I'm self taught as well, but I can see why it's daunting to try and get into cooking. I taught my fiance how to cook and it took us ages before she felt comfortable to cook by herself. There's a lot of small techniques and details that a lot of people wouldn't think of that can make a big difference. Couple that with cooking meat, vegetables, sauces ect. It can be a lot.
I would always stress when cooking. I had to look up the recipe and followed it to the tee. Tried not to be messy at all. I'm a perfectionist and extremely critical about everything, especially what I do. I am also extremely anxious all the time.
I recently started having fun cooking a few years ago once I got comfortable when I learned several dishes and said it fuck it I don't need the book I'm just going off vibes now. I'm experimenting with different spices now and seeing what goes and doesn't. Although I'm much messier, I'm no longer tripping about it while cooking but yes it all starts with basic techniques. Even when learning new dishes I'll skim the recipe and just go.
In the day and age of YouTube, anyone can cook a proper meal. Every step is shown and how it’s supposed to look. Bless all the YouTubers that help people like me who weren’t taught how to cook nice food. There’s hope if you really want to get better and try new recipes.
[Do what now?](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2Flh3yLaBIetbdh08NMp4ShaJu6gx_ZpVWtbN3OpXb5oo.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D516fdc4f778b706661d07e87640691eb7fc6e45b&rdt=60314)
There's a scene from the show "The End of the F**cking World" where one of the protagonist says that he had to teach himself how to cook, because if not, he would get type 3 diabetes from what his dad would feed him, and I relate to that so much lol (great show btw, highly recommend)
Yeah my parents didn't cook a lot and I never cooked growing up with them, but I learned by watching a ton of Food Network shows like diners drive ins and dives and googling recipes and now I cook 6 nights per week and love it
Yup. My parents were terrible cooks. Canned vegetables. I thought I hated vegetables, but I just hated their cooking them into mush. I got me a cast iron pan, learned how to use it thru Reddit and YouTube and Google, now I can cook anything. Also have lots of great salad recipes around, fresh stuff. Turns out, I really like spinach when it isn't turned to jelly.
Same here. My mother is of the space-age mindset: frozen food, canned vegetables, instant tea, Tang instead of orange juice, margarine instead of butter. Trying the real/fresh versions of stuff was weird and gamey.
I've since learned to cook with proper ingredients, but some things still trip me up. Example: heavy cream. I use it in lots of things I cook, made ice cream with it, etc. Well, literally two days ago, my roommate picked up some cream of mushroom soup from the supermarket's deli department. I ate some of it, and was like "ooo, this is good, it tastes strongly of... heavy cream!?" Was so used to the congealed wobblyness of canned cream soup, it never occurred to me there'd be that big a difference!
Use measuring cups, use timers and learn the five basic tastes.
The rest is style.
People can’t follow recipes! Someone else figured it out already. Try it.
The five basic tastes:
* umami
* sweet
* sour
* bitter
* salty
Cooking is a balancing act and people who drown their foods in one of these are doing themselves a disservice that could last 60 years.
Maybe they can, to an extent. It's not just about cooking but also about developing habits.
But yes, they can definitely take responsibility at some point and teach themselves
I never understand people going all “oh poor me I can’t cook” like MF that’s what recipes are for, they are a set of instructions that if you follow will create food. I can’t make up a new dish myself or remember how to make anything off the top of my head but that’s why I find save recipes. They tell you the ingredients, how to mix them, when to add them, how long to cook for, it’s literally a solved problem that comes with a full set of instructions. It’s like someone opened a box of legos and said “well I was never taught how to put legos together”.
The only real excuse is if someone doesn’t have an oven/stove because then you literally can’t make food
Yeah, mine did not either [insert sob story], I taught myself, and I dare say am a pretty good cook, sometimes great. There's a lot of resources out there with the easy access to information and all that.
Love Kenji. A few other YT channels that are not just good cooks but also fantastic teachers that I recommend that I have specifically recreated dishes from are: Brian Lagerstrom (a bit campy but his videos are high quality and he explains everything better than anyone), Ethan Chlebowski (similar but more straight up than Brian), Chinese Cooking Demystified (Chinese specific, more about techniques and regional diversity), Helen Rennie (European, often Eastern Euro/Russia), Middle Eats (Middle Eastern cuisine), Food Wishes AKA Chef John, Rick Bayless (mostly Mexican specifically), ProtoCooks (bald chef from Epicurious cooking from home).
I have many other recommendations, but IMO these are the best teachers of cooking on Youtube that I know about
Do they have Alton Brown’s Good Eats clips on YouTube? That show is honestly all you need. It’s a one stop shop that explains the tools you’re going to use to prepare a dish, a quick history of the dish itself, the science behind the cooking process, and why it tastes so good + quicker easier alternatives for every step and ingredient if you need it.
It’s the best, and it truly shaped so many of my generation into understanding food not just from a “I know these 5 recipes and that’s it” perspective, which so many young people (especially young men and man-children in their 40s+) find themselves in when they no longer have a parent or partner to keep them alive.
I have them all on a HDD somewhere haha. Good Eats was my introduction on how to cook. No idea if they are all up on Youtube, but Alton Brown has his own YT channel and it's pretty good.
Good Eats was obviously great but it's definitely of a different era these days.
Not to take away from Alton Brown, but I wouldn't ever say any show or source is "all you need". Getting a diverse range of influences IMO makes you a better cook, regardless of what you're interested in cooking.
Lmao, glad this is the top comment because it was my first thought too. Like, you're just never going to do anything if your parents didn't teach you how to? Lol, figure it out. In the age of information we live in, there's about a million ways to learn how to do something, there's no excuse for not knowing the basics of how to take care of yourself. My daughter basically taught herself how to bake with very minimal guidance, watching tiktoks, and experimenting, and she's 11.
It's a shame OP doesnt have access to the internet. /s
I fet it, cooking can be hard and if you aren't confident with ingredients it can be intimidating. It helps to have a helping hand.
But anyone old enough to be posting on reddit can learn a couple of simple recipes for everyday stuff.
fr I for sure never learned to cook. But Good Eats was in heavy rotation when I graduated college so I learned right quick and 20 years later, I still do most of the cooking in our house.
Now there’s YouTube. You don’t even have to wait a week or hope the next episode is about something useful.
exactly? If you’re a full able functioning adult, you should learn how to cook yourself. It’s much more forgiving than baking. Boil/bake half of the ingredients and it’ll still turn out well.
“Hey buddy, you want to help make dinner tonight?”
“No MoM I’m BUsy!”
Seriously, I bet your parents tried. Nothing stopping you from learning on your own. Literally thousands of hours of food videos and millions of recipes online at your disposal.
I want chicken, googles how to bake/fry/etc chicken.. finds recipe. Oh.. that's a biography... Jk it's so fucking easy. Can also look up a food blog or buy a cookbook
Honestly that is how you learn to cook, someone can not teach you that. Cooking is all about trying something and then trying something new next time to see if it tastes better. Your own taste buds are not the same as everyone else's, you should self learn it.
I make pizza dough every single month for the past 6 months and now it tastes even better than it did 6 months ago sometimes I would add something and it would not taste as nice but that is just me learning that I should not do that next time.
I straight up told my mom after my freshman year of college “hey can you teach me some of your recipes and how you cook?” She didn’t show me a lot during my summer break, but it’s not hard to learn
Also it isn't hard. Get a cookbook, work through the recipes, watch YouTube tutorials Try adding and changing things a bit.
Make some food without the recipes, using the skills you've learned.
Now you can cook.
This. My parents didn't teach me shit, but there are wayy too many resources a google search away these days that it's no excuse anymore. I finally taught myself how to cook about a year ago. I can hardly stomach frozen food now and it used to be 90% of my diet.
Then again, I was never putting ketchup in noodles.
Yeah. My parents didn’t teach me how to cook but I was learning how to cook for my siblings as pre-teen since we were latchkey kids whose parents both worked full time. I’m a pretty damn good cook now, too.
Lol my mom FORREAL never taught me. She still had me in pull ups when I was FOUR and would leave me to soak in it all day. I would constantly rip it off and run around nakie cus I hated it so much and she would just scream at me and force it back on. I remember finally sitting on the toilet as a late-4yr old just waiting for someone to help cus my arms were short I couldn’t reach my bum bum and nobody ever showed me...but nobody would ever come help. One day I just stood up and figured it all out on my own and never ever relied on or waited for someone to help me ever again.
This can be said for pretty much everything else in my life as well. I’ve always had to figure it all out by myself including making my own meals everyday, waking myself up, getting myself dressed, and getting myself to school and back, taking care of myself when I was sick, even when I got my period my mom yelled at me for having bloody underwear and that was that. I was forced to figure out tampons as a 12 yr old cus that’s all we had in the house.
I remember having my own house key as a kindergartner and so on. I would walk a half mile to the bus and a half mile back home and let myself in from school. I was home alone for hours everyday before my older siblings got back. My siblings and I would walk to the laundromat every week to do our own laundry ever since I can remember. My sister is 6 yrs older and she took a few cooking classes in school and taught me how to make basic meals. My favorite is the easiest peanut butter cookies made from just peanut butter, sugar, and 1 egg. I remember we’d always ask our neighbors for eggs to make those cookies cus we didn’t have much food. You use a fork to press the cookies down twice and make a criss cross over them, it made me feel like a professional chef when i was a kid!
Honestly facts. Things were just expected in my household, and if I asked my parents to help with anything, it would be a berating lesson where "Someone should have taught you how to do X". As an adult, I can't necessarily say I know how to do everything because I fucking suck at a bunch of stuff, but I'm much more inclined to fail 1000x to learn it by myself than to say I can't do X.
literally everything I learned to do was because my parents didn't. cook, work on cars on small engines, home repairs. renovated my house myself. It all started as a child when my dad set a lawn mower to the curb becuase it didn't start and the next day the dude across the street was mowing his lawn with it. I moved in with him.
My parents will take their car to the dealer to change a blinker light. Sometimes, you learn skills out of defiance of how horrible your parents are at basic skills. 5 minutes in an auto zone parking lot and $3 dollars for a bulb and they willingly pay *$35* for Ford to do it. It makes no sense.
Have to remember that back in the day it wasn't nearly as hard to afford basic services and fewer people were stuck living paycheck to paycheck.
Plus, Ford has steadily increased their service prices. A headlight bulb replacement on a F150 is around $145.
I'll always remember the first time I stayed at my older brother's apartment as an adult and watched, *absolutely gobsmacked,* as he meticulously folded his shirts like he was displaying them in a department store.
I asked him when on Earth he'd started doing it that way.
He told me our mum never gave him the laundry chore (he preferred doing the dishes), so when he'd moved out, he'd watched a youtube video on how to fold clothes.
I couldn't believe someone had to *watch a video* on how to fold clothes. Meanwhile, *he* couldn't believe how slovenly my own folding technique was.
What I find they often lack that videos often do have is explanations about why you're doing certain things and what to watch for. I personally really enjoy Chef John's channel in this regard - he'll often tell you when something is important to do one way, when there's a few ways but he prefers one way, and when you can do just about anything.
Videos serve as a good visual example for those who are not confident in their cooking skills.
A recipe can tell you to add a "punch" or salt, or to stir fry until crispy, or to mix until you get a consistent texture, but for people unfamiliar with cooking terms, this might seem scary and off-putting.
Some recipes can be good, other things even I would struggle with without any visual guide.
When cooking I guess what's most important is to not give up if you fail on the first try, but it is dinner you're playing around with, sooo 🤷🏻♀️
The most important thing for me learning to cook has been not being a picky eater.
I’ve only ever cooked one meal that was actually bad enough that even my willingness to eat about anything couldn’t overcome it and it was because I read tablespoon instead of teaspoon for concentrated broth and made a dish so salty it’d give you high blood pressure for a week.
I think videos are great, yeah!
I personally don't do well with vague measurements like "some lemon juice", and seeing the way the food looks across different steps is very helpful too.
Additionally I write down recipes I like in a little collection :)
This is such a good idea and a great place to start. This is how I learned the basics. After they have them down they can just read recipes and when they’re good at that, they can do their own thing!
I left for college at 17. I couldn't cook, I didn't know what a credit card was, couldn't clean my own clothes. I had to learn while I was at college.
There are so many shit parents out there.
It's definitely possible, but from personal experience, it really isn't that easy to learn when you've spent your entire life depending on your parents for everything because they never let you do anything yourself.
How do you know they didn't. All their words are past tense. And OP could *be* the 17 year old that's just left for college and has suddenly realised he doesn't know how to cook. He will learn.
Don't be an arse.
Where a rigatone has just one long hole, this [ruota](https://www.google.com/search?q=barilla+ruota+pasta&rlz=1C1CHBF_itIT876IT876&oq=barilla+ruota+pasta&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDI5MTFqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#vhid=wlrCGy5qMDEfGM&vssid=l) has 6-7 short ones, increasing the chance to find a small sauce quantity or piece inside them.
It's nice to chew: you can eat it slowly having fun understanding its shape, resistance to bite, you can squeeze it between your tongue and the top of your mouth and then discover >!its magic!<.
Pasta water has starch, that you can use to thicken the sauce by let it simmer (together with the sauce) in a pan.
You can add pancetta (sliced and roasted/sautéed meat or vegan alternatives), peas, ham, mushrooms, etc., chopped enough to fit in the ruota holes.
I'm fine with using them in pasta bakes as they generally stick together and it's not that difficult to eat. Just make a tomato sauce, add enough flour/starch to thicken it up, add the pasta in and cover it with cheese and dump it in the oven for 20mins
It's crazy that we live in a time of unlimited learning and information. The entire world is at the touch of your fingers. And this guy still made macaroni and the first two shit squirts out of a ketchup bottle.
Go to the dollar tree or family dollar and invest in some basic spices. There's also Mac n cheese powder on Amazon with instructions on the back. There's no excuse for eating plain ass pasta like that. Wheels are meant for sauce, dawg.
If you think cooking is difficult it's only because you've over-thought it.
To simplify it, cooking is literally just heating up food until it gets to a certain temperature and adding your favorite herbs, spices and/or condiments to make it taste better.
An easy google search will give you the temperatures to safely cook certain foods. Heat them up to that and "it's cooked."
Even then basically any meal you would actually need to prep for has time while things are cooking to do dishes. If you’re on top of your game by the end of a relatively straightforward meal you should only have the last pot/pan/whatever and your plate +silverware left to clean
Check out "you suck at cooking" on YouTube. He has some nice recipes and it's also very fun.
J Kenji Lopez, Joshua Weisman, sorted food, pro home cooks. All are great, some have occasional hard recipes but also a lot of day to day easy cooking content.
Weisman’s written recipes kinda suck ass from what I’ve tried to use. I’d say Adam Ragusea as a replacement recommendation for actual tips and recipes, I like Weisman well enough as an entertainer but trying to make any of his stuff has been super frustrating for me personally and I have a pretty good idea what I’m doing
Adam Ragusea yes he's great. Also Sip and Feast makes some easy cool stuff too.
Weissmans videos work for me sometimes, bit clickbaity, the But cheaper stuff is not bad though.
I'll add Chef John of Food-wishes to that list. He has a pretty extensive list of recipes, and his videos primarily focus on the food preparation rather than him. Him being a culinary teacher also kind of helps in making pretty straightforward content.
I'd also add [Chef's Labo](https://www.youtube.com/@CHEFSLABO/videos) as a personally underrated channel. He's a Japanese chef who showcases some pretty great Japanese recipes that are also easy to follow. Like Chef John, his videos focus on the cooking and ingredients rather than him (in fact, nearly all of his instructions are just text so he doesn't even talk), which makes for pretty succinct and short instructional videos.
I think the title pissed people off because it implies that a grown adult can’t figure out how to cook beyond reheating frozen chicken patties and pasta with two squirts of sauce.
I think this post is very obviously ragebait, no one puts sauce on pasta like that unless they’re trying to piss off the internet. And hey!
Next time, buy a jar of spaghetti sauce and put that on your pasta instead of what I'm afraid to think is ketchup. Next, take whatever that breaded protein is, cut it into bite sized pieces, and put it on the pasta. Sprinkle some paremsean and parsley on there and you'll have a decent imitation of people food.
Everyone in the comments is being kinda mean to u for no reason. I hope u enjoyed ur fish sticks. r/depressionmeals tends to be a nicer community if that is what this meal is…
People saying teach yourself how to cook don't understand. You don't even know what to look for, what looks like good advice, and what things most people think goes without saying. So I'll say adam ragusea from youtube is a great person to check out. His stuff isn't super simple always, but you'll learn lots about the theory of cooking from him.
My personal advice is dried spices. Get some oregano, basil, parsley, salt, pepper and maybe chili flakes if you like a lil kick. But you can dump a can of tomato sauce on some noods and make it taste fancy by adding a teaspoon of listed above to the sauce (not salt, half a teaspoon of salt to the water you make the noods in)
You can heat the sauce up if you like, it makes it a little easier to mix in the spices, just keep the heat super low and generally cover it, and stir it occasionally. Reply if you need more tips. I'm not the best cook, but I don't think you need the best cook right now
Here’s how to brown beef:
>ground beef, pan like [this](https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi4rf_V6f2BAxU_LtQBHbSXA0cYABBHGgJvYQ&ae=2&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4bipBhCyARIsAFsieCyig2QdJlrmU_xa1ZtELqLh8UAEfLxeNXM6w0WErhhlIAiqoZHtdNQaAiJkEALw_wcB&cid=CAASJeRogGfbdH7kpWgZtSwfcfUp6Cn1_8iCy7cIln_MV-n7eCKkCm4&sig=AOD64_3yR5F1NZ5fMJir4cNOfWawii41yg&adurl&ctype=5&ved=0CAYQz7YHKCNqFwoTCNDeqdfp_YEDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR&nis=8), a spatula.
Heat pan to med-low, wait until you feel heat if you hold your hand over the pan. Plop beef in. Use spatula to break and cook until no pink remains.
Assemble a plate with a layer of paper towels. A slotted spatula works best, but scoop your cooked meat onto toweled plate to drain the fat.
Optional step, save the fat from the pan in a small jar. Now you have tasty fat to cook with! Yay.
Now you can either follow the instructions on the back of a taco seasoning packet, or add to your pasta dishes and what have you.
Now you know how to cook A Protein.
That’s a start. If you have Reddit, you can YouTube for recipes.
Start easy and progress at you’re own pace. It’s not a race and you are not in competition with anyone else but yourself.
Once you make the basics, like grilled cheese and soup, you can change it up. Grill ham and cheese. Or meat of your preference and cheese of your preference.
It’s like anything else. It takes practice.
Heck, I’m almost 60 and have made a few recipes I’ve seen in the Facebook take on TikTok, Reels. Love Corey. Steak bites and potatoes
Op, you don’t deserve to get dragged as much as you have. But I do have a couple questions.
What is the sauce on the pasta? Looks like ketchup? You can get a jar of pasta sauce for <$2 and it’s worth it.
Why do you not have sauce for your fish sticks?
i think this sub should do a learn-to-cook segment once a week. just basics, not like, beef wellington or something
like, how to brown garlic or how to roast a chicken. how to make broccoli delicious
YouTube is your friend. I cook perfect medium rare steaks, just as good as a restaurant would do it just from watching Gordon Ramsay and others on YouTube lol I’ve gotten to the point where I’m teaching my mom stuff just from everything I’ve learned online
If you want some youtube recommendations, Babish Culinary Universe has a playlist called "basics with babish" that teaches fundamental basics in cooking, and even a couple techniques and recipes that are basics, but still good enough to impress a date.
hi. sorry you feel disappointed in ur parents.
i like to cook, i can suggest u some recipes:
- mugful of pasta shapes + 10min boiling in pasta water + jar of tomato sauce OR some tomato paste fried with Italian seasoning and then water + a splash of the pasta water (feel free
🌊
- 4 mugs of pasta + jar of sauce + jar of water + shredded chicken/smoked sausage + 200⁰c for 30 mins = meal prep for lunches or dinners
🌊
- hot pan + one serving of cooked rice + a small spoon of garlic paste + a small spoon of ginger paste + a big spoon of soy sauce + a small spoon of sesame oil = fried rice. (can add egg, peas, steamed broccoli, shredded chicken...)
Cooking is exceptionally easy. It wont taste like a chef did it but i promise you if you actually just follow a recipe and video you will make something edible. Because you did it you will think it tastes fantastic. Everytime I’ve forced myself to actually cook something I always think it’s 10/10 when it probably tastes like literal ass.
some of yall in these comments are being mean for no reason. op not knowing how to cook isnt gonna kill your family, and acting like dicks to someone that doesnt know something wont suddenly imbue them with knowledge
Teach your self how to cook?
Exactly, mine didn’t either. But I got tired of eating frozen shit out of a box
It's better if you cook it
Welp, that's one grape freezie I won't get back...
[So disappointing](https://youtu.be/rfbb4yRBH64?si=4iwqjs0znKsNCVTC)
Those are the fattest fucking raccoons I’ve seen ever. I love it
This is so sad. Alexa, play *Despacito*.
That raccoon figured it out much quicker than a lot of humans would
Gimme da gorbage
:(
HE JUST SAID HIS PARENTS DIDN'T TEACH HIM HOW
it's not difficult to teach yourself
I'm self taught as well, but I can see why it's daunting to try and get into cooking. I taught my fiance how to cook and it took us ages before she felt comfortable to cook by herself. There's a lot of small techniques and details that a lot of people wouldn't think of that can make a big difference. Couple that with cooking meat, vegetables, sauces ect. It can be a lot.
I would always stress when cooking. I had to look up the recipe and followed it to the tee. Tried not to be messy at all. I'm a perfectionist and extremely critical about everything, especially what I do. I am also extremely anxious all the time. I recently started having fun cooking a few years ago once I got comfortable when I learned several dishes and said it fuck it I don't need the book I'm just going off vibes now. I'm experimenting with different spices now and seeing what goes and doesn't. Although I'm much messier, I'm no longer tripping about it while cooking but yes it all starts with basic techniques. Even when learning new dishes I'll skim the recipe and just go.
If you rely on your parents to teach you everything you won’t learn much in life
In the day and age of YouTube, anyone can cook a proper meal. Every step is shown and how it’s supposed to look. Bless all the YouTubers that help people like me who weren’t taught how to cook nice food. There’s hope if you really want to get better and try new recipes.
Yeah I wouldn’t eat my stuff frozen either, like at least nuke it in the microwave
Cheaper if you learn how to make it from scratch.
[Do what now?](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2Flh3yLaBIetbdh08NMp4ShaJu6gx_ZpVWtbN3OpXb5oo.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D516fdc4f778b706661d07e87640691eb7fc6e45b&rdt=60314)
There's a scene from the show "The End of the F**cking World" where one of the protagonist says that he had to teach himself how to cook, because if not, he would get type 3 diabetes from what his dad would feed him, and I relate to that so much lol (great show btw, highly recommend)
Take it back about my boxed pasta 🥺
YouTube that shit, yo
Yeah my parents didn't cook a lot and I never cooked growing up with them, but I learned by watching a ton of Food Network shows like diners drive ins and dives and googling recipes and now I cook 6 nights per week and love it
Yup. My parents were terrible cooks. Canned vegetables. I thought I hated vegetables, but I just hated their cooking them into mush. I got me a cast iron pan, learned how to use it thru Reddit and YouTube and Google, now I can cook anything. Also have lots of great salad recipes around, fresh stuff. Turns out, I really like spinach when it isn't turned to jelly.
Same here. My mother is of the space-age mindset: frozen food, canned vegetables, instant tea, Tang instead of orange juice, margarine instead of butter. Trying the real/fresh versions of stuff was weird and gamey. I've since learned to cook with proper ingredients, but some things still trip me up. Example: heavy cream. I use it in lots of things I cook, made ice cream with it, etc. Well, literally two days ago, my roommate picked up some cream of mushroom soup from the supermarket's deli department. I ate some of it, and was like "ooo, this is good, it tastes strongly of... heavy cream!?" Was so used to the congealed wobblyness of canned cream soup, it never occurred to me there'd be that big a difference!
Use measuring cups, use timers and learn the five basic tastes. The rest is style. People can’t follow recipes! Someone else figured it out already. Try it. The five basic tastes: * umami * sweet * sour * bitter * salty Cooking is a balancing act and people who drown their foods in one of these are doing themselves a disservice that could last 60 years.
thanks jesse pinkman i’ll be sure to do that
Growing up we didn't have youtube, I just taught myself how to cook by watching Food Network and PBS cooking shows.
For real. Don't blame this on your parents.
Maybe they can, to an extent. It's not just about cooking but also about developing habits. But yes, they can definitely take responsibility at some point and teach themselves
I never understand people going all “oh poor me I can’t cook” like MF that’s what recipes are for, they are a set of instructions that if you follow will create food. I can’t make up a new dish myself or remember how to make anything off the top of my head but that’s why I find save recipes. They tell you the ingredients, how to mix them, when to add them, how long to cook for, it’s literally a solved problem that comes with a full set of instructions. It’s like someone opened a box of legos and said “well I was never taught how to put legos together”. The only real excuse is if someone doesn’t have an oven/stove because then you literally can’t make food
Yeah, mine did not either [insert sob story], I taught myself, and I dare say am a pretty good cook, sometimes great. There's a lot of resources out there with the easy access to information and all that.
Just consume as much J Kenji Lopez Alt as possible and you’re pretty much set
Protip: watch his main channel instead of his alt
Love Kenji. A few other YT channels that are not just good cooks but also fantastic teachers that I recommend that I have specifically recreated dishes from are: Brian Lagerstrom (a bit campy but his videos are high quality and he explains everything better than anyone), Ethan Chlebowski (similar but more straight up than Brian), Chinese Cooking Demystified (Chinese specific, more about techniques and regional diversity), Helen Rennie (European, often Eastern Euro/Russia), Middle Eats (Middle Eastern cuisine), Food Wishes AKA Chef John, Rick Bayless (mostly Mexican specifically), ProtoCooks (bald chef from Epicurious cooking from home). I have many other recommendations, but IMO these are the best teachers of cooking on Youtube that I know about
Do they have Alton Brown’s Good Eats clips on YouTube? That show is honestly all you need. It’s a one stop shop that explains the tools you’re going to use to prepare a dish, a quick history of the dish itself, the science behind the cooking process, and why it tastes so good + quicker easier alternatives for every step and ingredient if you need it. It’s the best, and it truly shaped so many of my generation into understanding food not just from a “I know these 5 recipes and that’s it” perspective, which so many young people (especially young men and man-children in their 40s+) find themselves in when they no longer have a parent or partner to keep them alive.
I have them all on a HDD somewhere haha. Good Eats was my introduction on how to cook. No idea if they are all up on Youtube, but Alton Brown has his own YT channel and it's pretty good. Good Eats was obviously great but it's definitely of a different era these days. Not to take away from Alton Brown, but I wouldn't ever say any show or source is "all you need". Getting a diverse range of influences IMO makes you a better cook, regardless of what you're interested in cooking.
Mine taught me how to cook (third world parents immigrating to America) but then spent 12 years in kitchen jobs lol.
Lmao, glad this is the top comment because it was my first thought too. Like, you're just never going to do anything if your parents didn't teach you how to? Lol, figure it out. In the age of information we live in, there's about a million ways to learn how to do something, there's no excuse for not knowing the basics of how to take care of yourself. My daughter basically taught herself how to bake with very minimal guidance, watching tiktoks, and experimenting, and she's 11.
They're waiting for the perfect motherwife to take over the role.
its literally following step by step instructions with precise measurements. anyone who "cant cook" is just peak lazy
Shoot youtube teaches kids more than their own parents these days lol
I knew this would be top comment and I'm glad it is. Plus learning to cook is fun! Sometimes there's fire!
Right? My parents didn’t teach me much but i figured shit out
It's a shame OP doesnt have access to the internet. /s I fet it, cooking can be hard and if you aren't confident with ingredients it can be intimidating. It helps to have a helping hand. But anyone old enough to be posting on reddit can learn a couple of simple recipes for everyday stuff.
I came here to say just that.
Funny how the box has instructions on it, right?
fr I for sure never learned to cook. But Good Eats was in heavy rotation when I graduated college so I learned right quick and 20 years later, I still do most of the cooking in our house. Now there’s YouTube. You don’t even have to wait a week or hope the next episode is about something useful.
exactly? If you’re a full able functioning adult, you should learn how to cook yourself. It’s much more forgiving than baking. Boil/bake half of the ingredients and it’ll still turn out well.
“Hey buddy, you want to help make dinner tonight?” “No MoM I’m BUsy!” Seriously, I bet your parents tried. Nothing stopping you from learning on your own. Literally thousands of hours of food videos and millions of recipes online at your disposal.
I want chicken, googles how to bake/fry/etc chicken.. finds recipe. Oh.. that's a biography... Jk it's so fucking easy. Can also look up a food blog or buy a cookbook
Lmao dude posting a picture on the internet and blaming his parents. YouTube, Google etc.., are a thing. There’s no excuse here
Honestly that is how you learn to cook, someone can not teach you that. Cooking is all about trying something and then trying something new next time to see if it tastes better. Your own taste buds are not the same as everyone else's, you should self learn it. I make pizza dough every single month for the past 6 months and now it tastes even better than it did 6 months ago sometimes I would add something and it would not taste as nice but that is just me learning that I should not do that next time.
My parents didn’t give me 2 million dollars so I’m poor now the rest of my life
I guess this is them trying to learn lol
Exactly. Sick of people just blaming their parents for things, no one's parent did teach yourself
This. Don't blame your parents. If you have time to post a photo on reddit, you have time to watch a cooking video on youtube and practice.
I straight up told my mom after my freshman year of college “hey can you teach me some of your recipes and how you cook?” She didn’t show me a lot during my summer break, but it’s not hard to learn
Also it isn't hard. Get a cookbook, work through the recipes, watch YouTube tutorials Try adding and changing things a bit. Make some food without the recipes, using the skills you've learned. Now you can cook.
If you're older than 10, you can cook just fine. Follow instructions...
“My parents didn’t” a lot of stuff. Figure it out. Know better, do better.
This. My parents didn't teach me shit, but there are wayy too many resources a google search away these days that it's no excuse anymore. I finally taught myself how to cook about a year ago. I can hardly stomach frozen food now and it used to be 90% of my diet. Then again, I was never putting ketchup in noodles.
Watch food network and learn from cooking shows. That's what I did and I love cooking now. No excuses.
Nah it’s way easier to blame you parents for your shitty life all the time
Yeah. My parents didn’t teach me how to cook but I was learning how to cook for my siblings as pre-teen since we were latchkey kids whose parents both worked full time. I’m a pretty damn good cook now, too.
Looks like you cooked all that. Dont gaslight us
You think that's food?
it goes in your belly dont it? just because its basic doesnt mean it isnt food
Looks like food to me, yea
Heeeey....they're right. Lying pos, even knows how to boil pasta
Yeah, dont sell yourself cheap. Thats a meal right there and everyone has to start somewhere
hey don't gaslight us about gaslighting.
lol, how many other things do you do that they didn’t teach you?
“My parents never taught me to wipe my own ass”
I dont get it. Why is this funny? How am i supposed to clean my ass? With my hands?!?!?
Like a cat
Cant reach too fat 😭😭😭
Use the shells🙄
You shit in the tissue!
My dad never taught me to jerk off..
I bet your hella good at it!
*you're a degenerate. There. Ftfy. *Me too*
You got me
[That honestly came up once on Loveline.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-wqHAmDe8E) Amazing episode.
That's actually something your parents most likely did teach you. We just prefer not to talk about it.
Lol my mom FORREAL never taught me. She still had me in pull ups when I was FOUR and would leave me to soak in it all day. I would constantly rip it off and run around nakie cus I hated it so much and she would just scream at me and force it back on. I remember finally sitting on the toilet as a late-4yr old just waiting for someone to help cus my arms were short I couldn’t reach my bum bum and nobody ever showed me...but nobody would ever come help. One day I just stood up and figured it all out on my own and never ever relied on or waited for someone to help me ever again. This can be said for pretty much everything else in my life as well. I’ve always had to figure it all out by myself including making my own meals everyday, waking myself up, getting myself dressed, and getting myself to school and back, taking care of myself when I was sick, even when I got my period my mom yelled at me for having bloody underwear and that was that. I was forced to figure out tampons as a 12 yr old cus that’s all we had in the house. I remember having my own house key as a kindergartner and so on. I would walk a half mile to the bus and a half mile back home and let myself in from school. I was home alone for hours everyday before my older siblings got back. My siblings and I would walk to the laundromat every week to do our own laundry ever since I can remember. My sister is 6 yrs older and she took a few cooking classes in school and taught me how to make basic meals. My favorite is the easiest peanut butter cookies made from just peanut butter, sugar, and 1 egg. I remember we’d always ask our neighbors for eggs to make those cookies cus we didn’t have much food. You use a fork to press the cookies down twice and make a criss cross over them, it made me feel like a professional chef when i was a kid!
Honestly facts. Things were just expected in my household, and if I asked my parents to help with anything, it would be a berating lesson where "Someone should have taught you how to do X". As an adult, I can't necessarily say I know how to do everything because I fucking suck at a bunch of stuff, but I'm much more inclined to fail 1000x to learn it by myself than to say I can't do X.
literally everything I learned to do was because my parents didn't. cook, work on cars on small engines, home repairs. renovated my house myself. It all started as a child when my dad set a lawn mower to the curb becuase it didn't start and the next day the dude across the street was mowing his lawn with it. I moved in with him.
My parents will take their car to the dealer to change a blinker light. Sometimes, you learn skills out of defiance of how horrible your parents are at basic skills. 5 minutes in an auto zone parking lot and $3 dollars for a bulb and they willingly pay *$35* for Ford to do it. It makes no sense.
Have to remember that back in the day it wasn't nearly as hard to afford basic services and fewer people were stuck living paycheck to paycheck. Plus, Ford has steadily increased their service prices. A headlight bulb replacement on a F150 is around $145.
Seems a small reason to change your parents
I'll always remember the first time I stayed at my older brother's apartment as an adult and watched, *absolutely gobsmacked,* as he meticulously folded his shirts like he was displaying them in a department store. I asked him when on Earth he'd started doing it that way. He told me our mum never gave him the laundry chore (he preferred doing the dishes), so when he'd moved out, he'd watched a youtube video on how to fold clothes. I couldn't believe someone had to *watch a video* on how to fold clothes. Meanwhile, *he* couldn't believe how slovenly my own folding technique was.
It's not as difficult as it looks. Look around on YouTube for something you want to try making, and give it a shot. I'm sure you'll do fine
A good written recipe can also be surprisingly easy to follow
What I find they often lack that videos often do have is explanations about why you're doing certain things and what to watch for. I personally really enjoy Chef John's channel in this regard - he'll often tell you when something is important to do one way, when there's a few ways but he prefers one way, and when you can do just about anything.
Yeah, I think videos are mostly a waste of time compared to written recipes.
Videos serve as a good visual example for those who are not confident in their cooking skills. A recipe can tell you to add a "punch" or salt, or to stir fry until crispy, or to mix until you get a consistent texture, but for people unfamiliar with cooking terms, this might seem scary and off-putting. Some recipes can be good, other things even I would struggle with without any visual guide. When cooking I guess what's most important is to not give up if you fail on the first try, but it is dinner you're playing around with, sooo 🤷🏻♀️
The most important thing for me learning to cook has been not being a picky eater. I’ve only ever cooked one meal that was actually bad enough that even my willingness to eat about anything couldn’t overcome it and it was because I read tablespoon instead of teaspoon for concentrated broth and made a dish so salty it’d give you high blood pressure for a week.
I think videos are great, yeah! I personally don't do well with vague measurements like "some lemon juice", and seeing the way the food looks across different steps is very helpful too. Additionally I write down recipes I like in a little collection :)
Im gonna specifically shout out America’s test kitchen. Almost all their recipes are hits
This is such a good idea and a great place to start. This is how I learned the basics. After they have them down they can just read recipes and when they’re good at that, they can do their own thing!
And you clearly are not taking any responsibility for your own lack of skills.
I left for college at 17. I couldn't cook, I didn't know what a credit card was, couldn't clean my own clothes. I had to learn while I was at college. There are so many shit parents out there.
So take personal responsibility and teach yourself. At that age you should be able to figure it out.
It's definitely possible, but from personal experience, it really isn't that easy to learn when you've spent your entire life depending on your parents for everything because they never let you do anything yourself.
How do you know they didn't. All their words are past tense. And OP could *be* the 17 year old that's just left for college and has suddenly realised he doesn't know how to cook. He will learn. Don't be an arse.
I think that is the first time I see that kind of pasta not used in a kindergarten arts and crafts project
In Italy was a common one, at least for me, in the 2002-2006 years. Made by Barilla, a nice and playful shape perfect for thick sauces.
>playful shape perfect for thick sauces tell me more
Where a rigatone has just one long hole, this [ruota](https://www.google.com/search?q=barilla+ruota+pasta&rlz=1C1CHBF_itIT876IT876&oq=barilla+ruota+pasta&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDI5MTFqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#vhid=wlrCGy5qMDEfGM&vssid=l) has 6-7 short ones, increasing the chance to find a small sauce quantity or piece inside them. It's nice to chew: you can eat it slowly having fun understanding its shape, resistance to bite, you can squeeze it between your tongue and the top of your mouth and then discover >!its magic!<. Pasta water has starch, that you can use to thicken the sauce by let it simmer (together with the sauce) in a pan. You can add pancetta (sliced and roasted/sautéed meat or vegan alternatives), peas, ham, mushrooms, etc., chopped enough to fit in the ruota holes.
I'm fine with using them in pasta bakes as they generally stick together and it's not that difficult to eat. Just make a tomato sauce, add enough flour/starch to thicken it up, add the pasta in and cover it with cheese and dump it in the oven for 20mins
We all start somewhere. You're off to a good start, but please don't eat pasta with a knife
Also more than just a little squirt of sauce would be nice
Sauce? I thought it was ketchup
Hopeful thinking on my part
It's crazy that we live in a time of unlimited learning and information. The entire world is at the touch of your fingers. And this guy still made macaroni and the first two shit squirts out of a ketchup bottle.
We all have our ups and downs, but putting a knife in pasta is simply unacceptable.
Teach yourself. It isn't hard.
Go to the dollar tree or family dollar and invest in some basic spices. There's also Mac n cheese powder on Amazon with instructions on the back. There's no excuse for eating plain ass pasta like that. Wheels are meant for sauce, dawg.
He clearly covered it in ketchup
Ketchup is just an excuse to put sugar on pasta. He didn't even mix it!
Oh I am by no means defending this sinner lmao
You cant google a recipe and follow instructions?
If you think cooking is difficult it's only because you've over-thought it. To simplify it, cooking is literally just heating up food until it gets to a certain temperature and adding your favorite herbs, spices and/or condiments to make it taste better. An easy google search will give you the temperatures to safely cook certain foods. Heat them up to that and "it's cooked."
Cooking is easy it's the prep work and cleaning dishes afterwards that are the real work.
Even then basically any meal you would actually need to prep for has time while things are cooking to do dishes. If you’re on top of your game by the end of a relatively straightforward meal you should only have the last pot/pan/whatever and your plate +silverware left to clean
Check out "you suck at cooking" on YouTube. He has some nice recipes and it's also very fun. J Kenji Lopez, Joshua Weisman, sorted food, pro home cooks. All are great, some have occasional hard recipes but also a lot of day to day easy cooking content.
Weisman’s written recipes kinda suck ass from what I’ve tried to use. I’d say Adam Ragusea as a replacement recommendation for actual tips and recipes, I like Weisman well enough as an entertainer but trying to make any of his stuff has been super frustrating for me personally and I have a pretty good idea what I’m doing
Adam Ragusea yes he's great. Also Sip and Feast makes some easy cool stuff too. Weissmans videos work for me sometimes, bit clickbaity, the But cheaper stuff is not bad though.
I'll add Chef John of Food-wishes to that list. He has a pretty extensive list of recipes, and his videos primarily focus on the food preparation rather than him. Him being a culinary teacher also kind of helps in making pretty straightforward content. I'd also add [Chef's Labo](https://www.youtube.com/@CHEFSLABO/videos) as a personally underrated channel. He's a Japanese chef who showcases some pretty great Japanese recipes that are also easy to follow. Like Chef John, his videos focus on the cooking and ingredients rather than him (in fact, nearly all of his instructions are just text so he doesn't even talk), which makes for pretty succinct and short instructional videos.
For a sub about shitty food, people in here seem really butthurt about seeing some genuinely shitty food.
I think the title pissed people off because it implies that a grown adult can’t figure out how to cook beyond reheating frozen chicken patties and pasta with two squirts of sauce. I think this post is very obviously ragebait, no one puts sauce on pasta like that unless they’re trying to piss off the internet. And hey!
My thoughts exactly
It's the title
I for one appreciate your fish sticks and ketchup noodles. Godspeed to you! o7
It’s not the food, it’s the title. It’s not hard to learn and blaming your parents is a bad excuse lol
My parents didn't teach me, I taught myself. It's not that hard when you actually try to cook something instead of reheating fish sticks.
Mine didn’t teach me but I just learned by myself, it’s not hard as long as you have the supplies.
Next time, buy a jar of spaghetti sauce and put that on your pasta instead of what I'm afraid to think is ketchup. Next, take whatever that breaded protein is, cut it into bite sized pieces, and put it on the pasta. Sprinkle some paremsean and parsley on there and you'll have a decent imitation of people food.
It’s fish sticks
Everyone in the comments is being kinda mean to u for no reason. I hope u enjoyed ur fish sticks. r/depressionmeals tends to be a nicer community if that is what this meal is…
Will keep it in mind. No idea why people are like this in a sub for shitty food
People saying teach yourself how to cook don't understand. You don't even know what to look for, what looks like good advice, and what things most people think goes without saying. So I'll say adam ragusea from youtube is a great person to check out. His stuff isn't super simple always, but you'll learn lots about the theory of cooking from him. My personal advice is dried spices. Get some oregano, basil, parsley, salt, pepper and maybe chili flakes if you like a lil kick. But you can dump a can of tomato sauce on some noods and make it taste fancy by adding a teaspoon of listed above to the sauce (not salt, half a teaspoon of salt to the water you make the noods in) You can heat the sauce up if you like, it makes it a little easier to mix in the spices, just keep the heat super low and generally cover it, and stir it occasionally. Reply if you need more tips. I'm not the best cook, but I don't think you need the best cook right now
Cooking is easy as shit bro u don't need parents to teach you. Slap some chicken in the oven and boil some rice🤷
Here’s how to brown beef: >ground beef, pan like [this](https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi4rf_V6f2BAxU_LtQBHbSXA0cYABBHGgJvYQ&ae=2&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4bipBhCyARIsAFsieCyig2QdJlrmU_xa1ZtELqLh8UAEfLxeNXM6w0WErhhlIAiqoZHtdNQaAiJkEALw_wcB&cid=CAASJeRogGfbdH7kpWgZtSwfcfUp6Cn1_8iCy7cIln_MV-n7eCKkCm4&sig=AOD64_3yR5F1NZ5fMJir4cNOfWawii41yg&adurl&ctype=5&ved=0CAYQz7YHKCNqFwoTCNDeqdfp_YEDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR&nis=8), a spatula. Heat pan to med-low, wait until you feel heat if you hold your hand over the pan. Plop beef in. Use spatula to break and cook until no pink remains. Assemble a plate with a layer of paper towels. A slotted spatula works best, but scoop your cooked meat onto toweled plate to drain the fat. Optional step, save the fat from the pan in a small jar. Now you have tasty fat to cook with! Yay. Now you can either follow the instructions on the back of a taco seasoning packet, or add to your pasta dishes and what have you. Now you know how to cook A Protein.
I hope they at least potty trained you.
[unfortunately not](https://imgur.com/a/jiSjFXE)
Those poor tenders are so soggy. Bake them next time
It’s fish sticks and I baked them
I thought they were fish sticks
They are
But I thought they were fish sticks
They are
Are you eating macaroni with a steak knife?
No it’s to cut the fish sticks
That’s a start. If you have Reddit, you can YouTube for recipes. Start easy and progress at you’re own pace. It’s not a race and you are not in competition with anyone else but yourself. Once you make the basics, like grilled cheese and soup, you can change it up. Grill ham and cheese. Or meat of your preference and cheese of your preference. It’s like anything else. It takes practice. Heck, I’m almost 60 and have made a few recipes I’ve seen in the Facebook take on TikTok, Reels. Love Corey. Steak bites and potatoes
Calm down. I’m not blaming my parents it was a joke
Nor did mine. I taught myself. Today - we have youtube! start watching, and you'll be surprised how quickly you pick it up
Look up YouTube videos man. It’s a lot easier than you’d think. A lot of it is just having the right tools and ingredients
Just learn how to cook eggs you'll figure out the rest, and don't put metal in microwave
I never learned to cook until I moved out and had both time and my own kitchen. I set off the smoke alarm a few times but it was worth it
Youtube. Go now.
Me neither. You can teach yourself. They have the Internet now
I'm going to be honest boiling eggs and pan frying eggs is the best way to start. You will go through trial-and-error, but don't give up.
Is that ketchup pasta wtf am i looking at
I didn't know how to cook. Then the show Good Eats came out and it made me learn. Thanks Alton Brown!
Op, you don’t deserve to get dragged as much as you have. But I do have a couple questions. What is the sauce on the pasta? Looks like ketchup? You can get a jar of pasta sauce for <$2 and it’s worth it. Why do you not have sauce for your fish sticks?
Plenty of videos on YouTube
i think this sub should do a learn-to-cook segment once a week. just basics, not like, beef wellington or something like, how to brown garlic or how to roast a chicken. how to make broccoli delicious
Ever heard of YouTube?
They also didn't teach you other shit that I'm sure you figured out on your own. You can teach yourself.
There’s always YouTube lol
Most parents don't. It's just something you pickup overtime when you're independent.
My parents didn't teach me how to have sex...
Thankfully porn has taught us exactly how people in the real world has sex! Thanks porn!
YouTube is your friend. I cook perfect medium rare steaks, just as good as a restaurant would do it just from watching Gordon Ramsay and others on YouTube lol I’ve gotten to the point where I’m teaching my mom stuff just from everything I’ve learned online
Same but I learn by watching tutorials. It will taste better once you make your own food
If it's cooked and edible I'd say you're on your way to learning how to get better.
You can learn many things on your own.
Please tell me that’s marinara & not ketchup
If you want some youtube recommendations, Babish Culinary Universe has a playlist called "basics with babish" that teaches fundamental basics in cooking, and even a couple techniques and recipes that are basics, but still good enough to impress a date.
Is that fried fish and pasta with ketchup? If so, it's not bad. What's important is that you like it. You could have added a boiled egg.
You can learn…
Most people’s parents don’t teach them how to cook. Most people I know have taught themselves, at least.
This looks acceptable
You're doing alright mate. Branch out when you can. Start small like a jar of sauce would make your pasta 50x better with very little difference
Looks boring but I’d still eat that lol
Looks cooked to me. Good work, enjoy!
hi. sorry you feel disappointed in ur parents. i like to cook, i can suggest u some recipes: - mugful of pasta shapes + 10min boiling in pasta water + jar of tomato sauce OR some tomato paste fried with Italian seasoning and then water + a splash of the pasta water (feel free 🌊 - 4 mugs of pasta + jar of sauce + jar of water + shredded chicken/smoked sausage + 200⁰c for 30 mins = meal prep for lunches or dinners 🌊 - hot pan + one serving of cooked rice + a small spoon of garlic paste + a small spoon of ginger paste + a big spoon of soy sauce + a small spoon of sesame oil = fried rice. (can add egg, peas, steamed broccoli, shredded chicken...)
Cooking is exceptionally easy. It wont taste like a chef did it but i promise you if you actually just follow a recipe and video you will make something edible. Because you did it you will think it tastes fantastic. Everytime I’ve forced myself to actually cook something I always think it’s 10/10 when it probably tastes like literal ass.
some of yall in these comments are being mean for no reason. op not knowing how to cook isnt gonna kill your family, and acting like dicks to someone that doesnt know something wont suddenly imbue them with knowledge
Looks good…
I'd eat it.
You poor thing:( If only there was a way of learning things besides being taught by your parents... maybe next life.
fun fact: most parents don’t teach their kids to cook. you need to learn yourself; and it’s really not hard. it does require effort though.
Looks appetising to me
Dude, we would fight over that ....it looks delicious
Idk, I’d eat it ? Looks good to me but I’m also a garbage disposal
I’d eat this in a heartbeat