Picture this: you’re scrolling on Pinterest looking for recipe inspiration. You come across a promising meal, so you click on it. As you skim through the recipe, though, it’s flooded with unfamiliar and intimidating cooking terms that cause you to lose interest.
Ultimately, you decide you don’t have what it takes to cook it, so you leave the page making a mental note you don’t have enough kitchen creds for a recipe like that.
Today, we’re going to help you break that cycle! Whether you’re new to the kitchen or consider yourself a seasoned chef, keep this cooking terms guide close to help ace every recipe and perfect your technique.
Why Do Cooking Terms Matter?
It can be scary getting in the kitchen for the first time. But all great cooks have to start somewhere! Learning these basic cooking terms can help improve your recipe comprehension, your confidence in the kitchen, and the food you’re putting on the table.
Breaking Down Cooking Techniques
There are so many different ways to prepare food on the stovetop or in the oven. Most rely on the same processes, but depend on different temperatures.
Stovetop Methods
The first set of cooking terms we’re going to cover are methods that are done on the stove. Here’s what you need to know:
Sautéing vs. Frying
Sautéing is a dry-heat cooking method that cooks the food using direct heat from the pan. This process uses minimal fat (oil, butter, etc) to keep the food from sticking to the pan.
Frying is another dry-heat cooking method that requires more fat. Using this method, the food is cooked via heat transfer from the fat to food instead of pan to food. Essentially, the pan acts as a vessel to hold and warm the oil while the oil actually does the cooking.
There are 2 types of frying: shallow- and deep-frying. Each method requires a different amount of oil. When a recipe calls for a shallow-fry, use only enough oil to cover about half of the food’s height. A deep-fry, however, requires full submersion, so the oil should fully cover the food.
Searing vs. Browning
Searing is a method used to caramelize the outer layer of foods quickly at a high heat. It’s a popular cooking method for meats because it creates a crispy, brown crust on the outside, but maintains a moist, juicy texture on the inside.
Browning is another popular method for cooking meat. Unlike searing, the brown cooking definition instructs the food to be cooked at a medium-high temperature for a longer time.
The biggest differences between these culinary terms are temperature and time. Since searing requires cooking on high for only a few minutes on each side, thick pieces of meat often aren’t cooked to completion.
Keeping food on the stovetop at a high heat for too long can burn the outer crust and dry out the interior. In those cases, you’ll need to follow searing up with another cooking method like braising or baking for that meat to fully cook and stay tender.
The browning method cooks the food to completion each time. The biggest mistake beginners can make while browning is using the wrong temperature. Too much heat can burn the food’s exterior, searing the meat instead of browning it. Aside from taking longer, too little heat will result in a soggy exterior.
Deglazing and Reducing
In the process of searing or browning, there are pieces of the food that naturally get stuck to the pan. Those small bits can pack a mighty flavor, so we don’t want them to go to waste.
Deglazing is the process of loosening and scraping those pieces from the pan. It’s done by adding about a cup of liquid — broth, stock, alcohol, juice, etc. — to your hot pan. As the liquid boils, it breaks apart the food particles to help you scrape the surface clean and save all of that delicious flavor.
After deglazing, you can make a simple sauce by reducing the liquid. Lower the temperature to a simmer and cook your deglazing liquid until it’s thickened to your desired consistency.
The process is appropriately named “reducing” because you’ll notice the volume of the liquid in your pan will become visibly smaller the longer it cooks. While simmering, some of that liquid evaporates, causing the gravy to thicken and the amount of the liquid to shrink.
So when a recipe writes “simmer until reduced by ½,” this means continue simmering what’s in your pan until its volume has decreased to about half its original size.
Finish your reduction sauce or gravy with some cream or cold butter to pull all of the flavors together before you serve!
Boiling vs. Simmering vs. Blanching
Boiling is a moist-heat method that involves cooking foods in hot liquid. (Usually, water does the trick, but broths, stocks, or even sauces are some alternatives if you’re looking for additional flavor.)
Like boiling, simmering is a moist-heat method that follows the same process, but at a lower temperature. Boiling occurs at 212℉ while simmering happens between 170 – 205℉.
If you don’t have a cooking thermometer to monitor the exact heat of your pot, the bubbles can give you a good idea of the liquid’s temperature. Boiling liquid will have larger, more vigorous bubbles, whereas simmering pots will produce smaller and slower bubbling.
Blanching is another moist-heat, stove-top method to note. It’s less common than boiling or simmering, but it’s a great method for cooking vegetables so they keep some crunch.
To blanch your food, bring a pot of water to a boil and then add your vegetables for a few minutes. (Try 1-2 minutes for leafy greens, 1-3 for small vegetables, and 3-5 for larger vegetables.) Remove them from the boiling water and immediately cool them in an ice bath.
This stops the cooking process so that when you cook them later on, they’ll maintain some of their shape and texture instead of resulting in a sad, soggy cooked vegetable.
Braising vs. Stewing
Braising is a unique dry- and moist-heat cooking method that is achieved by dry searing followed by simmering in a small layer of liquid. It’s often used to cook a thick slab of meat on low for hours to prevent it from drying out.
Stewing is another slow-cook method that cooks foods using liquid-heat. Unlike braising, however, stewing requires foods to be fully submerged in the liquid to cook.
If you’ve learned anything up to this point, you might be thinking: isn’t that just simmering? And the answer is two-fold.
Stewing is different from simmering because it’s a much longer process, but it does use the same method of cooking over a medium-low temperature. So by that classification, stewing could be considered a form of simmering.
Oven Methods
Not all items can be cooked on the stovetop, so your recipe might call for baking, roasting, or broiling. These are oven methods that rely on the heat inside your oven to cook your dish.
Baking vs. Roasting vs. Broiling
Like all of the stovetop cooking terms we’ve defined above, the difference between baking, roasting, and broiling is the oven’s temperature.
Baking cooks food using moderate temperatures, usually between 200 – 375℉. Roasting uses higher temperatures, between 400 – 475℉. In both of these methods, the food cooks via “all-around” heating.
If you peek inside, you’ll probably notice 2 long, coily pieces of metal attached to the top and bottom of your oven. These are called the “broil element” and “bake element,” respectively. When baking or roasting your dish, both of these elements produce heat, which allows the food to cook equally on the top, bottom, and sides.
Broiling occurs at even higher temperatures, usually between 500 – 575℉. Unlike its lower-temperature counter-methods, only the oven’s top coil produces heat which cooks the food using a “top-down” approach. Many recipes use broiling to brown or crisp the tops of dishes to give them that beautiful, golden brown color.
Cooking Covered vs. Uncovered
Most recipes will specify if your dish should be cooked covered or uncovered in the oven. But if it doesn’t, it’s up to you to decide.
Covering your food in the oven will help block some of the harshness of the heat from the broil element, allowing your dish to continue to cook without the top browning too quickly. If a little browning or crispiness is what you’re trying to achieve, cook uncovered.
Generally speaking, baking can be achieved covered or uncovered, but roasting is best achieved uncovered.
We hope this resource helped make some intimidating cooking terms less scary. Up next, we recommend getting familiar with some of the common foods you’ll be cooking with, like types of potatoes and their uses, types of onions and their uses, and even which fruits and vegetables are in peak season throughout the year.
With these methods in your cookbook, we hope you have the confidence to start trying some new recipes!
