5 Fun Tips on Kitchen Teamwork

Cooking with friends is definitely a wonderful experience as you get to make new memories, cook delicious food, and hang out with each other! However, if you usually cook solo or don’t cook too often, you may find yourself nervous about how cooking with someone might go. Or perhaps you’ve tried cooking with friends before and it turned out to be a disaster.

Don’t worry! We’ve got you! Here are 5 tips for cooking with friends that are sure to make your next cooking adventure a success!

---

1. Communicate often

As you will be bumping elbows with your friends while cooking, it is especially important to stay in constant communication with each other. Before you start cooking, talk about the plan. Who is doing what? When are we doing that? Agree on things together, and work to find a middle ground before you start cooking. This extra 5-10 minutes of pre-prep prep will save you and your team from getting confused or misreading each other. Then, while you’re cooking, check in with each other and see how things are going. You might find some teaching moments appear, giving you or your friend the opportunity to strengthen their cooking skills!

Bonus tip: Consider working off of a recipe and assigning steps to each other!

2. Play to your strengths

If you or your friend are still getting the hang of cooking, try sticking to tasks that you are comfortable doing. For example, if you are good at cutting, but you always somehow end up burning the food, consider doing all the knife stuff and leaving the stove/oven/grill to your friend. Maybe you or your friend is super accurate and can guarantee that the ingredients will be measured out perfectly! Have them do mise en place and get all the ingredients and tools you need before you start cooking, so you can be as quick and efficient in the kitchen as possible!

Doing the cooking tasks which you have done before will give you a “cookie jar” boost and grant you the courage to persevere through the hard tasks! This leads us to our next tip…

3. Take chances

“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”  

Julia Child

Part of cooking is trying and learning something new. There will surely be a time when you come across something (an ingredient, a tool, a technique) that is new to you. While it might feel daunting to attempt to try something that you’ve never done before, think about how awesome it would be if you succeeded! Take a chance on it, and give it your best shot! The worst that could happen is that you fail and you learn.

4. Keep an open mind

Going hand-in-hand with #3 is keeping an open mind about cooking. This will allow you to learn more about the food you are cooking (e.g. what spices go with what type of dish, what certain ingredients do to the flavor profile, etc.), and you may even learn something new about how your friend thinks! After being in close-quarters with each other, you’ll definitely strengthen your friendship, and there’s nothing like having a deep conversation before, during, and after cooking with them!

5. Have fun!

“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

Craig Claiborne

Do yourself a favor and don’t take yourself too seriously while cooking. Sometimes it’s better to just roll with the punches and enjoy the process rather than stressing out, trying to make the most perfect dish. As a bonus, your friends will see you having fun and they’ll enjoy their cooking time with you even more! If you’re above age, consider making a cocktail or enjoying a nice glass of wine while you are cooking, or, if you’re a boba-lover like us, grab some boba to sip on before getting started!

No matter what level of cooking you and your friends are, if you follow these five tips, you’ll be sure to have a great time! Let us know what your favorite dish to cook with friends is in the comments below!

Featured image by Kevin McCutcheon on Unsplash

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclaimer policy for details. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.