" In thirty years of make lasagna , I have never done this . And my lasagna comes out great every unmarried fourth dimension , give thanks you . "

If you cook often at home and follow many recipes, you’re probably used to seeing a lot of common cooking instructions that pop up repeatedly. And chances are, there are probably some steps you choose to ignore. So Redditoru/shr00mshoeasked, “What is acooking stepthat everyone else swears by but you always skip?” Here’s what people from Reddit and theBuzzFeed Communitysaid aboutcooking instructionsthey simply don’t follow.

1.“Adding garlic and onion at the same time. That’s just a recipe for burnt garlic.”

2.“I don’t wait for the oven to preheat. I especially love to make bacon this way. I put the tray into the cold oven and then turn it on. My bacon comes out perfect every time.”

3.“Unless company is coming over, I never peel potatoes or carrots. Scrub them and eat them with peels still attached.”

— u / thegirlandglobe

4.“For soups, I skip the veggie amount and just use the whole thing of whatever I have. Half a cup of onion? No, the entire onion is going in. Three sticks of celery? No, I’m using however much is in the fridge. It’ll turn out just fine.”

5.“I never rinse pasta after straining it because the sauce sticks to the noodles better this way. I’ve always felt like this is a totally unnecessary step.”

6.“I rarely properly measure dried spices. Measuring ingredients, in general, has never been my strongest suit. For any of the spices I use, while cooking a dish, a teaspoon is just a bit in my palm, a tablespoon is more than that, and anything less than a teaspoon is just a pinch. People always rave about ‘how well-seasoned’ my food tastes.”

— u / Straydapp

7.“I never whisk eggs when making scrambled eggs. I crack them right into the heated pan, and I think they come out better that way.”

8.“I am never EVER boiling my tomatoes and skinning them to make a sauce. This is the very definition of extra.”

9.“I don’t put a horizontal cut in my onions when dicing. The layers are already a form of horizontal cut, and while it’s not a huge time saver or anything, I can’t tell the difference in my dice when I do or don’t do the horizontal cut.”

— u / Erulol

11.“Washing meat before cooking it. What is that supposed to do besides spread bacteria around my sink?”

12.“Salad dressing recipes love to tell you to ‘slowly mix in the oil’ while whisking. No, I just throw all the oil into a jar with the rest of the ingredients and give it a good shake. It always tastes good enough for me.”

13.“Sifting. Unless it’smacaronor ladyfingers I’m making, I never sift! And for context, I’m a pastry chef.”

— atomic number 92 / molliebrd

14.“I have never precooked my lasagna noodles. My lasagna has turned out great every single time for over thirty years.”

15.“I never wash my rice before cooking it. I almost always cook basmati rice, but I think it always comes out fluffy and aromatic, even if I am disappointing my ancestors by not washing it first.”

16.“Using room temperature eggs for baking when a recipe calls for that. I’ll soften butter in the microwave when a recipe calls for softened butter, but eggs go in straight from the refrigerator.”

— uranium / daniday08

17.“Peeling ginger. I only recently read something where people said they never peel ginger, and it made me question why I ever did. I usually use a microplane zester or the small side of a cheese grater and keep my ginger in the freezer. It’s so much easier now not to worry about peeling it.”

18.“When cooking ground beef, many recipes tell you to ‘drain the fat.’ But I never do that. Fat is flavor. I use the rendered fat to cook up the rest of my ingredients, like veggies. The results taste so much better when cooked in beef fat.”

19.“I use way less water than the directions recommend when making pasta. You have to stir it a bit more, but it’s faster and makes far superior pasta water to finish it.”

— u / Creative_Decision481

20.“This is like such a cardinal sin of baking, but I don’t mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then combine them with wet; I just mix wet and then dump the dry in with the wet one at a time. I don’t claim to be a great baker, but my stuff turns out tasty enough.”

21.“I never peel potatoes for my mashed potatoes. It could just be me, but I love leaving the skin to remind me it’s potatoes I’m eating rather than cornmeal porridge.”

— u / TheAlbrecht2418

22.“So many soup, sauce, orcasserole recipessay to add garlic early on, usually at the same time as carrots and onions, which take longer to soften. I always add it later and add at least double the suggested amount. It’s so much more flavourful.”

23.“If I’m cooking dry beans, I don’t pre-soak overnight. I usually just cook them for longer. If I remember at all, I sometimes let them sit with some water and baking soda for about an hour while I prep other stuff, but that’s it.”

24.“I always break pasta in half. I’ll look you in the eye and snap an entire box of fettuccine in half as I add it to the pot. No regrets!”

25.“Sorry, but I have a hard rule about buying that one exotic ingredient that costs 20 bucks and will only be used once.”

— u / vnutellanutella

Note : Submissions have been edited for length and/or clearness .

Chopped onions being sautéed in a frying pan

Slices of bacon are baking on a foil-covered tray in an oven, with a hand holding a blue checkered cloth in the foreground

A pot on a stove filled with simmering soup that includes vegetables like carrots, leeks, and zucchini. A wooden spoon rests across the pot's handles

Close-up of a fork twirling creamy pasta in a bowl, with visible herbs and chunks of vegetables

Scrambled eggs being cooked in a nonstick pan on a stovetop

A pan of tomato sauce simmers with a metal spoon resting in it on a stovetop

Hand holding a partially eaten chocolate chip cookie with more cookies in the background on a plate

A person in a kitchen chops raw chicken on a wooden cutting board, surrounded by bowls of chopped vegetables

A person stirs a yellow liquid in a glass with a spoon. A bowl of chopped vegetables is in the background on the wooden countertop

A plate of lasagna with layers of pasta, meat, and sauce, placed on a table with a baking dish of lasagna in the background

A black spoon rests in a strainer filled with cooked rice over a metal pot

A metal grater with ginger pieces next to it, a bowl of granola and yogurt, and more ginger roots on a marble surface

Ground beef cooking in a black frying pan with visible steam rising. A black spatula is partially seen on the right side

A kitchen scene with a mixing bowl of butter being mixed with a hand mixer, surrounded by bowls of flour, sugar, and eggs

A small bowl with mashed banana and a spoon resting in it. The bowl has a floral design. The setting appears to be a kitchen countertop

Chickpeas are boiling in a stainless steel pot on a stovetop, with steam and bubbles rising from the surface

A person in a plaid shirt places uncooked spaghetti into a pot of boiling water on an induction cooktop