tablespoon of the ground cumin you've had in your pantry for three years and a tablespoon of toasted, freshly ground cumin can't be understated.
posted by JDHarper at 5:07 PM on October 8, 2015

I learned a lot about cooking from watching Good Eats and America's Test Kitchen because they don't just teach you how, but why.
I notice as I upgrade equipment my cooking improves, too. For example, cooking over a gas stove is faster than an electric stove. Buying new, middle-of-the-road pan cooks more evenly than my old one.
And the hardest lesson I've had to learn is "don't touch it!" Don't stir the rice, it will get gummy. Don't turn that fillet yet, it hasn't browned enough.
Keep at it! No cook has even gotten worse with practice.
posted by smellyhipster at 4:55 PM on October 10, 2015