AROMATICS. Food that is added to a recipe to enhance the natural flavor of other ingredients in the recipe. Most often, this is a combination of herbs, spices, and light-flavor vegetables like onions and celery that are sautéed in fat at the beginning of a recipe. Most soups begin by cooking aromatics.
BAKE. Cooking in dry heat (like an oven) without direct exposure to flame. Generally, the oven temperature is between 250° and 400°F. Baking generally involves taking unstructured food (a batter, a casserole, dough) and cooking it until it takes its desired shape and becomes solid.
BASTE. Using liquid (fat, pan juices, stock) to keep an item moist during cooking. This usually involves brushing or pouring liquid over meat, but this is also a great technique for cooking lots of vegetables.
BLANCHE. A process to quickly cook vegetables and then stop the cooking process so they remain crisp and full of color. This involves a couple of minutes in boiling water, then dunking the vegetables in a bowl of ice water. Great for crudités, salads, and prepping vegetables so they’re ready for snacking whenever you want!
BOIL. Bringing liquid to the temperature at which it bubbles and becomes vapor. For water, and most cooking purposes, this temperature is 212°F. If left at a boil, the water will evaporate from the recipe, reducing the liquid content (see Reduce).
BOUQUET GARNI. A bag of herbs that cook with a dish and are removed before serving. It saves your fingers from being scalded while you’re trying to pick herbs like bay leaves and rosemary out of soup!
BROIL. Cooking under direct heat. The broiler in your oven or toaster oven radiates heat from the top of the unit. When broiling meat, vegetables, or any dish, you want to adjust the cooking rack to one of the highest settings so that the top of your food is within a few inches of the broiler. The heat from broiling is too much for some kitchen tools (such as parchment paper and some pans), so be sure to check the temperature restrictions before putting them under the broiler. But if you’re looking for nice crisp and color on your meat, vegetables, or cheese dishes (yum!), the broiler is your best friend.
BROWN. Quickly cooking the outside of a raw piece of meat until it is (duh!) brown in color. This is a great way to maintain delicious flavor and works to “seal” some of the juices inside the meat. If you’re cooking beef in a slow cooker, this is a great first step before the long cooking process.
CARAMELIZE. To cook food with natural sugars or added sugars at a low temperature so that the sugars turn into caramel. Slowing cooking onions until they’re caramelized is a great way to enhance the natural sweetness of onions without adding sugar.
CHOP. Cutting fruits or vegetables into roughly bite-size pieces. When a recipe calls for an ingredient to be “chopped,” it should be big enough that it’s visible in the dish and won’t disappear while cooking. As you develop your prepping skills, focus on trying to make all of your chopped pieces around the same size. This will help ensure that when you cook the pieces, they’ll all be done at the same time. If some of your chopped carrots are ½-inch pieces, and some are 2 inches, you’ll end up with some hard and some soggy pieces (not appetizing!). Consistency is your BFF when it comes to cooking.
DASH. Cooking terms like dash are where home cooks tend to separate into two groups: scientific cooks and artistic cooks. If you worry about leveling off ¼ teaspoon of salt, you’re a scientific cook. If you read a recipe once and then start cooking from memory, you’re more of an artistic cook. For an artistic cook, a dash is a little less than a pinch and a little more than a tad. But this glossary is for our scientific friends, so here are some loose guidelines: If you’re adding a dash of a liquid ingredient, you want about four or five drops. For a dash of dry ingredients, such as herbs, it’s usually in the ⅛ teaspoon to ¼ teaspoon range, depending on your taste.
DEGLAZE. Removing the residue left in a pan from cooking with liquid. It might sound fancy, but this technique is actually really easy, adds lots of flavor to your food, and (shhh!) makes cleanup easier later! After cooking meat and removing it from the pan, just add about ¼ cup of water to the still hot pan; it should bubble and boil when it hits the pan. Quickly stir the water around, pulling up the fond—a word for the residue left over, which is full of great flavor—and creating what will look like a sauce. You can pour this over your meat before serving it for extra juiciness.
DICE. Cutting food into small cubes. Even more than chopping, diced pieces should be very consistent in size, and smaller than a chop. If a recipe calls for diced vegetables, try to make the cubes about ¼ inch to ½ inch in size. The easiest way to dice an ingredient is to cut it into consistently sized strips, then gather a few strips at a time and cut them about as long as the strip is wide, working your way down the piece. If this feels uncomfortable, you can cut them one piece at a time.
FOLD. Gently adding an ingredient into an already mixed or combined bowl of food. This is most commonly done when you add an ingredient to a batter or whipped mixture. To fold an ingredient in, you add it to the top of the mixture and then, using a rubber spatula, cut through the center of the bowl to the bottom. Then guide your spatula up the side of the bowl, flipping it over and back to the center of the mixture. Do this a few times, working your way around the bowl as you gently fold the ingredient in.
GARNISH. A final decoration or edible element that is added as the very last step before eating a dish. Most often, herbs are used to garnish food. The benefit of a garnish is that it is usually uncooked and fresh, adding a bright, crisp touch of flavor to cooked food. Even if a recipe doesn’t call for a garnish, setting aside a little extra of herbs or citrus to top your finished dish right at the end can make even a simple meal feel special—and isn’t that what cooking for yourself is all about?
JULIENNE. Cutting vegetables into short, thin strips of consistent size, about the shape of a matchstick. This is a great way to cut vegetables that take a while to cook, like carrots or potatoes, so that they stay substantial and flavorful, but cook much faster than if they were whole.
KNEAD. Working bread dough by stretching, pressing, and folding to help form the gluten in the dough. Kneading usually requires a little extra flour to keep the dough from sticking to the surface you’re using. If you’re feeling adventurous, making your own bread is a cheap and fun project for a lazy Sunday.
MARINATE. Soaking food in a liquid or marinade—which is usually acidic in order to penetrate the food—in order to add flavor before cooking. Marinating overnight is a great way to prep meat before the next day’s dinner. Just make sure you don’t marinate meat and vegetables in the same liquid, which risks cross-contamination between the raw meat bacteria and the vegetables, and always marinate in the refrigerator and not at room temperature.
MEASUREMENTS. Knowing how measurements relate to each other makes cooking for one (or two!) a lot easier because it allows you to quickly cut down recipes to the portion you want. So here is your ultimate conversion guide!
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
1⁄16 cup = 1 tablespoon
¼ cup = 4 tablespoons = 12 teaspoons
⅓ cup = 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon
8 fluid ounces = 1 cup
1 pint = 2 cups
1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups
16 ounces = 1 pound
MEAT TEMPERATURES. One of the cheapest and best kitchen tools you can buy is a meat thermometer. Cooking meat to the right temperature ensures that it is safe to eat and delicious. When testing for temperature, try to insert the thermometer into the center, meatiest part of the meat (the last place the heat reaches). Here’s a guide to minimum meat temperatures from our friends at the USDA; any temperature below the guide is considered unsafe to eat.
PORK, VEAL, LAMB: 145°F and allow to rest for at least 3 minutes
GROUND MEAT: 160°F
HAM, FRESH OR SMOKED: 145°F
ALL POULTRY (breasts, whole bird, legs, thighs, and wings, ground poultry, and stuffing): 165°F
FISH AND SHELLFISH: 145°F
BEEF:
Medium-rare: 145°F
Medium: 160°F
Medium-well: 165°F
Well: 170°F
MINCE. The smaller cousin to dice. Still consistent in size, mince is the smallest size of cutting. Less than ¼ inch, minced produce will disappear into a recipe almost as soon as it is added. Just watch your fingers while mincing, and be patient—small cuts like this take time to master.
PARE. Trimming the outer edges with a knife—usually a paring knife. This is the more precise version of peeling, but it takes some skill and technique to keep your fingers safe! And check your directions—sometimes paring involves leaving some of the outer skin on.
PEEL. Removing all of the skin from fruit or produce, usually with a vegetable peeler. Always make sure to peel away from your body to avoid nicks and cuts. If you’re shaky, it helps to peel vertically, with the end of the vegetable resting on a cutting board.
PICKLE. A pickle is any vegetable (or fruit!) that is preserved in vinegar, brine, or other solution. Pickled vegetables are crisp, flavorful, and ready to eat whenever you want, which is why they’ve become so popular in farm-to-table restaurants.
PINCH. More than a dash, a pinch is a healthy addition of flavor to a dish. For artistic cooks, a pinch is the amount that you can grasp between your thumb and forefinger (hence the name!). For scientific cooks, you want to add anywhere between ⅛ and ¼ teaspoon. But isn’t pinching salt so much more fun?
PREHEAT. Warming an oven, pan, or cooking surface to the exact temperature you want for cooking before adding food. For baking in the oven, this is very important for making sure your food cooks correctly. For stovetop cooking, most food cooks better and keeps more flavor when added to a hot pan, as opposed to starting in a cold pan and slowly getting warmer.
PUREE. Cooked food that is mashed or blended into a consistent texture, without lumps. A puree can be made from a single ingredient or multiple ingredients.
REDUCE. Cooking liquid, or ingredients in liquid, over high heat in order to let some of the water in the liquid evaporate. This concentrates the flavor of the liquid and thickens the consistency of the sauce. A lot of recipes will call for you to wait until the liquid is reduced by half, but the amount of time this takes varies a lot based on your stove and other factors, so don’t stress if it takes a while!
RESTING. The time between when your meat is taken off its heat source and when it is sliced or served. Resting is really important for meat, as it will actually continue to cook and get warmer as it sits on the plate or cutting board. Most meat needs only a couple of minutes to rest, but steak should sit for 10 to 15 minutes. This lets the juices in the steak reabsorb, rather than running out of the steak when it is cut.
ROAST. Cooking food in dry, consistent heat at a higher temperature than baking, usually more than 400°F. Roasting is usually used to cook whole ingredients, such as meat or vegetables. When food with high amounts of natural sugar is roasted, it can result in caramelization or browning. Roasting is an ideal technique for foods where the desired end result is a crispy or crunchy texture.
ROOM TEMPERATURE. About 70°F, although it can vary based on access to an air conditioner (or spotty radiators!). Some ingredients, such as eggs or butter, might need to be brought to room temperature before being used in a recipe. Our rule of thumb is just to set them out about an hour before.
ROUX. A mixture of fat (such as butter or oil) and flour, which works as a thickener for sauces, soups, and gravy. If you’ve ever made homemade macaroni and cheese, then you’ve made a roux! Melt or heat the fat in a pot, add an equal amount of flour, whisk quickly until smooth, and then continue whisking over heat until it just turns brown. Then you can add broth, milk, or whatever your recipe calls for. So if you see a roux in a recipe, don’t fear—you can make it!
SEAR. The cooking technique of using a very hot pan to brown meat quickly (see Brown).
SEASONALITY. Buying and cooking with produce that is currently being grown in your area of the country. Produce that is in-season is more likely to be local (and therefore hasn’t taken a plane ride or round-the-world trip to get to your plate) and is more nutritious and generally more flavorful. In-season produce is also way cheaper because there is more of it to go around. The perfect example of seasonality is tomatoes. For most of the country, grocery-store tomatoes are mealy, perfectly round, limited in variety, and expensive in the winter because they are out of season. In the summer, when tomatoes are in season, there are more varieties and they are cheaper and more flavorful. When planning your weekly meals, try to keep an eye to seasonality. You can also try one of our in-season meal plans, because while it may vary slightly, most produce has the same seasonality no matter where you live.
SIMMER. Cooking a liquid, or food in a liquid, just below the boiling point (see Boil), usually for an extended period of time. As a rule of thumb, if you’re simmering a recipe, you want to avoid large bubbles—that usually means you’ve reached a boil.
SMOKE POINT. The temperature at which an oil or fat used for cooking starts producing a light smoke, which also means it has started developing carcinogens and a bad, burned taste. But some recipes, like stir-fries, are better when cooked at higher temperatures. So when choosing your cooking fat, follow this temperature guide to pick the right one for your recipe.1
Peanut, safflower, soybean oils: 450°F
Grapeseed oil: 445°F
Canola oil: 435°F
Corn, olive, sesame seed, sunflower oils: 410°F
Extra-virgin olive oil: 375°F
Butter: 350°F
Coconut oil: 350°F
SWEAT. Gently heating vegetables to allow them to release their natural water content. This softens the vegetables and brings out delicious flavor. This is commonly done to aromatics at the beginning of a recipe, especially onions.
ZEST. The outer skin of citrus fruit including oranges, lemons, and limes. Also the resulting finely separated peel from using a rasp or grater on the skin of citrus.