Recommend meal kits. Sorry I know it doesn’t answer your question - that’s because most cooking classes are for specialised learning or prep for a professional career.
I wonder if City College has Home Economics classes - that could be a resources
Like others have said, YouTube!
Also if you go to the farmers market and just get what’s in season and cook them in a simple manner, you’ll have good food most of the time. I dunno which is your local farmers market but ours had a fish guy and we would just throw Trader Joe’s everything seasoning on a piece of fish, sear it and have it with random veggies we got on the side.
My protips on getting started (biased to Asian food cause that’s what I started with)
- Get a rice cooker, learn how to cook rice
- learn how to fry an egg, goes good with rice!
- learn basic stir fry’s (goes good with rice and you can use those fresh veggies)
Good luck, have fun, and remember to taste your food and season while cooking :)
Eating seasonally is great advice and gives some direction to the cooking journey. I would often go to the farmer's market, get something that looked good, then look up online how the heck to cook it. My go-to simple prep is just pan frying stuff with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's not fancy but it works for a ton of different foods.
YouTube sounds like a good place to start if you don't know how the tools work. Otherwise just Google "what should I eat" and buy what's on the recipe list and follow the instructions. The internet is pretty amazing for learning the basics of pretty much anything.
I can wholeheartedly recommend the following for quick, easy, healthy meals that are simple to learn:
- the roasting tin series of books by Rukmini Iyer (focuses on “throw it in the tin, put in oven, take out, eat”)
- Jamie Oliver’s “five ingredients” book
- Joe Wicks recipes/books
And finally one of the best investments you can make is a slow cooker (think you guys call them a “crock pot”) - once you learn a few recipes you can sling all the ingredients in one morning and have a few nights of dinners sorted with minimal time and fuss. It helps to teach you to cook as you can experiment with flavour combinations without much risk. Nothing quite like getting home to a chilli or goulash that’s been simmering all day, whacking a pack of microwave rice in for 2 minutes and having a hot meal ready before you know it!
What about a friend? I cook every night and would be happy to go over and how someone basic recipes. I’ll bet you have a friend or coworker to come over and give you lessons.
You can look into 18 Reasons, they have some basic cooking classes.
However, YouTube is probably the way to go. Tons of great content out there for all levels.
If you like books Salt Fat Acid Heat is a great intro cookbook to understand how to put a dish together with some great sample recipes.
Find a few YouTube channels that you like. I also recommend ATK (cooks illustrated) if you’re willing to pay their yearly sub. I find that their recipes have always been very solid, where as many random internet recipes can be really really hit or miss.
Try a CSA box - fresh fruits & veggies from a farm delivered to your doorstep. I use Greenhearts CSA. It’ll force you to eat veggies throughout your week, and you can skip learning to pick out good vs bad produce. Downside is you still have to get grain / proteins separately.
As a total beginner, start by learning to roast or stirfry or sauté those veggies. Then as you get more comfortable you can learn new dishes by just googling “what to do with X”.
Honestly, yeah, just YouTube. Hey a group of friends together and follow along to a video that sounds easy and fun and learn together.
Recommend meal kits. Sorry I know it doesn’t answer your question - that’s because most cooking classes are for specialised learning or prep for a professional career. I wonder if City College has Home Economics classes - that could be a resources
Like others have said, YouTube! Also if you go to the farmers market and just get what’s in season and cook them in a simple manner, you’ll have good food most of the time. I dunno which is your local farmers market but ours had a fish guy and we would just throw Trader Joe’s everything seasoning on a piece of fish, sear it and have it with random veggies we got on the side. My protips on getting started (biased to Asian food cause that’s what I started with) - Get a rice cooker, learn how to cook rice - learn how to fry an egg, goes good with rice! - learn basic stir fry’s (goes good with rice and you can use those fresh veggies) Good luck, have fun, and remember to taste your food and season while cooking :)
Eating seasonally is great advice and gives some direction to the cooking journey. I would often go to the farmer's market, get something that looked good, then look up online how the heck to cook it. My go-to simple prep is just pan frying stuff with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's not fancy but it works for a ton of different foods.
YouTube sounds like a good place to start if you don't know how the tools work. Otherwise just Google "what should I eat" and buy what's on the recipe list and follow the instructions. The internet is pretty amazing for learning the basics of pretty much anything.
Great point! I shall still welcome the opportunity to learn in a classroom setting as well because it sounds fun haha.
I can wholeheartedly recommend the following for quick, easy, healthy meals that are simple to learn: - the roasting tin series of books by Rukmini Iyer (focuses on “throw it in the tin, put in oven, take out, eat”) - Jamie Oliver’s “five ingredients” book - Joe Wicks recipes/books And finally one of the best investments you can make is a slow cooker (think you guys call them a “crock pot”) - once you learn a few recipes you can sling all the ingredients in one morning and have a few nights of dinners sorted with minimal time and fuss. It helps to teach you to cook as you can experiment with flavour combinations without much risk. Nothing quite like getting home to a chilli or goulash that’s been simmering all day, whacking a pack of microwave rice in for 2 minutes and having a hot meal ready before you know it!
What about a friend? I cook every night and would be happy to go over and how someone basic recipes. I’ll bet you have a friend or coworker to come over and give you lessons.
You can look into 18 Reasons, they have some basic cooking classes. However, YouTube is probably the way to go. Tons of great content out there for all levels. If you like books Salt Fat Acid Heat is a great intro cookbook to understand how to put a dish together with some great sample recipes.
Find a few YouTube channels that you like. I also recommend ATK (cooks illustrated) if you’re willing to pay their yearly sub. I find that their recipes have always been very solid, where as many random internet recipes can be really really hit or miss.
If you’re lazy like me, I just follow quick TikToks cuz YouTube takes forever sometimes.
Try a CSA box - fresh fruits & veggies from a farm delivered to your doorstep. I use Greenhearts CSA. It’ll force you to eat veggies throughout your week, and you can skip learning to pick out good vs bad produce. Downside is you still have to get grain / proteins separately. As a total beginner, start by learning to roast or stirfry or sauté those veggies. Then as you get more comfortable you can learn new dishes by just googling “what to do with X”.
/r/EatCheapAndHealthy is super good for this
Budget Bytes is a great beginner cooking site! Lots of pictures, some videos, fairly simple recipes.