Simple Cooking Tips Easy and quick to do

July 24, 2026

Learn some easy to do cooking tips from an expert.

Ben Lippett’s career began in restaurant kitchens, including a year-long stint at Jackson Boxer’s Orasay in West London, but it properly took off during his two years as a recipe developer for Mob Kitchen, the online food platform.

He has just released his first book, How I Cook, a kitchen encyclopaedia full of lessons, tips, tricks and recipes with one intention: to help anyone become a really good home cook.

Here, Lippett, 31, sets out the top nine skills every foodie needs to know.

Master the perfect French omelette

This French omelette is for true egg lovers: a soft, buttery layer of gently cooked egg with fine herbs, folded around a delicate, creamy centre. Temperature control is key—cook it without browning, and if the pan gets too hot, lift it off the heat for a moment.

Use a good non-stick pan and cook the eggs over medium heat until they form a very soft scramble. Gently shake the pan to spread the eggs evenly and let the base set. Lower the heat, wait 30 seconds, then fold the omelette, slide it onto a plate, and serve.

Get your salad dressings right

A salad dressing should taste a little saltier and sharper than you want on its own, because the water in the vegetables will dilute it. While a 3:1 ratio of fat to acid is common, I prefer a more assertive mix: roughly equal parts mustard for body and emulsifying power, citrus juice or vinegar for brightness, and honey for balance, finished with a generous amount of fat. Season early—ideally before adding the oil—since salt dissolves poorly in fat.

Make a great chicken stock 

Making stock is a lot like making tea: both rely on infusion. Roast a few flavourful ingredients to develop deep, caramelised notes, then steep them in warm water. My preferred version is chicken wing stock. It may seem excessive to buy chicken just for stock, but freshly roasted wings give far more flavour than a day-old carcass ever will.

Wings are cheap and contain every bit of the chicken that you need to maximise flavour and texture — a little bit of meat, cartilage, bone and golden-brown skin — with a big surface area for cooking, which means more crispy, roasted chicken flavour. Buy a kilo of wings, roast them hard and start your stock by covering everything with cold water — it makes it much more flavourful. 

The secret to the tastiest tomato soup

Tomatoes may taste like summer, but they are just as welcome in winter. With good-quality tinned tomatoes, you can make a rich, comforting soup at any time of year. I start by softening onions and garlic, then add the tomatoes, a handful of za’atar—my secret ingredient, a Middle Eastern blend of herbs, toasted sesame seeds and sumac—and plenty of crème fraîche instead of cream for its tangy, lactic richness. It’s even better than Heinz.

The rice method that works every time

Cooking rice can be a real speed bump for the home cook. For perfect, fluffy grains of any style you need a 1:1.5 ratio of rice to water, so for every 100g of rice you need 150ml of water. Wash the rice first to remove excess starch, and if you want really good grain separation toast them in the pan in a little oil first. This will add a rich, nutty flavour. Then add the water and some salt and set the pan over a medium heat.

Once it’s boiling, add a lid and turn the heat down low. Leave it for 8 minutes before having a peek. If the water has been absorbed, remove the pan from the heat and let the rice “steam” with the lid on for a few minutes before fluffing and serving.

The key to silky pasta sauces

The ingredient that turns pasta and sauce into one rich, silky, cohesive dish is pasta water. As the pasta cooks, the water turns cloudy with starch, which helps thicken sauces and create smooth emulsions. 

Avoid using too much water—about two to two and a half litres for 200g of pasta is enough—and don’t oversalt it, or the finished sauce will be too salty. Cook the pasta until al dente, then lift it straight into the waiting sauce with tongs or a slotted spoon so it carries some of that starchy liquid with it. Toss everything together in the pan to create the same kind of silky emulsion you get when making a dressing or mayonnaise.

Pan cook perfect fish

If you’re buying fish from a supermarket, avoid vacuum-packed fillets if you can. Their skin often holds too much moisture, which makes it hard to crisp in the pan. If vacuum-packed fish is your only option, let it dry uncovered in the fridge for about an hour before cooking, and season it lightly with fine sea salt to help draw out excess moisture.

Heat the pan well, use plenty of oil, and, if you have one, place a weight on the fish so the skin stays flat against the pan and crisps evenly. Fish naturally curls as it cooks, so the weight helps maintain full contact with the surface. If you don’t have a pan weight, use a slightly smaller pan or a heavy lid instead.

Grill a perfect steak

A large, thick steak is one of the easiest ways to feed a crowd—bone-in sirloin or ribeye works well. I look for a deep, dark crust on the outside and evenly pink, medium-rare meat inside. Get the barbecue or grill very hot, sear the steak briefly on both sides, then brush with butter. Take it off the heat, rest it for a couple of minutes, then return it to the grill. Repeat this on-and-off cooking until the outside is well caramelised and the centre reaches your preferred temperature.

 I aim for 49C, which rises to a perfect 56C as it rests. Let the steak rest for as long as it cooked, somewhere warm such as a 40C oven or a warm tray loosely covered with foil, with plenty of butter. If you like, give it a final quick blast on the grill or in a hot pan before carving. I serve steak with garnishes that deepen its savoury flavour, such as a compound butter made with anchovies, Worcestershire sauce and rosemary.