20 Intriguing Advanced Cooking Recipes

There are advanced cooking recipes all over the internet, but how do you know if the recipe you've found is a good one? Will it work, or will you end up standing there two hours later, covered in sweat and food, with nothing worthwhile to show for it?

I've TOTALLY been there. It SUCKS to find an advanced recipe you're excited about, and then have it be a total fail of an experience.

Those are the worst moments in cooking — you pick a nice, fancy recipe that will challenge you, and then the whole thing falls apart. Maybe it tastes terrible, or maybe the texture is all off (like you end up with soggy veggies... ugh). Or, it could be that the flavor is just FLAT because the foundation isn't there. Sometimes those advanced recipes are not all they're cracked up to be.

Many advanced recipes are developed by people with very little cooking experience, and very little recipe writing experience. This has caused the internet to be flooded with bad recipes. And star ratings on food blogs count are fairly useless, since many bloggers can turn off bad ratings.

To avoid failure, make sure to ONLY use advanced cooking recipes from people who are respected in their field by googling the recipe developer's name. Do they have a cookbook out? With a major publisher, and not self published? Perhaps they have several cookbooks out with lots of great Amazon reviews?

Are they quoted in magazines and newspapers? Or have they won any awards, such as a James Beard or IACP award? These two awards are usually solid indicators the person has earned recognition for their cooking skills.

When it comes to large recipe sites and their advanced recipes, like AllRecipes and Food52, their star ratings are a lot more accurate, so when it says 4 stars you can usually believe what you're reading. They key is to make sure there are at least five different ratings on the recipe, otherwise it's not enough to get an accurate estimate.

Also, be sure to check out recipes for all sorts of skill levels. Be sure to check out these beginner recipes and intermediate recipes as well.