10 Cooking Lessons You Should Learn from Chrissy Teigen
We may have started following Chrissy Teigen for her fashion insights and snarky humor, and to get a peek at her super glamorous life with husband John Legend, but we’ve stayed thanks to her cooking tips. Teigen’s love of food was well-documented in her drool-worthy cookbook Cravings, and she just teased the first draft of Cravings 2 to fans on Instagram. Inside its pages will apparently be recipes for indulgent breakfasts like French toast with whipped honey ricotta topping, everything bagel and cream cheese breakfast bake, blueberry cream cheese pancakes, and savory entrées like sweet miso butter cod with snap peas.
Can we pre-order, like, now? Teigen thinks food should be fun, craveable, and simple, which is why it’s such a blast to follow along on her cooking adventures, whether it’s on social media or in the pages of her book. It can be hard to relax in the kitchen when you’re hell-bent on perfection, but Teigen’s best tips make it a little easier to do just that. While you’re waiting for Cravings 2, take a page out of her book and get ready to do some cooking.
1. The salt you use matters
Strangely enough, Ina Garten and Chrissy Teigen swear by the same salt: Diamond Crystal kosher salt. Paying attention to details as small as the kind of salt you use is what can take your cooking to the next level.
diamond crystal kosher salt is the best salt in all the land. I use nothing else! get on amazon prime woop #notanad just love salt https://t.co/bnCWnR6bdu
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) January 2, 2018
2. For perfect potatoes, preheat
Have you ever tried making crispy potatoes in the oven or on the stovetop, only to have them come out weirdly chewy? Teigen feels you. Her tactic for making sure your potatoes actually come out crispy is simple: Preheat your pan with oil for 10 minutes before adding the potatoes. Let them do their thing, flipping them just once, until crispy and brown on both sides.
3. Peel pineapples like a pro
We love juicy, ripe pineapples, but peeling and cutting them can be a total pain. Luckily, Teigen took to Instagram to share a video of her mom expertly getting a pineapple ready for slicing. The key is to remove the peel, then cut the eyes of the pineapple out using a spiral pattern. You can see how to do it below.
4. Use the right spice for the job
While some people swear by their bottle of Tabasco and refuse to use anything else, in her book Cravings Teigen recommends using a variety of spicy seasonings to get that kick you want. Each one has a different flavor profile, from the relative sweetness of Sriracha to the slight tang of sambal oelek. Teigen also keeps Cholula hot sauce, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, and fresh and dried Thai bird chilies on hand for all of her cooking needs.
5. Toast your nuts
Again, Teigen’s cooking is all about paying attention to the details. Once you have those down, even recipes with just a handful of ingredients can taste amazing. Case in point? She always toasts her nuts before including them in a recipe. It caramelizes them slightly and brings out the flavors of their natural oils, making the nuts taste, well, nuttier.
6. Roast your bacon
If you’re still frying bacon on the stovetop, it’s time to try something new. Skip the splattery mess and roast your bacon in the oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Each strip will cook evenly, and the slices won’t curl up and get all squiggly. For an extra special treat, in Cravings Teigen recommends smothering the bacon strips in chopped garlic before roasting.
7. Use a bouquet garni
If you want to add some delicious herbal flavor to a dish, but don’t want to mess up the presentation by having random green flecks everywhere, use a bouquet garni. It’s a fancy French term, but it’s just a bundle of herbs tied up with string that you can drop into your dish, where it will infuse the cooking liquid with flavor. You can see how Teigen uses one in these mussels she tested out for her second cookbook.
8. The secret to perfect scallops: DFWI
Perfectly seared scallops are something that we usually only get to experience when dining out. At home, too often they lack that crust that makes them so mouthwatering. Teigen, however, has cracked the code for making a perfectly seared scallop at home. First, she recommends that you buy fresh, never frozen, scallops. When you bring them home, make sure to dry them thoroughly with paper towels. Then, season with a generous amount of salt (scallops are quite sweet) and finely ground black pepper. Add the scallops to a smoking hot pan of olive oil and butter and — this step is key — DFWI (“Don’t f*ck with it,” Teigen explains on her blog). Let them sear for 90 seconds without moving, then flip and sear for another 90 seconds. You’ll wind up with scallops that are tender and juicy on the inside, with a savory crisp sear on the outside.
9. Cook your eggs low and slow
For decadent eggs that seem like they’re full of melty cheese but aren’t, cook them over super low heat while constantly stirring them with a spatula for about 20 minutes. The result is scrambled eggs that are set but not at all dry, with a creaminess you usually only find in fancy French omelettes. Teigen is such a fan of cooking them this way she’s posted about the method on her blog, on Instagram, and in her first cookbook. The other secret to making the eggs extra luscious? Cook them in plenty of butter, and add some heavy cream to the whisked eggs before they go in the pan.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on
10. Bread Oven-Fried Chicken in Pork Rinds
Teigen often eats low-carb, and she came up with this recipe when a craving for low-carb fried chicken kicked in. Instead of the usual flour-based breading, Teigen dredges buttermilk-marinated chicken in pork rinds she pulverizes with different seasonings in her food processor. The result is something crispy, savory, and relatively less messy than chicken fried on the stovetop.
For more cooking tips and irresistible comfort food recipes, follow us on Pinterest.
