15 Kitchen Skills To Master By The Time You're 30 (2024)

Take your pick — fried, scrambled, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached — then learn exactly how to nail each version here. Once you've mastered that, experiment with turning eggs into full meals — they're versatile, cheap, and packed with protein.

Recipes: Perfect Scrambled Eggs | Poached Eggs & Avocado Toast | Skillet Sweet Potato Frittata

Start with a super easy tomato sauce — like this classic version by Marcella Hazan that proves you don't need a laundry list of ingredients to make something rich and delicious. (In this case: only tomatoes, butter, onion, and salt.)

Then move on to more detailed sauces, like an ultimate red sauce spiked with wine, or this fancier carbonara made with creamy squash, bacon or pancetta, and lots of cheese.

Listen, I'm the first to admit that I'll never refuse a fresh batch (or four) of Nestle Toll House cookies. But there's ~also~ something to be said about making your own glorious bites from scratch every now and then. Totally worth it.

Recipe: The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

These easy ideas for two-ingredient and three-ingredient co*cktails are great starting points. (Then move onto these impressive Harry Potter co*cktails, these Batman co*cktails, or both. Preferably both.)

Recipes: 3-Ingredient co*cktails | The Phoenix Feather | Raspberry Mojito Punch

(Because life's too short to be hangry.)

Recipes: 15 Meals You Can Make In 15 Minutes | 17 Tasty Dinners You Can Make In 20 Minutes Or Less

Whether's it's quick ingredient substitutions (like trading maple syrup for fruit), or experimenting with better-for-you alternatives when you're craving something sweet (like making soft serve out of frozen bananas) — the more swaps you have in your arsenal, the better.

Info & recipes: 27 Very Easy Ways To Eat Healthier | How To Make Creamy Banana Soft Serve

Any time you can cook protein and vegetables at the same time (and on the same surface, for less cleanup), it’s a good thing. Sheet pan dinners are the oven-ready equivalent of Crock-Pot dump dinners, or one-pot meals — and are perfect for busy weeknights.

Recipes: Sheet Pan Salmon with Crispy Kale | One-Pan Chicken, Potatoes & Carrots | Sheet Pan Hasselback Cheesy Fajitas

Meatless Monday is a great thing to adopt — even if only for a month or so — because a) it challenges you to think creatively beyond meat, and b) it's almost always cheaper to cook without meat. (Which, TBH, is the reason I started doing it.) Easy MM staples that I never get tired of: veggie lo mein, spicy black bean tacos, creamy mushroom pasta, and vegetable stir-fry.

More recipes: 15 Delicious Pastas With No Meat | 30 Quick Vegetarian Dinners To Try

Easier to make than you think, and tastes way better than the boxed stuff.

Recipes: How To Make Chicken Broth + 5 Delicious Ways To Use It In Soup