Basic kitchen and cooking skills

Those who have good food preparation skills report consuming more fruits and vegetables, a better quality of diet and better overall health. Unfortunately, many people are not confident in their food preparation skills. To help overcome this barrier to healthy eating, we have assembled a list of short, instructional videos that can help a person feel more competent in the kitchen.

If you come across a term that you are not familiar with in these videos, look it up in the dictionary of cooking terms.

Setting up your kitchen

• Pantry basics: The basic food items to keep in your kitchen
• Kitchen basics: The basic tools that you need to prepare simple, healthy meals at home

Kitchen tools

Knives

• Knife basics reviews the four basic cutting tools every kitchen shoud have (paring knife, chef's knife, bread knife and kitchen shears).
  • How to use a paring knife
  • How to use a chef's knife
  • How to use a bread knife and kitchen shears
• How to sharpen a knife using a sharpening steel
  

Pots

• Gordon Ramsay explains the secrets about cooking pots

Pans

• Which pan is right for you?
  
• How to know when your stainless steel frying pan is hot enough

Slow cooker (crockpot)

• How to use a crockpot

Rice cooker

• Rice cooker buying guide
• How to cook rice in a rice cooker
• Cooking grains (other than rice) in a rice cooker

Food processor

• How to use a food processor

Digital thermometer

• Thermometer basics demonstrates how to use a digital thermometer to measure the internal temperature of various foods, including meat, poultry, eggs and mixed casserole dishes
  

Kitchen skills

• Measuring ingredients: How to measure wet and dry ingredients
• Grating: How to use the four sides of a box grater
• Peeling: How to use a vegetable peeler

Cooking methods

Rice, pasta, noodles and grains

Vegetables

Fruit

• Avocado: How to prepare an avocado
• Mango: How to cut a mango
• Melons: How to select, cut and seed melons
• Pineapple: How to cut a pineapple
• Strawberries: How to hull and cut strawberries

Beans, lentils, legumes and nuts

• Beans: How to cook dried beans
• Lentils: Lentils 101
• Tofu (soybeans): How to cook tofu
• Nuts and seeds: How to toast nuts

Eggs, meat and seafood

Additional resources

Herbs and spices

• Encyclopedia of Spices
• Using fresh herbs
• Jamie Oliver talks you through cooking with herbs
• How to grind spices

Oil

• Selecting the right cooking oil
• Healthy cooking oils 101

Vinegar

• The best vinegars for cooking

Salad dressing

• Basic vinaigrette recipe
• How to make homemade dressings and marinades

Stock

• How to make homemade chicken stock

Cooking instruction websites

• North Carolina State University has a YouTube channel with short and simple cooking instruction videos.
• Rouxbe Online Cooking School has a collection of quick tips and techniques.
• BBC Food describes dozens of cooking techniques, many of which are accompanied by a video. You can narrow down techniques by skill level: easy, intermediate or advanced. The site also has information on dozens of ingredients with photos and information on buying, storing and preparing the ingredient.
• Jamie's Home Cooking Skills is a website from British celebrity chef and restauranteur Jamie Oliver that includes how-to videos.
• All Recipes has short how-to videos.
• America's Test Kitchen has how-to videos.