Want to improve your kitchen game? These three easy recipes will help you level up

There are a lot of things you learn as you train to be a chef. Whether you attended culinary school or trained in restaurants to hone your skills, you pick up a lot of knowledge that the cook at home doesn’t have the opportunity to learn.

To be clear, a lot of professional kitchen skills are acquired through sheer repetition and monotony. You get really good at peeling and dicing potatoes after prepping 50-pound bags day in and day out. Years ago, I had a working interview where I peeled and 1/8th-inch diced (brunoised) an entire case of apples while the chef stood over my shoulder and evaluated my work. It was meticulous. I got the job.

A lot of skills that come with working in a kitchen come with years of repetition. There are no shortcuts. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and this holds true in the kitchen. You may not be able to become a master chef overnight, but there are many ways to improve the quality in taste and ease in which you make food in your home kitchen that don’t rely on years of hunching over a cutting board.

The first thing that will make your at home meals better starts out at the grocery store. Simply put, avoid the middle aisles. There are some exceptions like dried beans, rice and pasta, but the point is you want to avoid premade sauces, salad dressings and any type of meal kit. Think things that come with a flavor packet. Avoid those things.

Doing this will actually save money and give you the opportunity to make your own sauces, salad dressings, stocks and broth. This might seem like a lot of work, but it is well worth the tradeoff for an opportunity to hone your culinary skills and gain control of the quality of the food you eat.

Here are a few quick and simple recipes that are better than the grocery store alternative and super easy to make.

Blue cheese vinaigrette

A little classier than store-bought but still not too fancy for Buffalo wings.

Cook time: 5 minutes

Yield: 1½ cups

Ingredients:

6 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

¾ cup olive oil

¼ cup apple cider vinegar (get real cider vinegar!)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon parsley, fresh, finely chopped

1 teaspoon honey

½ teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground

1 clove garlic, small, microplaned

Kosher salt, to taste

Directions:

▪ In a widemouth pint jar, add half the crumbled blue cheese, vinegar, mustard, honey and black pepper and puree with an immersion blender

▪ While pureeing, slowly stream the olive oil in to emulsify

▪ With a spoon, mix in the rest of the blue cheese and the chopped parsley. (chunks are good)

▪ Adjust salt as needed

Quick pickles

When I open my fridge, the top shelf is full of quart and pint jars full of pickled everything. Onions, chilis, radishes, you name it. I make a lot of pickles because they last a long time and are very versatile. You can add them to almost any dish to make it shine and by making a few varieties in one cooking session, you save time cooking on a daily occurrence without sacrificing flavor. They are also great for adding variety to leftovers. Here’s one of my go-to recipes.

Charred pickled red onion

Cook time: 20 minutes

Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients:

2 red onions, medium/small

1½ cups water

1 cup distilled vinegar

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon crushed red chili

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 bay leaf

5 black peppercorns, toasted

Directions:

▪ Preheat a large cast iron pan or griddle

▪ Peel and slice the red onions into ¼-inch rounds (don’t peel the layers apart)

▪ Add the onions to the cast iron cut-side down and allow one side to char. (Burn it)

▪ While the onions are charring, in a 2-quart sauce pan, bring all the rest of the ingredients to a boil. If you have cheese cloth, you can make a sachet for the garlic and spices

▪ Add the charred onions to a 1 quart jar and pour the boiling liquid over the onions and cover

*These will last in the fridge for a month

Vanilla sugar

Who’s got a sweet tooth? This ones for you. So simple, but so delicious. It can go into your morning coffee or cereal. You can bake with it. You can even eat it by the spoonful, if that’s your thing. It’s just that good. It lasts forever, and you can just continually top of your jar as time goes by. I’ve had the same jar going for five years and I’m still getting plenty of vanilla flavor out of the original beans. The most important part of this recipe is the vanilla beans. Get good ones!

Vanilla Sugar

Cook time: 5 minutes

Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients:

10 vanilla beans, split but not scraped

Sugar

Bourbon, sometimes

Directions:

▪ Split all your vanilla beans and place them in a quart jar

▪ Top the beans with the sugar

▪ Cover and shake

▪ Keep in your pantry forever

▪ Refill with sugar as needed and shake

▪ Add a splash of bourbon if you notice the beans drying out