Once you know what you are doing, healthy cooking is a lot of fun. The following advice is going to improve your healthy cooking skills so you can be a better cook. Once you master those skills, the party can start.

Try to keep your spices and herbs in a dark, cool area of your kitchen. Their flavors suffer when they are exposed to heat, light, and humidity. Ground herbs and spices retain their flavor for 12 months under normal circumstances. Spices that come in the whole form will keep their flavor for around 3-5 years. If they are stored properly, they will stay fresh longer.

If you wish to have crispy French fries, then you should soak the potatoes in cool water for 30 minutes and then fry them. Soaking the sliced potatoes in cold water strengthens the potato fibers so they will not break down so much when you fry them in the hot oil.

Healthy Cooking

Soak wooden skewers before healthy cooking with them. They need to sit in water for about half an hour before they are used. This will help to prevent burning when they are healthy cooking. You can keep your food on the skewers if you use two sticks parallel instead of just one.

This will ensure that the fruit stays fresh for an entire year. This will help you to have fruit whenever you want it, even when it is out of season.

Be certain to use only wines that you enjoy as ingredients in your recipes. If you use a kind of wine you’ve never tasted before, you may mess up the flavor of the dish you’re working on. It is possible to find wines that are meant to be used in healthy cooking.

If you enjoy utilizing herbs and spices, keep them fresh and flavorful by storing them in an area that is dark and cool. You should never store herbs and spices above a stove or in any other warm location because that will cause them to lose their flavor, and of course you will be out the money.

Many of the vegetables and herbs give off a strong odor which tends to leave your cutting board smelly no matter how hard you try to scrub it off. Make a small mark with a marker on one side of your board to remind you which side is for sweet items and which is for sour.

Create your own stock for tastier dishes. Make as much of it as you want and keep the excess in your freezer. Doing so will provide you with an abundance of custom, home-produced stock, readily available for creating soups and other dishes. By making and having your own stock on hand, you will know it doesn’t contain preservatives.

Dry ground meat with a towel before you put it in the pan to remove excess moisture. It is a good idea to always blot away moisture before healthy cooking ground meat. If you skip this step, the moisture will be released during the healthy cooking process. The moisture will cook away. This makes it unlikely that the meat will sear properly.

Don’t eat your meal right away. It is often overlooked, but it makes a difference when you let the food sit and allow the flavors to be absorbed. It’s extremely tempting to eat a meal just as soon as it comes off the grill or stove. If you serve immediately off the grill, you will lose most of the juices in meat when you cut into it. You always want the meal to sit or rest for a short time.

Cutting Board

When cutting fresh herbs, sprinkle salt onto the cutting board. This gives the herbs a little flavor. Mostly, though, a little salt keeps the herbs from flying off the board. If you add the salt to your cutting board, reduce the salt in the recipe by the same amount, so that you don’t add too much salt to your dish. That salt on the board adds some flavor since it sticks to the herbs.

Prepare the perfect sandwich for your guests by spreading the mayo evenly everywhere on the bread. People usually just slap the mayo in the center and are done with it. However, if the mayonnaise is evenly spread across the bread, every bite of the sandwich will be flavorful and delicious.

Try not to under or over cook your cake. While the recommended baking times are good guidelines, they can be affected by factors like elevation. A tried and true method is to insert a toothpick in the center of the cake. The cake is finished if the toothpick comes out completely clean. If it does not, and has some batter on it, it needs to be cooked longer.

Making Mashed

Potatoes come in many different varieties, and you can’t always substitute one for another. Waxy potatoes are best for potato salad and should be avoided when making mashed potatoes or french fries. Russet potatoes are often recommended for making mashed, fried or baked potato recipes because they have high starch content.

Play it safe by setting a watch timer, as well as the over timer. If you engage in another activity away from your oven, you will hear your watch timer beep.

If you have the time, always reheat oily dishes in the oven as opposed to the microwave. This will keep you from having a greasy mess. The intense heat of a microwave tends to cause the oil, which heats fastest, to separate from the other ingredients. When you use the oven to reheat a dish, the heat will come slower and more consistent, which will keep the ingredients cohesive and the dish flavorful.

As you’ve read, becoming a better cook is simple. All that is needed is a little bit of time and desire for learning. Remember to learn how to use all the appliances and utensils at your disposal. When you go into with the right attitude, healthy cooking can be quite fun.