Healthy Cooking is a type of skill that you can always improve. There are always new methods, tips, and techniques that can improve a recipe, expand a chef’s repertoire, and increase the pleasure of time spent in the kitchen. Inexperienced cooks need little tips that can facilitate their healthy cooking process. This article is full of tips you will find helpful in getting you started as a cook.
Always have your spices stored in a dark and cool place. If you leave them out somewhere, you will expose them to light, wetness, and heat, and it could ruin them. Keeping your spices in darkened, cool areas will lend extra longevity and flavor. Meals prepared with fresher spices are simply more delicious.
Lengthy healthy cooking processes such as boiling remove many of the important nutrients found in vegetables. To retain these nutrients, rely on healthy cooking methods that don’t take a lot of time, including steaming or sauteing. You can even eat them raw if you have the taste for it.
Fresh Ingredients
It is always better to choose fresh ingredients for your recipes instead of dried or frozen ones. Try to use as many fresh ingredients as you can, because they will bring out a lot more flavor in your dish, and they can be a lot less expensive in the long run as well.
Ice cube trays are fabulous for freezing and storing leftover sauce. Just melt the sauce cubes in a sauce pan when you are ready to prepare dinner. And don’t worry, your sauce will still taste great even after freezing.
If you are trying to lose weight or lower your cholesterol, try to decrease the amount of fat in your diet. Most of the time, the oils you cook with have high amounts of unnecessary and unhealthy fats. This is also true of butter. A nonstick healthy cooking spray will suffice and is not as unhealthy.
Healthy Cooking
When you are using wooden skewers in healthy cooking, soak them for at least half an hour before putting the veggies on them. By soaking, you can prevent the skewers from burning while healthy cooking your food. Keep food from falling off of your skewers by using two parallel skewers instead of a single one.
To cook a pumpkin, you need to slice it properly. Take a large knife and slice it in half. Once the pumpkin is cut, place it on a dampened baking sheet with the skin facing up. Sprinkle some water on both baking sheets, then at 350 degrees bake the pumpkin for about an hour.
Add the seasonings a little at a time throughout the healthy cooking process. This results in a better blending of the flavors of the ingredients.
If you are using garlic in the healthy cooking, ensure it’s the freshest you can buy. Fresh garlic has a sweeter taste than old garlic. You can tell whether garlic is fresh or not by checking for bruising and making sure the skin is still firm and not shriveled.
When preparing a large family dinner, do some prep work the night before to decrease stress and leave time for you to enjoy everyone. Try preparing any required sauces, prepping vegetables, or marinating meats the evening before the meal will be cooked. Doing so will decrease your stress levels and enable you to look forward to the actual healthy cooking.
Everyone who cooks needs to have good kitchen organization. Disorganization will have you rushing around the kitchen in a frenzy looking for your equipment, ingredients and utensils. Store similar items together in the same place. For example, since basil and parsley are both spices, put them in the same cabinet.
It is a good idea to store unripened fruits in perforated plastic bags. When fruits ripen, they produce ethylene gas. With holes fitted in the bag, the gas is allowed to escape. The air will circulate, and the gas will not harm the fruit’s natural taste.
To quickly cut herbs, bind herbs together and snip with scissors. They will be light and fluffy, and won’t have the wetness that chopping would give them.
The smallest touches, such as spreading mayonnaise well from edge to edge of the bread, can mean the difference in making your food “pop” with your guests. Often, condiments are haphazardly squirted onto only the center of the bread. Every bite can be more delicious when it is spread evenly!
Sulfurous Gas
A great tip to use when making any type of salsa is to rinse your raw onions once they’re chopped. Also, make sure that you dry them before adding them to your mix. Onions that are fresh have a great deal of sulfurous gas. Sulfurous gas is not good for salsa. If you rinse off the onion and then dry it, it will get rid of the gas.
Get your grill ready to go before you start to barbecue. The grill should be prepared 30 minutes before it is used for healthy cooking. Your coals should be covered in ash and of a medium temperature. This is the most effective temperature for grilling.
There are some ways to properly take care of a cutting board made of wood. Wooden cutting boards can warp and split if they are exposed to heat and moisture or if they are stored in an excessively dry area. The correct way to clean a wooden cutting board is to use a damp, soapy sponge or cloth to wipe it clean, rinse with boiling water and towel dry. To repair a damaged cutting board, use an oil designed to restore this type of board. Be sure to let your cutting board dry completely before you use it again.
There is no cook that knows everything there is to know about healthy cooking. It is important to always try to learn new things to keep healthy cooking easy and fun. Newer cooks lacking experience should try to learn as much as they possibly can about healthy cooking. The next time you’re in the kitchen, consider trying out one of these tips. You may find that the more you learn, the more fun you will have while healthy cooking.