Ways you can learn how to cook before Christmas

Ways you can learn how to cook before Christmas (Photo: iStock)

One of the ways we show love during the holidays is through food. We invite people over and visit our loved ones to share hearty meals.

Christmas is the biggest festive season in the world and people spend hours in the kitchen. We don't just prepare the meals we eat every day because it's a special time. This may be a piece of cake for the pros, but it's not so easy for beginners.

If you're not the best cook in the world, but you still want to create amazing meals for your guests, these five tips will help you hack it:

Improve what you know

A simple trick to turning basic dishes into masterpieces is to modify what you already make daily. This could be by adding an extra ingredient or even preparing it differently.

You'd be surprised how these small changes can completely transform the flavour of a simple meal you've been making for years.

If you're busy and pressed for time and still want to learn how to cook in a few days, do a quick Google search and see what extra ingredients and cooking methods people are using.

Ask someone to teach you

You may have someone in your life who knows how to make a meal or snack that you've always wanted to make. It could be something like chapatti, which many people find difficult to make properly, mahamri, biriyani or just something you're interested in learning.

Let them know well in advance and have a short training session before Christmas. At least by the 25th, you will have some idea of what to do.

Search for some tutorials on YouTube

YouTube is probably the best place to learn how to cook in a short time. We're blessed to have a wealth of recipes with full step-by-step instructions that anyone can easily follow.

If you want to try something completely new this year, you can search for unique Christmas dishes and browse through the tutorials.

Don't try too hard

The thing that will make this whole experience a lot easier is to keep it simple. You may want to make five-star meals and desserts that everyone will remember, but you need time to learn, which you don't necessarily have right now.

So choose one or two dishes that are simple but delicious, rather than complicated ones that might stress you out. You can learn the rest slowly over the next year so that you are confident enough to make them next Christmas.

Start experimenting

It's very important not to wait until Christmas to try something for the first time. There is a very high chance that the food will backfire, which isn't what you want.

Even if something looks simple, try it at least once. This will give you a chance to see if the ingredients work for you and how to work out the right portions depending on how many people you will be serving.