Cooking Terms and Definitions – Volume 1 – Beginner Words

Have you ever sat down determined to cook a recipe, only to come across one or two mystery cooking terms or words that stops you cold in your tracks? Like, “sweat the onions,” “brine the meat,” or “fold the batter?” And from there, you’re totally lost. Unknown cooking terms can cause all sorts of havoc in the kitchen.

But don’t worry. Confusing cooking terms can even trip up pro chefs sometimes.

Today we’re going to talk about some of the most commonly misunderstood cooking terms you’ll see in recipes. These are words, phrases, and techniques that might cause confusion if you run across them while cooking.

While there are an endless number of cooking terms to learn (this book has 850+ pages of them! – affiliate link) there are only a few you really need to know to become a better cook. I’ve compiled them all here for you in one place. Well, two places, actually — this is the list of beginner cooking terms. I’ll be creating an advanced list of cooking terms soon. :)

Beginner Cooking Terms and Definitions

• Al dente — Usually used in reference to pasta, this terms literally means “to the tooth” in Italian. Al dente means there should be a little bit of toothsome texture left in the noodle — as in it’s 90% cooked through, but not 100%.
  • Why? Because this gives the pasta a more pleasing feeling in the mouth, and it allows you the opportunity to cook the noodles in your sauce for a few minutes (which gives it more flavor) without overcooking.
• Baste — Basting just means to bathe a food in liquid while it’s cooking. This liquid could be melted fat, butter, or its own juices.
  • Why? Basting does a few things. First, it can help keep the food moist while cooking to keep it from drying out. Second, basting can add more flavor to the food by allowing it to absorb more of the flavorful liquid over time.
• Blanch — To blanch means to flash-boil something in salted boiling water, literally just a few seconds to a few minutes. Usually followed by “refreshing,” which means to sink the food into a bowl of ice-cold water to quickly stop cooking.
  • Why? Most commonly done with vegetables, blanching (and refreshing) allows vegetables to cook just enough to make them tender without getting mushy. It also preserves the color so they stay bright green. This is a great technique to use when you’re sauteing very hard vegetables, like broccoli or cauliflower, because they would need to be sauteed for quite a while to cook through. Blanching them first reduces the amount of time they’d need to saute.
• Brine — To brine simply means to salt ahead of time. There are two kinds of brining: dry brining and wet brining. Dry brining means to rub something with granulated salt, while wet brining means to soak something in salty water.
  • Why? Brining meat cannot only improve its flavor, it can improve its texture too, keeping it moist after cooking. Brining can also serve as a preservation method. For example, pork belly is brined to cure it for bacon. Corned beef is also brined — here’s a recipe on how to make it.
• Broil — To cook food below or above strong, direct heat.
  • Why? Broiling is a great way to cook thin things very quickly, such as a thinly pounded steak, or to brown the surface before serving.
• Carryover Cooking — When you cook a food and remove it from the heat, it will continue to cook internally as the heat leaves the food. The cooking term for this process is called “carryover cooking.”
  • Example: If you cook a steak to 140°F (60°C), it will continue cooking for another 5 minutes, reaching roughly 145°F (63°C) before it begins to cool. This is true for all foods. Larger cuts of meats — such as roasts and whole chickens — can continue to carryover cook for as long as 20-30 minutes.
• Chèvre — Fresh goat cheese. Pronounced shev.
  • Note: This is one of the most mispronounce cooking terms ever! It’s right up there with quinoa, which is pronounced keen-wah.
  • Here’s a delicious recipe: macaroni salad with chèvre and grilled peaches
• Chiffonade — A French term used for a particular knife cut, where herbs and leafy greens are rolled into a tube and cut into thin strips.
  • Why? Cutting herbs in this fashion allows for more flavor in each bite, and also makes a visual impact.
• Coarsely chop — To chop something into relatively uneven pieces, without much attention to size and shape.
  • Why? Coarse chopping is usually a quick and easy way to chop things, when exact cuts aren’t a priority.
• Cream (verb, to cream) — To soften a fat, such as butter, by beating it until light and fluffy. Butter and sugar are often creamed together to make an aerated paste.
  • Why? A technique often used for baked goods, creaming adds a good deal of air to fat, which therefore adds air to the batter. This can increase how much it rises during baking.
  • This is another one of those cooking terms that has two definitions. The noun form of “cream” refers to the rich, fatty stuff you find in dairy, or really any rich, fatty substance.
• Cut in — To work a solid fat into dry ingredients, such as butter and flour when making pie crust. This is usually done with a pastry blender/cutter (affiliate link) or your fingertips. You can also use a food processor.
  • Why? Cutting fat into flour coats the flour particles with fat, which protects them from moisture. It also helps prevent gluten formation in items where tenderness is a priority (pie dough, shortbread, etc.).
• Deglaze — To dissolve the browned bits on the bottom of a pan left by cooked food, using a liquid (usually stock, wine, or water). You add liquid to a hot pan, return the pan to the heat, and then scrape the bottom on the pan with a wooden spoon as the bits dissolve in the liquid.
  • Why? This makes an INCREDIBLE base for sauces and gravies. It also makes the pan easier to clean.
• Degrease — To remove fat from the surface of food. This is most commonly done by skimming fat off the top of stews, soups, or stock while they cook. This can also be done by placing the liquid in the refrigerator and allowing the fat to form a solid layer on top, which can then be easily removed.
  • Why? Too much fat can be off-putting and difficult to digest. Removing excess fat can make a dish more flavorful and appealing.
• Dice — To cut food into small, uniform cubes of equal size and shape.
  • Why? Uniformly cut foods cook at an even rate. When foods are cut into uneven shapes and sizes, the small pieces will cook faster while the larger pieces take longer. This can lead to some pieces being under-cooked, while others are overdone.
• Dredge — To lightly coat food in a dry powder, such as flour, cornmeal, or breadcrumbs.
  • Dredging adds flavor and texture to fried foods, as the coating crisps up and takes on a darker color. (Think fried chicken.) It also protects the food from coming in direct contact with the fat, which keeps the food from getting too greasy.
• Fold — To gently combine wet and dry ingredients in a folding motion, using a large, flat spatula.
  • Why? Most used in baking, folding helps prevent loss of aeration in batters. Many batters are beaten specifically to increase the amount of air they contain, so they rise more in the oven. If you were to stir in a dry ingredient, such as flour, into an aerated batter, it would release that air and flatten the batter — which means it would not rise as much.
• Julienne — To cut vegetables or other foods into thin, even strips. The strips should look like matchsticks, measuring about 1/8” x 1/8” x 2”.
  • Why? Foods cut into even julienne strips cook evenly, look beautiful, and allow for larger bites of food than the dice cut. The julienne cut also works well for creating attractive garnishes.
• Leavening — Ingredients that cause batter or dough to rise, such as baking powder, baking soda, and yeast.
  • Why? Without leaveners, cakes, cookies, breads, and other baked goods would be flat and tough.
• Lukewarm — Neither cool nor warm. It feels roughly body temperature.
• Marinate/Marinade — These two cooking terms are not interchangeable, but they cause confusion. Marinate is the process of soaking food in a seasoned liquid for an extended period of time (anywhere from a few minutes to a few days). Marinade is the liquid in which you soak the food. So, you would marinate your food in a marinade.
  • Why? Marinating food has all sorts of purposes. Depending on the food and the marinade, marinating can add flavor, improve texture, and tenderize meat. Marinades often have an acid in them, such as vinegar or lemon juice.
• Mince — To cut something into very, very small pieces (smaller than dicing).
  • Why? Minced foods often disappear into the larger dish, either dissolving or becoming so small you don’t notice them. Also, the smaller you chop a flavorant, such as garlic, the more flavor it will impart to your dish. So, minced garlic will make your dish taste more garlicky than an equal amount of sliced garlic.
• Pan-fry — To fry food in a pan with just enough oil to come about halfway up the side of the food. In contrast, sauteing is to cook food in just enough fat to coat the bottom of the pan. Pan-fried foods are usually dredged (coated in breading) before being added to the pan. See “dredge” above.
  • Why? Pan-frying is gentler and requires less oil than deep-frying, which submerges the food entirely in oil. Pan-fried foods must be turned over part way through cooking to allow both sides to cook fully.
• Parboil/Parbake — these two cooking terms mean the same thing, only one refers to boiling and the other to baking. They both mean to partially cook something, with the intention of completing cooking later.
  • Why? Parboiled/parbaked foods cook faster, so you can parcook them ahead of time to speed up cooking when it’s time to eat. This is very common in restaurants, where dishes are partially cooked in the afternoon and finished just before serving. In the case of bread, parbaked breads are less fragile than raw, pre-formed bread dough and therefore easier to transport.
• Pinch — A small amount of any dry ingredient.
  • How much? This one of those confusing cooking terms. A pinch of salt is generally accepted to be 1/16 of a teaspoon , but a professional pinch of salt is at least 1/8 teaspoon — much larger than the tiny pinch most home cooks default to.
• Poach — To gently cook a food in a simmering (not boiling) liquid. Poached foods can either be fully submerged or partially submerged.
  • Why? Poaching is a very gentle way of cooking something. The poaching liquid can be water, stock, or other kinds of liquids.
• Process — This is one of those cooking terms that have several definitions:
  • 1) To preserve food by way of canning.
  • 2) To run food through a food processor.
  • 3) Any other method of preparing food in a specific method. (I.e., “to process the carrots” would mean to peel and chop them.)
• Proof — To allow yeasted dough to rise before baking. The term comes from “proving” the yeast is still alive and active; in fact, you will sometimes see a specialized warmed chamber called a “proving box.”
  • Also: “Proof” is also the amount of alcohol in distilled liquor, generally multiplied by two. So, liquor with 40% alcohol would be considered 80 proof.
• Puree — The act of pureeing is to reduce something to a smooth liquid or paste form. The resulting substance is also called a “puree.”
  • Why? Pureed foods have a pleasing texture on the tongue — think mashed potatoes or a pureed soup. Purees can also be more easily mixed into other foods.
• Reduce — To decrease the volume of a liquid by simmering it, which causes evaporation. This makes the liquid thicker and intensifies its flavor. The resulting thicker liquid is called a “reduction.”
  • Why? Reductions can be used as the base for a sauce, and some are so flavorful that they can be used as a sauce on their own. Reducing a liquid can also make it smaller for easier storage, such as reducing chicken stock by 50% so that it takes up half as much room in the freezer.
• Refresh — To submerge cooked food in ice-cold water to quickly stop it’s cooking. Commonly done after blanching vegetables. See also blanching, above.
  • Why? When blanching or parcooking foods, you boil them just until the point of perfect doneness. Submerging the food in ice water immediately stops the cooking process, which keeps them crisp while preserving color. When peeling tomatoes, you submerge them in boiling water for 10 seconds, just until the skin cooks, and then drop them in ice water to preserve the raw tomato flesh.
• Rest — To remove a food from the heat, then let it sit for a set period of time before cutting.
  • Why? When you remove meat from the heat, the internal temperature of the meat will continue to rise before it begins to cool. Resting allows the meat to complete its cooking process. Letting meat rest also allows the heated protein strands to stabilize and redistribute moisture, which reduces the loss of tasty juices when cut.
• Roux — Pronounced roo, this is a mixture of starch and fat (usually flour and butter) cooked together to form a thickener for sauces and soups. There are three kinds of roux — white, blonde, and brown — related to how long the roux is cooked for.
  • Why? Cooking the starch and fat together serves a few purposes: 1) it cooks the flour to reduce the raw flour taste; 2) it temporarily increases the thickening power of the starch; 3) in the case of a darker roux, it can add a smoky flavor to dishes such as gumbo. Caveat: The darker you cook your roux, the less thickening power it will have. A dark brown roux will have almost no thickening power at all.
• Sachet — A small bag made of cheesecloth, stuffed with whole spices and herbs. Sachets are usually tied with cooking twice and left to simmer in broths, stocks, sauces, and other cooking liquids to infuse them with the flavor of the herbs.
  • Why? When flavoring liquids with whole herbs and spices, it’s much easier to remove them if they’re contained in one little bag. Otherwise, you’ll have to fish a bunch of branches and seeds from the depths of your dish by hand. If you’re planning on straining the finished liquid through a sieve, the sachet isn’t necessary because you’ll be removing all solids during straining.
• Sauté (different from pan frying) — Meaning “to jump” in French, food is cooked in a small amount of fat in a very hot pan. In reference to jumping, the pan is flipped with a quick wrist movement to toss the food while cooking.
  • Why? Sautéing food in a hot pan is a great way to cook proteins quickly. When done correctly, the food will also develop a nice browned surface, giving it a much richer flavor.
• Scald — To heat a liquid to just below the boiling point 180°F (82°C). Most commonly done with milk, this is the point during heating where bubbles just begin to form around the edges, but it is not yet at a simmer.
  • Why? Heating milk to just below the boiling point heats it sufficiently to kill any bacteria, destroy enzymes, and denature the proteins without damaging the flavor and emulsion of the milk.
• Score — To cut shallow slices on the surface of a food.
  • Why? Scoring is done for many reasons, depending on the food. Skin-on meats are often scored to allow fat to drain, which allows the skin to crisp up. Breads are scored just before baking to give the crust a place to separate, so that it can accommodate the expanding of the inside of the bread as it bakes. Scoring can also be done for decorative reasons, to tenderize a food, or to allow a food to help absorb flavor from seasoning.
• Sear — To brown a food, usually meat, in a very hot pan to produce a deeply brown crust.
  • Why? Searing meat on all sides produces a profound amount of additional flavor as the surface caramelizes. Some thin-cut meats can be completely cooked with a quick sear, while thicker cuts (such as chops, roasts, meat for stewing and braising) can be seared before being finished in an oven. Contrary to popular belief, searing does not “seal in the juices” of the meat.
• Section — To separate the sections of a citrus fruit with a paring knife, so that each little wedge has all fibrous pith removed. Also called “supreming.”
  • Why? Sectioned or “supremed” citrus has a better texture, purest flavor, and looks far more attractive on a plate than pieces of citrus with the white pith still attached.
• Shuck — To remove shellfish from its shell, as in oysters. Also refers to removing the husk and silk from an ear of corn.
• Sieve — A fine-mesh strainer. You use a sieve to strain the solid particles from liquids.
  • Why? Straining a liquid makes it as smooth and clear as possible, removing the small bits that affect its texture. It also makes the liquid more attractive, such as a pure-white sauce that has no trace of herbs or pepper to muddy its appearance. To remove even the smallest bits, line your strainer with a clean cotton handkerchief or a few sheets of cheesecloth.
• Simmer (different from BOIL) — To cook food gently in hot water that is not at a full, rolling boil. In a simmer, you will see tiny bubbles break the surface every couple of seconds. The temperature of the water at this point is 180-185°F (82-85°C) .
  • Why? Compared to boiling, simmering is a gentler way of cooking. Boiling can damage or overcook delicate foods, causing them to fall apart or become tough.
• Skim — To scoop away the top layer from a liquid to remove excess fat, skin, foam, or impurities. This is often done using a wide, flat strainer called a skimmer. When skimming fat, you must use a spoon or other non-perforated device. See also “degrease” above.
  • Why? When making soups, stocks, sauces, or other such liquids, there are occasionally byproducts you can remove to refine your dish. This includes excess fat that floats to the surface, skin that forms due to dairy content, foam caused by denaturing of proteins, or scum-like particles that bubble up from your ingredients. Skimming can improve the texture of your dish, make it more attractive, and heighten the flavor.
• Steep — To soak dry ingredients in hot water until the flavor is infused into the liquid. The end result is an infusion. Generally steeping is done in water that is not quite at the boiling point, about 185°F (85°C).
  • Why? This is the method used to make coffee, tea, and other flavorful water-based liquids.
• Sweat (as in, sweat the onions) — Cooking vegetables slowly, over low heat, in a small amount of fat. The pan is usually covered to prevent steam from escaping.
  • Why? The purpose of sweating is to slowly soften the vegetables in their own juices, so that they retain flavor and do not brown.
  • Here’s a recipe for how to cook dried beans that is a great opportunity to practice sweating onions.
• Truss — To tie up a food, usually meat, so that it stays compact and uniform while cooking.
  • Why? Trussing helps larger cuts of meat maintain a compact, uniform shape, which allows for more even cooking and a more attractive appearance. In a whole roast chicken, it also prevents air from circulating in the inner cavity of the bird, which can dry it out.
• Zest — Yet another one of those cooking terms with two definitions:
  • Noun: The fragrant, outermost layer of citrus rind. The zest is the paper-thin layer that colors the skin.
  • Verb: “To zest” means to gently remove this outer layer from a citrus fruit with a paring knife or fine-tooth grater (called a “zester”). A fraction of a millimeter beneath the zest is the white pith, which is bitter and unwanted; so when zesting, you do not want to grate so hard that you reveal the white pith.
  • Why? Using citrus zest is an incredible way to give foods and cocktails a bright citrus flavor without using citrus juice. Using juice can add more liquid to your dish, which can change the thickness. It also adds more acid, which may make a dish too sour, or alter the chemistry of the recipe causing unintended results.

There you go! A handful of simple but important cooking terms to help you become a totally boss cook. Stay tuned for version 2, the advanced edition.