6 of the Biggest Cooking Mistakes You Could be Making in the Kitchen

Restaurant chefs have years and years of training, so they definitely know a thing or two when it comes to navigating a kitchen. A Reddit user recently turned to the social platform to ask "Chefs of Reddit, what mistake are we laypeople all making in the kitchen?" He received over 2,000 comments — here's what we think are the seven best tips for home cooks.​

​1. You're over-seasoning your meals.

It happens — you go overboard on one ingredient, and the resulting recipe suffers. Luckily, there are ways to fix that. If it's too spicy, sugar or butter should help the situation. Too sweet? Add lemon juice. Dish tasting off? Add a touch of salt.

2. You're putting sauce on fully-cooked pasta.

To make your pasta dish extra flavourful, boil pasta until it's about 90 percent cooked and remove it from the pot, reserving a cup of the water it was cooked in. Then add your pasta to a separate pan with your sauce and pour in a little of the reserved water.

Christopher Hope-Fitch

3. You're measuring ingredients during the cooking process.

​This may seem obvious, but chopping ingredients and measuring spices ahead of time will result in less-stressful cooking experience and better overall results.

Inti St. Clair

4. ​You're using water to put out an oil fire.

​It won't work, ever. The key is to smother the fire, which you can do with baking soda or salt. If you don't have either of those items on hand, simply turn off the heat and put the lid back on.

Adam Gault

5. ​You're chopping with a dull knife.

​How often do you sharpen your knives? Probably not very often, right? Reddit user WArslett thinks you should change that. "A honing steel is designed to be used every time you use the knife. Six strokes each side before you use it is sufficient."

Matthew Leete

6. ​You're stirring your meal non-stop.

​Unless you're making a stir fry, there's no need to keep stirring the pot, unless the recipe specifically calls for it.​

Via