Cooking mistakes that ruin your food

If you don’t read a recipe closely it could ruin your dish. For example, if a recipe says “1 cup walnuts, chopped” this means measuring one cup of whole walnuts and then chopping them. “One cup of chopped walnuts” means that you would chop the walnuts before measuring.

Read how one home-baker mastered baking bread from scratch after years of failure.

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.

It’s very important to use room temperature ingredients when baking (unless the recipe calls for otherwise). Warmer ingredients are not only easier to mix together, but it will also make the end result fluffier.

If your oven temperature is too high, it can cause the outside of your meal to burn and the inside to still be undercooked. It’s important to keep an eye on your food as it cooks because the temperature display on the oven isn’t always accurate, especially on older models.

Darker pans absorb more heat, which could cause your food to burn on the bottom.

Even though you might be in a time crunch to make 80 cookies for your bake sale tomorrow, not waiting for the baking sheets to cool between batches can ruin them. If you put the dough on a warmed cookie sheet it will cause that batch to be browner than the previous one.

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. This is the biggest mistake you can make when cooking pasta.

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 flavour. Use a thermometer instead to make sure your meat is finished and safe to eat.

Even grill masters make these mistakes when cooking a steak.

Cleaning a grill can be tedious, but it can make your meal that much better. If there is built up debris on your grill it can cause the meat to adhere and tear. It’s important to clean the grill after each time you use it while it’s still hot.

Some people like to burn their food for that extra crunch, but it can actually be bad for your health. The blackness on your food is actually carbon, a known carcinogen.