When two chefs meet, it seems they always have something to teach each other. Even when Gordon Ramsay stops at a small roadside joint in Malaysia, the local auntie preparing a beef rendang has a trick or two to show him.
So, in an attempt to expand their horizons, Reddit user Freedfg made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share their best-kept family cooking secrets. From scrambled eggs to chicken salad and beyond, here are some of the ways you can add a flavorful twist to your beloved dishes. Or at least trick others into believing it!
Table of Contents
Cooking Secrets : 1.
My grandmother is from Italy. People are always like “you must make such great Italian fooooooddd!” And like yeah, I guess. But the “family” sauce recipe is super basic. Anyone could do it. What makes it good is just making it a billion times and letting it simmer all day.
People are amazed that I can make gnocchi, but it’s really not hard at all. There’s just some practice involved in getting the right texture to them.
These days with the internet, anyone can make super authentic food from any culture. We no longer have to rely on special handed down recipes, methods, and tools.
2.
My boyfriend is always amazed at how my scrambled eggs taste so good. He’s convinced I have magical scrambling powers because even when he tries to replicate, he can’t. I finally realized he doesn’t know I use butter, and I feel like I can’t reveal it now. I love being master egg scrambler.
Cooking Secrets : 3.
I begged my grandmother for her banana pudding recipe and 30 years later, people still beg me to make it. I’ve had drug dealers trade me drugs for it (back in the day lol). I discovered about 10 years in, its the f**king recipe off of the Nilla wafer box.
4.
In Romania we make a cake that’s just fluffy cake batter dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut flakes/chopped walnuts, we call it tavalit. It’s one of the dishes of my childhood and everybody made it because it’s cheap, easy and finger licking delicious. I made it, brought it at a potluck at work in the Netherlands and a colleague from New Zealand jumped up “Lamingtons, oh my god I love these, do you have family in New Zealand?”. Wat…
I still don’t know where the recipe originated, pretty sure neither in Romania nor in New Zealand, but it was so surprising to see a dish revered in countries so far apart by distance and culture and we both thought it was our own.
Cooking Secrets : 5.
This made me think of this thing I read a long time ago.
A woman makes a ham for a holiday every year, and she always cuts the end off before baking it. Husband asks why, she says that’s the way it’s always been done, it’s a recipe passed down in her family and she’s never questioned it. She asks Mom, who asks Great Grandma, and turns out Great Grandma just couldn’t fit the hams into her pan.
Idk the takeaway from this exactly but there it is lol
6.
I recently saw one of my great grandmothers EXACT recipes on one of those Tik Tok channels that cooks old school recipes. I always figured it was from a magazine or cookbook. Funny seeing it with my own eyes though.
As he cooking it, I’m like “wait, I’ve definitely made this before”. It was a 3-4 ingredient pie, so it wasn’t hard to remember.
Cooking Secrets : 7.
Worked In a very high end restaurant that locally became quite well known for its cheesecake. It was just cream cheese and marshmallow fluff blended together and put in store bought graham cracker crusts. They also played
8.
Authenticity is overrated. Food is like language, it’s dynamic, which means that recipes change over time under certain factors such as availability of needed ingredients. No recipe of the same food is better than the other because, after all, taste is subjective and food should be enjoyed by the one eating it.
9.
Stop.
Washing.
Chicken.
Purchased.
In.
Supermarkets/butcher shops.
I understand where my wife is from, because most of the meat comes from a wet market and had flies and who knows what else buzzing around them.. But when it’s cleaned, packaged, sealed, and refrigerated… You’re just spreading bacteria
Cooking Secrets : 10.
Man do I feel this.
Yeah used to be real hyped about my Grandmother’s Oyster Dressing that she would make every Thanksgiving. I would tell everyone about it. It’s not until she passed away and I started making it for other people that I found out how common it was.
It’s still good but damn.
Also learned that her mother was famous for potato bread. My Great Grandmother would pay people for things with her potato bread. My Grandmother refused to learn how to make it.
11.
Lol, I just found out this year the recipe for my husband’s grandmother’s FAMOUS fudge that he grew up eating and the whole family raves about comes straight off the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk can. These people beg her to make it every Christmas and they gobble it up, but apparently none of them ever bothered to ask for the recipe.
I emailed her to ask so I could bring it to my own family’s Christmas dinner, and she was like “Oh, yeah, it’s the one from the can label, it’s not a secret. They just assumed and nobody asked.” And you know what? I haven’t told any of them, either.
12.
Received my grandmothers recipe box. I was so excited… it was almost exclusively the clippings from the back of quick-cook foods.
Cooking Secrets : 13.
Lol, my wife came back from Norway in love with this MAGIC spice and we searched everywhere, finally found some, had it shipped international.
It’s MSG.
14.
The recipe on the back of the tollhouse chocolate chip bag, follow it to the letter. Everyone thinks I have the best of the best chocolate chip cookies.
Cooking Secrets : 15.
Your cake needs salt. So do your cookies. Stop leaving it out.
16.
My grandma’s recipe has been passed down for generations and we have the original text to prove it! And it’s just as sad and bland as it ever was.
Cooking Secrets : 17.
If I cook anything that requires breadcrumbs, I use chicken flavored StoveTop stuffing. I also use them as mini croutons in my salad.
18.
My secret fudge recipe that’s been under lock and key for decades is literally just melting chocolate chips and dumping condensed sweetened milk in. Everyone in my family thinks I’m this pro fudge maker
19.
After my grandmother passed, there was some fight back and forth over her pecan pie recipe. Turns out it was on the back of the Karo syrup bottle the whole time.
Cooking Secrets : 20.
My amazing chocolate cake is from the recipe on the back of the hershey’s cocoa mix box. People love it every time, though!
21
And if you inherit your grandmas cookbooks you will learn that Betty Crocker and Fannie Farmer apparently were your ancestors because that’s where the family recipes are published!
22
I got my grandmother’s cookbooks when she died (all handwritten recipes). That’s when I learned that her famous baked beans start with a can of baked beans.
Cooking Secrets : 23
Authenticity is overrated. Food is like language, it’s dynamic, which means that recipes change over time under certain factors such as availability of needed ingredients. No recipe of the same food is better than the other because, after all, taste is subjective and food should be enjoyed by the one eating it.
24
My “secret recipe” for green bean casserole is literally the recipe from the back of the fried onion box, with bacon and grilled onions added. It’s a hit every year.
Cooking Secrets : 25.
Only one I can really think of is adding pickle juice to tuna or chicken salad. Adds just the right amount of tartness. I do tell though. Spread the knowledge!
26
My boyfriend is always amazed at how my scrambled eggs taste so good. He’s convinced I have magical scrambling powers because even when he tries to replicate, he can’t. I finally realized he doesn’t know I use butter, and I feel like I can’t reveal it now. I love being master egg scrambler.
Cooking Secrets : 27
My grandma always showed up with her special cheese dip and said It was a special family recipe, two years ago my mom gave me the recipe, a few months later I found out it’s just rotel dip lmao
28
My snickerdoodle recipe. Brother in law LOVES them, more than his mother’s (from scratch).
Mine are chunks of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough, rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Stupid easy. I will never tell.
29
My grandma’s “secret” fudge recipe is the one on the back of the marshmallow fluff jar
Last Cooking Secrets : 30.
Pre crushed garlic in a jar is easier, but flavor is seriously lacking
