r/Cooking • u/Antique_Interest_959 • 5h ago
Help with ideas for cooking
Hey there!
I hope this is allowed but I’m basically just hoping and looking for maybe TikTok’s or YouTube pages that upload often enough new recipes
I wish my mum taught me how to cook but every time I tried to be in the kitchen she made it clear gtfo she didn’t like kids in the kitchen
So don’t get me wrong I know a lot of basics and what I do know how to cook I cook well but 10 things on rotation gets really boring and I ant to expand and be able to cook a lot more than I’m currently able to
Please any help tho on where to start I’d appreciate
Thank you 🩷
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u/azninvasion2000 5h ago
What can you cook well, and what type of food are you looking to learn how to cook?
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u/Big-Improvement-6004 5h ago
If you can nail a few basics, then maybe pick a cuisine you already love eating and just start there
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u/Fancy_Math_3399 4h ago
Please dont use tik tok as its mainly for clicks - find yourself a good reputable established site like Recipe Tin Eats Woks of Life Hot Thai Kitchen etc Sally 's Baking Addiction and i second the King Arthur one as well for cakes although i am in the UK . I also use Daring Gourmet for German recipes and most of these sites also have attached videos . U tube can be helpful to watch in the cutting and preparing certain cuts of meat and i like the Ziangs for fun UK Chinese takeaway dishes as such a nice mother and son combo who are entertaining. If you want more complex recipes I recommend The Guardian website. Its a UK paper but also in Aus and they have a very dedicated foodie column and no paywall as far as i am aware. Lots of food writers and well known chefs like Ottolenghi contribute and makes a good read ! Have fun.
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u/talented_fool 4h ago
Good Eats,. Show from late 90's early 00's, explained the techniques and science. Host Alton Brown is still making cooking content on YouTube. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Chef John at Food Wishes are other good options on youtube.
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u/South_Cucumber9532 5h ago
You could try some cookery travel? Pick a country and search for recipes.
If you are not in Australia and would like to cookery travel here, this is a lovely resource: https://www.recipetineats.com/
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u/Starfox5 3h ago
I check Nigella Lawson's site and a few others for the "daily recipes" and pick a new recipe to try every week. Just expand your range slowly.
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u/SmartPolicy6430 4h ago
Buy yourself Delia Smiths Complete Cookery Course. I have the separate books but I believe you can buy them in one book.
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u/OneRandomTeaDrinker 3h ago
Nadiya Hussein’s blog updates quite regularly and her recipes are really good. You could also try some of her TV programmes, they’re probably on catchup or YouTube somewhere. Nigella Lawson and the Hairy Bikers are other good places to look for straightforward recipes that are well tested. Their TV programmes are quite entertaining too.
You can do worse than BBC Good Food website for inspiration. The recipes are usually not the best version of whatever the dish is but always a solid 7/10.
YouTube can be good, TikTok usually isn’t. Avoid shorts and go for full length videos.
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u/Patient-Building-563 3h ago
You should check out Ethan Chlebowski and Sip and Feast on YouTube; they have plenty of recipes that’ll help you branch out without making every meal feel like a huge project. Since you already know the basics, try picking one dish each week that you’ve never made before and have fun figuring out what you like.
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u/Alesya7854 1h ago
YouTube is not s bad way to learn cooking when nobody taught you growing up. I'd start with channels that show the whole process instead of just fast recipe videos. Once you learn a few basic techniques, it's much easier to experiment and stop relying on the same 10 meals
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u/ChefHarrisApp 31m ago
Everyone's given you great channels, so here's a different angle from someone who teaches hobby cooks: don't collect more recipes, collect methods.
Each of your 10 dishes is secretly a template. If you can make one stir-fry, you can make fifty: hot pan, protein first, veg in batches, sauce at the end. Swap chicken for tofu, broccoli for peppers, soy-ginger for peanut-lime, and it's a new dish. Same with a pan sear + pan sauce, a one-pot curry, a tray bake, a risotto.
So pick one dish you already cook well, ask "why does each step work?", then change one ingredient each time you make it. In a month your 10 meals turn into 40, without following a single new recipe.
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u/GirsGirlfriend 21m ago
What social media gets wrong is the little steps becasue they don't have time to show them or are not as experienced so they don't know them. One example is all the "roasted vegetable soup" lots of them involve roasting tomatoes and show them just tossing it in the blender. Then when you do it yourself it has a weird texture (some ppl like it, I don't and the ppl i cook for don't like it). The detail it's missing is to take the skin and seeds off. How do you do that? A whole nother video on methods on how to do that. Or used canned tomatoes. But that's not as aesthetic.
Learn the technical skills of a chef and you'll start to clock the bs social media and learn to spot the actual knowledgeable ppl by seeing their prep techniques and tools.
I owe my personal success as a home chef to Alton Brown simply by watching all of Good Eats! If you're good with visual learning go binge Good Eats!!! I also like Alex French Guy Cooking on you tube. He treats recipes like science experiments and it's awesome! His kitchen is a basically a mad scientist lab!
Things I scroll away once I see them is: Gross Bamboo cutting boards, when they cut stuff and the knife cuts like it's dull, if it looks stupid and unconventional it is straight up fetish content. There are more but they're more like pet peeves that I just avoid, not always a sign of unknowledgeable chefs lol
TLDR: binge watch Good Eats with Alton brown and learn all the technical kitchen skills to clock the BS on social media and be a good home chef
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u/Due_Fan3881 3h ago
Being exiled from the kitchen as a kid by a mother who hated company only to be stuck eating the exact same ten boring meals forever as an adult is the most tragic rite of passage ever.
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u/texnessa 5h ago
Social media is not a good source for well tested, reliable recipes. Too often its just randoms with no experience posting things that will attract clicks, that omit key steps and details that lead to wasting money, ingredients and time. There are plenty of free sources for solid recipes, you just need to be smart about figuring out who is legit. Look for people who have had books actually published based on their home cooking- people like Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen and Lisa Fain from The Homesick Texan. King Arthur Flour's website for all things baking and pastry. Also, check out your local library.