- Recipes
updated Nov 28, 2023
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When you first start cooking it’s natural and tempting to work on the beautiful, complicated recipes you see in fancy cookbooks. What you soon discover, however, is that cooking has a lot of building blocks. Your favorite chicken tikka masala recipe, for instance, will benefit from you having previously made a simple dish of chicken thighs. So, let’s start with essentials!
Here’s what we think everyone should cook before they reach the age of 30. How many things have you made off this list?
What someone should cook before a certain age, obviously, has a lot to do with their diet. If you’re vegan, gluten-free, or have food allergies, your list of must-make recipes is going to look a little different than this list.
I personally have a few years until I’m 30, and I’ve only made 24 things off this list. Since I’ve gotten into cooking, I haven’t had access to a grill – so that leaves out the grilled burgers and steak. Will have to rectify that situation!
In This Article
- Sauces, Vinaigrettes, and Dips
- Essential Breakfast
- Essential Meat Recipe
- Classic Comfort Food Dinners
- Essential Dessert Recipes and Breads
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Sauces, Vinaigrettes, and Dips
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Marcella Hazan's Amazing 4-Ingredient Tomato Sauce
When it comes to essentials, like tomato sauce, originality is overrated. Marcella Hazan’s classic tomato sauce is famous and adored, and justly so. Scads of bloggers and food writers have written about it, so I’m just following along. This is one of the best sauces I know, and it only needs four (yes, four) ingredients.
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Guacamole Recipe (Easy, With Jalapeño and Lime Juice)
The most important element for guacamole is ripe avocados. They should give easily when squeezed (gently!). Underripe avocados make for bland, chewy guacamole. On the other hand, you shouldn’t feel any air pockets beneath the skin; this usually indicates the avocados are overripe.
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Hummus from Scratch
Skip the store-bought stuff — making it yourself is so easy and will be far tastier.
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Balsamic Vinaigrette
Balsamic vinaigrette will take you far in life. This is made just with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and the balsamic adds just the right touch of sweetness when tossed with salad greens.
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Perfect Pesto
Spread it on sandwiches, toss it with pasta, or treat yourself a single happy spoonful, but definitely absolutely positively make pesto any chance you get.
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Whipped Cream
How to make whipped cream from scratch, with tips for the best kind of cream to use.
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Essential Breakfast
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Boil Eggs Perfectly Every Time
A perfect, foolproof way to make boiled eggs perfectly every single time, with timing and methods for both hard boiled and soft boiled eggs.
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French Omelette
A good omelette is soft and custard-like, golden yellow and best eaten while still hot from the skillet. Here's an easy recipe you can make at home.
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Mushroom-Asparagus Frittata
It’s a one-skillet meal that’s easy to clean up, and with the perfect combination of protein and vegetables, it’s absolutely satisfying and delicious. Frittatas are great for cleaning out the crisper, but one of my favorite veggie combos is savory mushrooms, crunchy asparagus, feta cheese, and fresh thyme.
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Lofty Buttermilk Pancakes
Pancakes get high marks for being one of the most comforting of comfort foods. What this means is that everybody has their family favorite, resulting in thousands of recipes to choose from. But here’s one with a unique twist, a shortcut actually, that hands-down produces the best pancakes I have ever made.
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Essential Meat Recipe
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Roast a Perfect Chicken
Learn the simplest, easiest method for roasting a chicken at home.
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Salmon is one of the most versatile proteins to work with in the kitchen. It’s delicious and universally loved, quite good for you, and very easy to prepare.
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Lemon Thyme Chicken Thighs
A quick and easy recipe for crispy, skillet-cooked chicken thighs seasoned simply with fresh lemon and thyme.
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The easiest recipe for tender, juicy pork chops that turn out perfectly every time. All you need? Cast iron skillet and your oven. No brining necessary!
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Grill Really Juicy Burgers
When it comes to backyard burgers off the grill, we all want the same thing: a tender and juicy burger that we can really sink our teeth into.
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Grill Perfect Steak
A step-by-step method for perfect steak on the grill, including how to achieve maximum flavor, a gorgeous crust, and an evenly cooked interior every time.
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Classic Comfort Food Dinners
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A Fantastic Grilled Cheese Sandwich
The perfect grilled cheese sandwich is a pursuit that has consumed many of us. Here is our contribution to the quest.
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This is as classic as it gets, just cheese sauce and pasta, baked in a casserole dish until golden-topped and bubbly.
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Soup from Any Vegetable
If you are craving soup and you have vegetables and broth in your cupboard, you’re all set. Here’s a step-by-step guide to transforming nearly any kind of vegetable into delicious, nourishing soup.
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Very Good Chili
There are a million and one ways to make chili. All of them are excellent and all of them are sure to satisfy a large crowd of hungry people. Whether you like your chili with ground meat or chuck roast, pinto beans or no beans at all, the basic method for making it is the same. Want to make a very good pot of chili? Here’s how.
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Pork Stir-Fry with Asparagus and Sugar Snap Peas
Stir-fries aren’t usually the well-edited dishes you think about and shop for in advance. They are frequently renegade, use-up-what’s-in-the-fridge meals, which is part of their charm. But not so with this recipe. I chose these particular ingredients deliberately, picking up pork tenderloin for a mid-week treat and adding lots of fresh spring vegetables for crunch.
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Pizza at Home
Making homemade pizza from prepared dough is a quick and easy dinner any night of the week. Even making your own dough only really adds a few minutes to the prep time! Pile on your favorite toppings and get ready to chow down.
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Cook Perfect Rice (3 Ways)
From long-grain white rice to basmati or jasmine, learn how to cook up a pot of stunningly simple, tender, and fluffy rice on the stovetop.
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Essential Dessert Recipes and Breads
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Chocolate Chip Cookies
What’s better than chocolate chip cookies? Chocolate chip cookie dough in your freezer that’s ready to go whenever a cookie craving hits. Here's how to freeze it?
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Banana Bread
Here is a very basic and delicious recipe for delicious banana bread that takes all of 10 minutes to mix together. No mixer needed!
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Blueberry Pie
Our no-frills recipe for a classic blueberry pie lets you enjoy the berries in all their summery glory.
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The Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
The best cut-out sugar cookies you can make! A delicious dough, with tips for cutting out pretty shapes and easy decorating.
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No-Knead Bread
This loaf is the simplest bread we know how to bake at home and it requires no stand mixer, no starter, no special knowledge, and no kneading.
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Chocolate Layer Cake
Each cook has decided preferences when it comes to his ideal chocolate cake, but they usually fall somewhere on the spectrum of Colwin’s three types: flourless, fudgy, and cocoa.
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Bittersweet Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting
Valentine’s meal is not complete without a bit of chocolate. Here we end with chocolate in the form of a rich, fudgy brownie topped with a whipped peanut butter frosting and finished with flaked salt to tame the sweetness and round out all the flavors.
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