9 Common Cooking Mistakes and How to Fix Them

A crowded pan is a recipe for soggy disaster. While it may be tempting to cram as many veggies as you can onto a sheet pan, this will increase moisture - and cause your food to steam rather than brown. Give your ingredients room to breathe when roasting, frying, sautéing or sautéing. This way, they can turn perfectly golden brown.

When you add pasta to boiling water, the pasta absorbs some of the water as it cooks. If you do not salt the water, the food will remain bland. However, if you salt the water, the pasta will be flavored from the inside out, which is a sure way to great pasta. If you are wondering how much salt you should add to the water, the answer is: more than you think! Italians will tell you that water should be "as salty as the sea," and while that's a charming exaggeration, it's not that far from the truth. Most of the salt you add is lost in the water. So to make sure some of it ends up in the pasta, you need to be generous.

The pasta cooking water contains starch, which helps bind the pasta and sauce together and makes the sauce silkier. Plus, it's already salted, so it's more flavorful than regular water. So the next time you cook pasta, save 1/2 cup of the cooking water to use in the sauce.

When you rinse the noodles, they are deprived of the starch that you need to make your sauce extra silky and delicious. You should only rinse the pasta if you are making a pasta salad or using it in a stir-fry.

One of the most common mistakes novice cooks make is under-seasoning their food. To make sure your food is properly seasoned, add salt and pepper throughout the cooking process rather than at the very end.

Salt gets most of the attention when it comes to properly seasoned food, but acidity is just as important. Acidity is often what separates a good dish from a great dish. A squeeze of lemon or vinegar at the end of a dish is enough to make savory dishes - like chili or stew - even more delicious. The acid adds a subtle (but valuable) layer of depth and flavor.

Some meats are great for slow cooking, while others need to be cooked quickly over high heat. Make sure you buy the right cut of meat for your purposes and if in doubt, ask your butcher for tips.

Non-stick pans are perfect for eggs - whether omelets, scrambled or fried - and things like pancakes and crepes. But they are not so good for much else, mainly because they can not get as hot as other pans and their heat distribution is not always even. If you are going to fry something or cook it at an even heat for a long period of time, you'll want to ditch the non-stick coating.

There are several reasons why you should almost always preheat your pan before adding your ingredients. For example, if you want to sear a piece of meat, a lukewarm pan defeats its purpose and prevents you from searing it evenly. (Plus, your meat might then stick to the pan).
A hot pan also helps with evaporation: when you add vegetables to the pan, they lose some of their moisture. If the pan is hot enough, the moisture will evaporate, but if not, it will stay in the pan and steam the vegetables you were going to sauté.