11 Ina Garten Tips That Will Make You A Better Home Cook

It doesn't matter whether you're a culinary pro or just getting used to the kitchen — we all look to celebrity chefs from time to time for tips on how to improve our cooking. And when it comes to celebrity chefs, Ina Garten — known as The Barefoot Contessa — is one of the best to learn from. She's all about cooking from the heart, using simple ingredients, and enjoying time in the kitchen as much as you can.

Looking for the best way to host a smooth dinner party? Maybe you want to know what types of knives to stock in your kitchen. Either way, Garten will have a suggestion to keep you on the right track. Her tips are designed to help real cooks in the kitchen to make hearty, tasty food, rather than use some fancy techniques to try and impress.

So get your apron ready and let's look at the best tips Ina Garten has to help you become a better cook. Whether you are just cooking a midweek meal for yourself, or hosting an elegant evening, Ina has your back.

If you are relatively new to cooking, or are trying to hone your skills and take your expertise up a notch, Ina Garten has a really simple suggestion to increase your success in the kitchen. If you are trying a recipe for the first time, follow it exactly as it is written.

Most of us have been in the position where we second guess the need for a certain ingredient or want to add more of our favorite spice, but Garten advises against this, especially if you have never cooked this particular dish before. The main reason is to discover what the original dish is supposed to taste like before you make changes to it. If you are following the recipe of an experienced chef, they know what flavors go together and the quantities of each that will make the ideal blend, so to second guess them from the start seems counterproductive.

Once you have tried the recipe at least once, you can then start to play around with adding or changing ingredients to suit your own palate and make the dish your own. However, you should ideally only make one change each time, as making numerous changes will mean you don't know which one let the dish down if you don't enjoy it.

Garten herself even follows this advice, claiming that she likes to stick to the recipe each time, rather than just guessing and improvising. And if it's good enough for the Barefoot Contessa, then it's definitely okay with us.

If you have been dabbling in the kitchen for a while, you may be planning your first dinner party or inviting family round for a celebratory meal. While this will undoubtedly be a fun occasion, it can also be very stressful, and the enormity of the task likely won't hit you until you are in the kitchen, sweating and frantically stirring three pots at once, wondering if you will ever get a chance to speak to your guests.

Ina Garten has the perfect solution to the dinner party muti-tasking issue, which is to make sure to choose dishes that can be prepared in advance. The best parties have a host who is calm, organized, and can spend as much time with their guests as possible. This is more important than serving complicated dishes that need to be cooked to order.

Garten has very specific instructions on how to be as prepared as possible: Serve four different types of dishes. One that is served at room temperature, so you don't need to heat it up; one that is completely cooked in advance, even the previous day if you can; one to be cooked in the oven; and one on the stovetop.

Witht his method, you won't have to overload the oven or squeeze four huge pots onto the stove, and you'll still be able to serve four dishes or courses to your guests. And the best part? You'll feel much more relaxed, and your guests will have a better time as a result.

Eating seasonally is something we always hear that we should do, but it is easy to forget on a trip to the store, especially if you aren't aware of the benefits that come along with it. Ina Garten advises using seasonal ingredients wherever possible, as well as locally sourced if you can.

This means buying ingredients that are growing in the area you live in at that time. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that calls for buying berries at the height of summer, and pumpkins and apples in the fall. This can vary based on the climate, of course, but as a general rule, buying strawberries in the middle of winter likely means they have been imported from elsewhere.

Eating seasonal produce means you are getting the fruits and vegetables at their peak flavor, which makes it easier for you as a home cook to create a delicious dish. Garten is an advocate for keeping dishes simple and letting the ingredients shine, which is much easier to do when they are packed full of flavor. Your grocery bill will be cheaper, too, since local, seasonal produce won't need to be transported as far to make it into the shelves.

Another less-obvious benefit of seasonal produce is the increased nutrient content. When imported produce spends extended time in transportation, the nutrients decrease quickly, meaning by the time you eat it, you are not necessarily getting the health benefits you may have thought. Local, seasonal produce will still retain vitamins and minerals that make it so beneficial in the first place. Buying seasonal produce whenever you can will make a difference to the flavor, nutrition and your wallet.

When watching the likes of Alain Ducasse and Heston Blumethal on a cooking show, it can be tempting to try diving into your own kitchen to create an extravagant meal. But, in most cases, keeping your cooking simple will result in the tastiest, most accomplished dishes, rather than a complex recipe that takes hours to make, only for you to be disappointed in the end result. Ina Garten is a big fan of keeping things simple in the kitchen and letting high-quality ingredients do the talking.

Keeping the food simple can save you money in addition to reducing the stress of cooking. Complex recipes often call for unusual gadgets that will just end up gathering dust at the back of a cupboard. Instead, a classic roast chicken, seasoned to perfection and served with a few tasty side dishes, will keep all your dinner companions satisfied and take the pressure off you as chef. Plus, if you are having guests round for dinner, you can focus on spending time with them rather than working on your 38-step recipe in the kitchen all evening.

If there is one tip that is going to make cooking easier no matter how much experience you have in the kitchen, it is to choose recipes that only need one pan or one pot. The reduced washing up alone is reason enough to consider this option, but it also keeps the cooking so much more manageable.

A classic one pan option that is loved by many, including Ina Garten, is roasting chicken, potatoes, and vegetables in the same dish. As well as making cooking the dish a breeze, this method also allows the juices from the chicken to coat both the veggies and potatoes as everything cooks together, meaning it will all be packed with flavor.

The beauty of the one pan option is its versatility: you can cook meat, fish, or plant-based dishes in this hassle-free way and mix and match the veggies and carbs to suit the dish. As well as the obvious dishes such as roasts, dishes like baked sheet pan gnocchi provide a delicious variation of the usual pasta bake. By combining fresh veggies like tomatoes and bell peppers with gnocchi and fresh herbs, then drizzling with olive oil and baking, you can create a healthy, tasty, and most importantly extremely easy midweek dinner that the family will love. Plus, with only one tray to wash up afterward, post-dinner cleanup is a breeze.

Every home cook knows that homemade stock is so much better than a bouillon cube, but finding the time to let bones bubble away for hours before you can actually make your dish is not always easy. For this reason, Ina Garten recommends that you try to always have homemade stock in your freezer, ready for you to grab whenever time is of the essence.

The best time to make homemade chicken stock is after you roast a whole chicken. You can use the entire carcass, along with whatever veggies you have left over from your roast dinner, to make a flavorful broth that will be full of collagen and minerals. Simply place the chicken carcass in a large pot along with the roughly chopped vegetables and aromatics, then let it simmer away for a few hours.

Once it has cooled, pour into zip lock bags rather than the usual option of plastic tubs. You can then lie the bags flat on the freezer shelf, taking up much less room than normal. Defrost a bag of stock whenever you are making soup, stews, risotto, or any other dish where the rich chicken stock will add some flavor.

We all know that eating more fresh vegetables is a great lifestyle choice, and throwing a few portions on a salad is a quick and easy way to reap the benefits. But an undressed salad can be pretty boring, and enjoying the veggies you prepare will make it much more likely that you will keep eating them. A tangy vinaigrette is the answer to your bland leaves, and on her Instagram, Ina Garten recommends that all home cooks should learn how to make a basic vinaigrette.

The great thing about Garten's vinaigrette is that it uses ingredients you likely already have in your fridge and pantry. Fresh lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper are all you need — just mix it up well, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge until you need it for your salad. You can also customize it in whatever way you want — herbs like thyme or basil will add a freshness, whereas a drizzle of honey will give it a sweet note.

Vinaigrettes have uses beyond salads, too. You can use the same basic mixture to add brightness to roasted vegetables or fish, or as a marinade for meat. Once you have mastered the basic version, tweak it to suit whatever food you wish.

When you're choosing a chicken for your Sunday roast, you may assume that the biggest bird would be the best option, giving you more meat that can last you beyond the weekend. However, Ina Garten recommends foregoing the larger options and instead focusing on a more petite bird, if flavor is your main concern.

One of the reasons to choose a smaller chicken is that it is easier to cook the meat to perfection. With a large bird, you run the risk of the outside being fully cooked while some of the meat inside is still raw, which is unlikely to happen with a smaller variety. As the chicken cooks, the fat from the skin will be able to penetrate into the meat easily, meaning that it will be tender and tasty, even if there will be less meat than usual. As a rule, Garten likes to opt for a 4-5 pound chicken for the best balance of flavor and texture. This size of chicken will also take less time to cook, meaning that a delicious roast dinner will be on the table sooner.

When you are just starting out in the kitchen, you may want to keep your new equipment to a minimum to save money and space — for most things, anyway. Ina Garten recommends that you don't skimp when it comes to knives. Using low-quality knives can make your job in the kitchen much harder, and can also increase the chance of cutting yourself while preparing dinner.

Contrary to what you may assume, a sharp knife is less likely to result in injury to your fingers. A super sharp knife will cut through ingredients with ease, without you needing to apply much pressure. A blunt knife, on the other hand, can slip off of the ingredients you are trying to cut, onto your fingers below. The higher the quality of knife, the easier it will be to keep sharp, resulting in more efficient, and safer cooking.

You don't need to go out and spend a fortune on every type of knife, though. Start by buying one high-quality piece, then add as you become more experienced in the kitchen. Garten suggests that there are four main knives that you will need as a home cook: a serrated bread knife, a large chef's knife, a long, thin slicing knife, and a small paring knife. If you have those four knives in your collection, you've got everything you need to whip up some signature dishes.

Considering the fast-paced life that most of us lead, it can be tempting when preparing a recipe to simply dive into step one and get the cooking underway as quickly as possible. However, if you have done this in the past, you may have come across the frustration of realizing halfway through that you don't have enough of one ingredient, or that what you thought was baking soda is actually baking powder.

To avoid this culinary disaster, Ina Garten recommends getting all of the ingredients ready before you actually begin to cook. Work through the ingredients list in your recipe, measuring out each item accurately into a small bowl, until you have all of the ingredients prepared and ready to combine into your masterpiece. Known in French as "mise en place," this procedure is used in professional kitchens to keep the cooking process streamlined and simple. The other advantage is that it gets the difficult prep work out of the way at the beginning, meaning you can relax and enjoy the rest of the cook. This is especially important if you are entertaining a number of guests, as you can reduce the stress of the evening by preparing as much in advance as possible.

Arguably Ina Garten's most important piece of advice for home cooks is to have fun while you prepare the food, especially if you are cooking for guests. If you enjoy yourself in the kitchen, cooking will become a joy, rather than a chore, and you are more likely to keep doing it in the long term. Garten believes that cooking is a way to connect with others, and if you aren't having fun, your guests will be able to tell.

The best way to enjoy cooking is to follow one of Garten's earlier tips and keep things as simple as you can to avoid putting undue pressure on yourself. Whether you are cooking for your immediate family or a group of friends, they are not expecting you to serve up a Michelin-level six course meal. In most cases, they are looking forward to a casual evening with great company and food that is full of flavor. Garten recommends that you never try a new recipe when hosting a dinner party, as the repercussions of getting it wrong are too great. Instead, stick to tried and true recipes that you know well can cook with confidence. So turn some music on while you cook and have fun whipping your favorite dishes, knowing that you are going to have a relaxed and enjoyable evening.