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Sometimes you need to listen to those with a lifetime of experience.
It's well-known in Arabic cuisine that white rice should be kept in water for at least half an hour after being thoroughly washed and before cooking it. My Persian grandmother taught me to add salt as well. Simple addition, but it makes a difference!
My nana taught me to always rinse my rice and to cook it with seasoning, whether that was adding spices to the water, or using broth to give my rice extra flavor.
This one is so basic yet so useful: When your cookies get hard/tough over time, just put them in a container with a piece of bread. Your cookies will soften up and the bread will become dry and hard. Works every time!
My papa taught me to add a tablespoon of brown sugar to ANY kind of tomato sauce. Wouldn’t have spaghetti or enchiladas any other way!
Mine taught me the 3-2-1 method for pie crust: 3 parts flour, 2 parts (frozen) fat, 1 part ice water. You can also add a little salt and/or sugar to get the flavor you need.
Rutabaga in mashed potatoes. It tastes amazing and it's a super cheap upgrade.
BUTTER makes everything taste so much better. EVERYTHING!
Check out a few butter upgrades that can take your dishes to the next level.
When you make a casserole, bake it 24 hours in advance and let it sit for a day. I don't know why but it tastes 100 times better!
My grandmother used to cook her scrambled eggs really slowly on low-to-medium heat. It would feel like they took forever but would result in the creamiest scrambled eggs ever.
Here are more tips to cook the perfect eggs.
When making pie crust, only use half the water it calls for. The other half? Vodka! During baking, the vodka will evaporate leading to a flakier crust. Also good to know when making pie crust: Always use cold ingredients to make sure the butter doesn’t get too soft, and work fast so you don't overwork the dough.
Check out other baking hacks we've tested and know are actually legit.
My great grandmother told me to find sweetest watermelon by looking at the bottom: The yellow-er it is the sweeter. Hasn’t failed me yet.
My grandma taught me that you should buy watermelons that are very dark green but with a yellow patch. They should also sound hollow when you knock on them.
My grandmother, who was born and raised in Jamaica, always said that in order to make really good rice, you should cook it in coconut milk. And she was right, it’s always good.
Here's a coconut rice recipe you can use as inspiration.
My grandmother sprinkles flour over the bacon to keep the grease from popping as much and to help make it crispy. I’m 33 and still learning from her! ❤️
My grandma taught me to sprinkle a little bit of flour on bacon. It cuts down on grease splatters, prevents the bacon from shrinking as much, and makes it extra crispy!
—Michelle Kfoury, Facebook
My great-grandfather was a baker, and this is the best trick he taught me. When you’re making a cake, after you’ve poured the batter in the cake pan, hold the pan by the edges (very carefully!) and bang it on the counter. This will help the batter spread out evenly. It also works for cupcakes, muffins, cornbread batter in little tins, and pies.
Whenever I visited my grandma I would ask her to make me scrambled eggs. I tried to make it myself but the eggs always tasted so bland. I later learned that she added fish sauce to hers to give them more flavor.
The one I never listened to until I was an adult (but should have) is: Clean as you go. You will have plenty of time to tidy up throughout the prep process and it prevents you from having a huge mess that intimidates you at the end.
If a piece of egg shell gets in the egg, use another piece of the shell to scoop it out! This works like a charm.
When I think of my grandma, I always remember breakfasts on the farm. She taught me how to fry eggs and ALWAYS kept her bacon grease. She would dice up tomatoes and onion ultra-fine and add a little bit of warm bacon grease with salt and pepper and serve that on the side with dippy eggs. She grew up during the Great Depression — so she knew lots of tricks to impart flavor into dishes cheaply.
Whenever my grandma made fried chicharrones or bacon, she would save the fat for the refried beans and cook them with that instead of butter or regular oil.
Check out all the ways to use leftover bacon fat for more ideas.
When making homemade frosting, add a little bit of powdered milk to the powdered sugar, it will make the frosting thicker and not so sickly sweet.
I was reading my very, very Italian great-grandmother's sauce recipe. On the bottom she wrote, “Will serve 20. Any more than 20 guests, buy ragù.” She loves to cook, but she wouldn’t sacrifice time with friends and family. That day I learned that’s it’s ok to take shortcuts (or flat out cheat) when it comes to cooking.
“If you burn your significant other's food on purpose every time you won’t have to cook for them anymore. At least that’s what I do with your grandfather.” 😂