9 Ways To Learn To Love Cooking

Cooking does not have to be a dreaded task. Instead you can learn to love cooking. These 9 tips will help make your time in the kitchen fun and interesting.

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It has taken me a long time to learn that food can be fun. 

I graduated college having no idea how to cook. My parents bought me a George Foreman grill to sit on the kitchen counter in my little apartment right out of college and I was terrified of using it. 

My idea of a gourmet meal was boiling some pasta and topping it with a strained can of minestrone soup. I thought it was genius. 

Food was just something I had to eat, I had to try and eat healthy, and I had to not overspend on groceries that would go bad. I did not enjoy cooking or researching recipes because I felt like it took way too long and I had no idea what I was doing. 

Now, I love cooking. I love researching new recipes, combining a few of my favorites, and seeing what happens. 

I enjoy trying new dishes, experimenting with new flavors, and taking a few timid steps into new cooking techniques. 

To go from being a beginner cook with zero experience and a serious lack of interest to someone who cooks every night and actively looks at new recipes took some time, but I would much rather be in this place with my kitchen prowess. 

These are the few suggestions I have for you if you want to learn to love to cook instead of continuing to dread it. 

Experiment Without Fear 

You can always order pizza or have chips and salsa, so stop being afraid to try something you have never done before. You might just make a new family favorite! 

Though I highly caution against quinoa walnut taco meat. My husband is incredibly stoic and ate it, but he would have been much happier to toss it and go with just about anything else. 

Try to Recreate Restaurant Favorites 

Rob and I were eating at a restaurant on a very rare night out (we cook at home 99% of the time) and I realized I could easily make the fish tacos I was eating by myself. I gave it a try the next week and Mahi Mahi Wraps with Mango quickly became a family favorite. 

Join a CSA 

Having an unknown amount and type of produce coming in every week forced me to get creative with what I was making. I had to research new foods and what to do with them, which gave me an introduction to the world of recipes and forced me to cook new foods. 

I used Bountiful Baskets as my CSA while living in Arizona and absolutely loved it. It was a serious amount of produce each week and I would force myself to use it all before the next basket arrived. This was an excellent weight loss tool as well!

Use A Meal Plan 

There are tons of meal plans online you can access for free (or paid) based on your dietary preferences. Try using a few of them for a couple of weeks to see what cooking in a different style is like. Plus, the meals are already planned for you, which makes your weekly to do list shorter. 

I meal plan every single week. When I do not, the nutritional value of our meals seriously declines. 

Not sure how to start meal planning to make it actually work for your lifestyle and schedule? Take the Healthy Meal Plans, Confident Meal Prep course and learn exactly how to meal prep in a step by step guide. Plus, you will learn how to build a healthier plate and how to meal prep with just 20 minutes a day. 

Ask For A Challenge 

Make it a fun date night to have your spouse pick out five ingredients from the store that you have to use in a dish. You could even do the same for him! Not only does this add a little extra excitement to dinner, but it gives you a challenge of cooking with some random items you may not have normally chosen yourself. 

Rob and I did this as a date night once and seriously had a blast. Have the fun was wandering the grocery store to pick the most obscure items we could find for each other. 

Host a Meal Exchange 

A few years ago, I hosted a freezer meals exchange party. Everyone signed up for the types of dishes they were bringing ahead of time, came over for cocktails and chatting, and everyone left with 10 freezer friendly meals for the days ahead. 

It was such a fun way to gather everyone together and to try out new meals that I never would have thought to put together. 

Before you host a meal exchange yourself, make sure you get Freezer Feasts. This ebook gives you 40 freezer friendly recipes that are delicious, healthier, and easy to make with the included shopping lists. 

Start A Recipe Binder

For years, there have been post it notes scattered around the house of various recipes I saw and wrote down. There are now many screenshots on my phone of recipes I do not want to lose. 

Guess what? 

I lost them into the endless picture scroll of my children that is now my camera roll. 

I started a recipe binder. Finally. 

It contains a master list of dishes the whole family will eat (and the ones only I prefer) in addition to the recipes themselves. It is quickly becoming my go to place to look for inspiration and I love adding new meals to it. 

Involve the Kids 

Getting dinner on the table in the middle of the witching hour can feel like a serious feat. I find that if I involve the kids in the cooking like mixing, pouring, or just standing next to me while I explain, they do better with the pre-dinner meltdowns. 

Raddish Kids does an excellent job of making including your kids in the kitchen super easy. You can read my review of Raddish Kids here, or you can grab your own Raddish Kids box to try for yourself here. 

Be Honest With Yourself 

If there is something you do not enjoy cooking, then do not keep trying to make meals with it. I am not the best at handling meat and generally do not enjoy seasoning it, marinating it, or defrosting it. However, give me a vegetarian dish challenge and I am on it (see quinoa walnut taco meat). 

Need some more recipe inspiration? Snag Freezer Feasts to not only fuel your cooking fire, but to fill your freezer for those busy nights when dinner seems almost impossible to get on the table.