Ask HN: What kitchen/cooking hacks that have been really effective for you?

Be able to sharpen a knife and always have at least one really sharp knife.

Learn how to cut/chop efficiently.

Pixian Douban Jiang - This is the flavor you were looking for:

https://blog.themalamarket.com/pixian-chili-bean-paste-douba...

Measure by weight, use a thermometer.

Make stock. Decent stock is one of the secrets to really good cooking, but it is not available in stores (at least in the US). Whenever you have poultry or pork scraps or bones or whatever, cooked or raw, save them in a bag in the freezer. Dumpster dive a KFC if need be ;). When you have a lot, put it all into a big kettle, cover with water, add 1TB vinegar and a pinch of salt. Bring just briefly to a boil, then put it in a 200F oven uncovered overnight. Then screen out the bones and glop. Chill the stock overnight so you can skim the fat off. It should be like chicken Jello at this point. Freeze it. Season as needed at time of use.

Realizing how much money and time can be saved cooking rice and beans.

Good tip make “sofrito” ahead of time (puree peppers, onions, cilantro, garlic) and freeze it in an ice tray so it is already portioned and ready for when you cook.

Rice and beans takes about 20 min to make without much effort, and is pretty nutritious. Not to mention you can eat for dollars a day.

Edit: My grandmother used to feed the whole family for less than $20. And most of that cost is in meat.

A few of my own:

1. Keep a stick of butter at room temperature in a closed container. It doesn't seem to go bad (at least not if you use it within a couple of months) and it's so much more spreadable.

2. Use the broiler in your oven. It makes food taste similar to if you'd grilled it. (This might not be a "hack," since it's just working as intended.)

3. Make buttered (or olive oiled) toast in the broiler. Put on the butter in advance, then broil until it's golden brown. That way the fat soaks through.

4. Clean your blender by blending water and detergent.

5. Make bland coffee taste better by adding cinnamon to the grounds before you brew it.

6. Use your stale bread for making french toast instead of throwing it out. This is how french toast was invented, I think, but it might not be obvious that you can do this.

- chopping (onions):

- - Cut with a big, sharp knife, use your knuckles for alignment so you don't cut yourself.

- - Cut one direction, but don't worry about retaining the shape for the next cross-cut. Roughly align the stick-shapes after the first cut (spread out in to a longer line if too much to handle) and do the 2nd cut. It's not so bothersome if some onion pieces are not perfectly square, for things to cook evenly only the thinnest dimension matters and this is way faster than doing things carefully.

- cut tomatoes slightly off-center and you only have to remove 1 green spot (actually just not through the "poles", still through the center)

- sharpening a knife without a tool: use the underside edge of a cup or plate, it is usually not coated and works fine for sharpening.

- rather than cutting everything beforehand, I'm not afraid to take e.g. the onions out of the pan to fry the next vegetable and than mix it back to together at the end. (if you need to clean the pan, de-glaze it with a sup of water)

- don't be afraid to add water when things get to dry!

- use enough fat, makes everything taste better (especially important for vegan stuff)

- rescue boring improvised sauces by adding: ginger, chili, cilantro, soy-sauce

- make pasta sauce less thin by pouring in a bit of the pasta-water

- tomato sauce: cheat with tomato paste if you don't want to boil/simmer it down for very long.

- avocados: Take out the kernel by hitting it with the knife (like laying an axe to rest in a block of wood) and twisting (but don't hit too hard or it will become hard to get it off the knife). Use the biggest, roundest spoon you can find for peeling.

Freeze herbs - most herbs will retain flavor. I've used rosemary, thyme and lemongrass as old as 6 months.

Ginger becomes really easy to grate if its frozen. So stick it in the freezer.

Add freshly crushed Cardamom, saffron and pistachios to vanilla ice-cream. Orgasmic.

Whack a garlic clove with the back of the knife. It will peel instantly.

Put a lid on to boil faster (~10-15% faster in my experience)

Add butter to Italian red sauce. Secret of an old manhattan italian restaurant, there was a NYTimes or NewYorker article on this famous italian diner in NY and their secret was - butter.

Use cookbooks as inspiration for your own concoction. Use the ingredients you have, don't measure and be creative. It's more fun and less work-like (i.e. no treasure hunts for random ingredients) and cheaper. Note: this method doesn't work well for breads, cakes, soufflés and other precise baking recipes.

Have a meal plan and make a list before you go shopping.

Don't go shopping when you are hungry.

It's OK to regularly cook and eat the same meals.

Dried pasta is as good as fresh pasta.

You don't need much in the way of equipment, one sharp knife, one pairing knife and one serrated knife will cover most things.

Dried herbs don't last long, especially if you leave them exposed to light.

Don't put bread in the fridge, it ruins the taste. This also applies to fruit and veg although what you do will depend on your climate.

8 sticks of unsalted butter, a small dutch oven, medium heat, and ~40 minutes gives you fantastic ghee which can be eaten by lactose intolerant folks. Strain the resulting liquid through some cheese cloth into a mason jar and set it aside to cool down. We use it as a replacement for butter.

Freezer cooking. Once every 4-6 months you prep about 50 meals and freeze them. Then pull them out as needed and use slow cooker. There are sites like https://www.laurengreutman.com/category/blog/aldi-meal-plans... that help do this.

We got an instant pot a few years back, and now we use that. Besides replacing the slow cooker, the pressure cooker function of it can cook a frozen meal in 30 minutes instead of 8 hours.

Shopping and cooking for one can be a hassle. I was surprised to learn how convenient it is to buy larger portions, cut them up, and freeze them in baggies. My freezer has a row of chicken, one of beef, and one of shrimp along with piles of baggies of snow peas, water chestnuts, and broccoli. I keep a baggie of chopped onion and sometimes one of green pepper in the fridge door. Added a microwave and life was way simpler.

These all fall in the "buy restaurant stuff" category:

1. Cheap stainless steel prep bowls. [0] They're just $1-$3 each, so you can get enough that you never have to hunt for a bowl while chopping or cooking. Get a bunch of little ones, a few 3 or 4 quarts, and a couple of big ones for making salads.

2. Big square graduated plastic containers, for storage and transport of liquids. [1]

3. Universal pot lid. [2] Use this to cover any pan to finish or hold proteins or veg, or steam reheat starches.

4. Cheap spring-steel tongs [3] Get at least three, they're $2 each – use 'em for everything. Much less fussy than the hinged tongs.

5. Sous vide, as mentioned above – I like the Anova.

6. Shoulder tenders. This is the cut of beef from the teres majer muscle often sold in restaurants as the "petite filet" – because it is as tender as filet mignon, more flavorful, and much cheaper. Sous vide at 128F for 2 hours, sear and eat.

[0] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/3-qt-standard-weight-stainl... [1] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/4-qt-clear-square-polycarbo... [2] http://amzn.com/B000GHKIDG [3] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/12-stainless-steel-black-sc...

Good quality equipment especially a good stand mixer, food processor and stainless steel everything helps a lot.

Shop at Sam's club or costco and potion large items ahead of time.

Plan menu items that can be prepared in individual servings like a restaurant so everyone can have what they want for dinner with little hassle.

The above tips let me run a family of 5 for about $300 per month food budget while serving delicious foods.

The Chef-Steps Facebook messenger bot https://www.messenger.com/t/Chefsteps is very useful for anyone with a Sous-vide machine. You can use it to quickly look up time / temperature settings.

It's not really a "hack" but getting a Sous-vide machine has probably been the biggest game changer for me. Being able to "perfectly" cook steaks/seafood at home with great ease is fantastic. Probably saved me hundreds of £££ over the past few years as I eat out a lot less now.

You can get a lot done with a good stir fry pan, knife, and cutting board. I'd invest in quality versions of those 3 before anything else.

I just got an InstantPot - so far it lives up to the hype. I've made chili, Thai curry 2x, rice, and hardboiled eggs so far, and they've all turned out fantastically, and all in under 30 minutes.

Find your favorite flavor combinations and work them into your meals. I love the combination of lime and salt, so I'll use that in rice, salads, stir fries, etc.

Sriracha/Cholula/insert your favorite hot sauce can save an otherwise bland dish.

On lazy weeks, I buy one of those big boxes of fresh mixed greens, a rotisserie chicken, and some guacamole. Then I make a big salad for each day of the week with just those ingredients. It's cheap, tastes good, and is on point nutritionally.

I just switched from cooking with olive oil to avocado oil. It has a higher smoke point and maintains its fat profile in high temps, and I haven't noticed a difference in taste/quality.

Mostly ordering carryout and saving the time of cooking.

When I do cook, I opt for pre-prepped ingredients if possible.

This thread reminds me of a similar one entitled something like "What are your food hacks?" that I saw on HN years ago.

I did a quick search for that thread on hn.algolia.com so that I could post the link, but did not find it, maybe because their data collection does not go back that far.

One of the comments in it that I found interesting was by PG, who wrote about how to cook rice and beans, to save on costs.

Wasn't just about the costs, was interesting otherwise too.

E.g. (after the prep) put the stuff in the cooker, and forget about it :)

Was reminded of it by both the thread subject and by this comment by navd in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16144700

Use plastic bags or containers to keep vegetables fresh in the fridge. Things like carrots dry out in no time in a fridge but stay usable for weeks if you simply keep them in a plastic bag. I've thrown away vegetables for years before figuring this out.

When using green chillies in Indian gravy (i.e. wet) dishes, instead of adding and cooking them in the traditional way, try slicing them on both sides longitudinally (also remove heads and tips), and then add them to the dish somewhere in the middle or near the end of cooking. I discovered this technique while experimenting, and found that the resulting taste of the dish differs from the traditional use of chillies. It gives more of a good flavor and less of heat / spiciness.

Using a digital thermometer (dual probe) to monitor the actual temperature of the food. An instant-read digital thermometer is also handy. It is a game-changer for meat preparation. Although the best (Thermoworks) are circa $100 you because they have larger displays and read times of only 2 seconds, you can get a circa $15 one now with 4 to 5 second read times which is good enough most of the time.

A vitamix blender is the best thing I've ever purchased. I don't really care for eating salads, but I try to eat healthy. So I will blend combinations of the following: greens, apple, celery, cucumber, oranges, lemon, ginger, frozen pineapple, and frozen mango, and plain protein. Wakes me up better than coffee, and keeps me full till lunch.

Uncooked corn cobs snap easily in half. There is no need to get out a knife, which is a huge pain and does a lot of collateral damage to the corn. Just break it in two with your bare hands before cooking.

Potatoes are a staple food that you can nearly live on with nothing else. Keeping easy to cook versions of them on hand that you can add a little something to makes it easy to throw together a fresh, healthy meal.

Easy to cook versions include various forms of frozen potatoes, like hash browns and potatoes O'Brien, plus fresh ones that need little prep, like new potatoes or other varieties that basically need to be washed, but not peeled.

Hash browns plus potatoes O'Brien plus an egg or something is a way to have non boring potatoes with a bit of veggies and protein. New potatoes plus frozen chicken plus butter and spices can be baked together for a simple, no hassle meal.

When you feel and chop aromatic items like onions, garlic it peppers, run the wastes through the disposal. It help kill stuff growing in the disposal.

Your disposal blades can be sharpened by putting a mixture of cold water and ice through it. Be careful to not overload it with too much ice at one time.

If you use coconut oil, it can be kept in a liquid state by storing on a warm spot on the counter. If your fridge is next to a counter, the heat coming off the back can help create a warm spot.

I have been told, but not tried it: If you want a butter like spread and don't want margarine, you can store olive oil in the fridge to get it to firm up and make it spreadable.

If you have only ever had canned pineapple and you think it is gross, try actual fresh pineapple. You may finally understand the appeal. If you live on the West Coast, whole fresh pineapple is typically available at a reasonable price most if the year.

If you have a George Foreman grill, a nice meal to grill on it is a small steak, a thick slab of yam and a thick slab of fresh pineapple. You can also grill some onion with it if you like.

When you make spaghetti, don't bother to try to figure out how much noodles you need. Just make the entire thing of noodles. Cold leftover noodles with Parmesan cheese and some apple slices is yummy. Or you can fry the noodles up with an egg.

If you like homemade pizza but you don't make it often and are sick of throwing out gross, moldy mozzarella that never got used, use Parmesan instead of mozzarella for your pizza. It keeps better.

Pizza can be a source of veggies. Fresh chopped pineapple, onion and green or red peppers goes great with a little pepperoni.

Rinse grapes as soon as you get them home and pull them off the stem. They will keep for up to a week without getting all gross and mushy.

Celery can be kept fresh by standing it in a glass of ice water in the fridge.

Do not store apples and potatoes together. They rot faster if you do.

If you like bananas, get a banana hook to hang them from. It really makes a difference in how well they keep.

Cooking for one? Freeze small steaks in ones and twos in ziploc bags. Thaw them in minutes in a bowl of warm water in the sink.

You can ask your butcher to cut a thick London broil into very thin breakfast steaks. They will cook super fast and make it a breeze to throw together a light meal.

Always stir fry some finely chopped onions and garlic before putting anything else

Use steam bags. My lunch today: i cut a largish potato in 8 slices, put a bit of salt, steamed it for 7 min in a steam bag in the microwave, then ate it with some sour cream and riccotta cheese.

- use induction cook top with preset timers for boiling milk

- use induction cook top with preset timers for preparing rice.

- use food processor to prepare dough

- use two induction cook tops for parallel processing.

total meal preparation time 20 mins.

The night before a chicken bbq, add in a tablespoon of yogurt to your marinating spices. It helps the chicken stay much more moist.

Quickly peel an egg by tapping it on and rolling it over the table first so that the shell breaks into small pieces.

Hit a pomegranate with a mallet or bang it on the counter before opening. This will loosen most of the seeds.

Just order takeaways if you can get healthy meals there or try recipe boxes with ready to use ingredients.

Using Scissors to cut chilies, herbs is easy and effective compared to using a knife.

Grow herbs in your house, it is easy

Add taco seasoning to your scrambled eggs. It will make a delicious breakfast burrito that way.

I'm starting doing this today https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-eat-rice-without-... Already cooked the first batch

And yes I know that reducing the calories of a staple food is the very definition of a First World Problem...