Cooking Tips & Tricks: Five Common Meat Cooking Mistakes

I spend a lot of time learning about things about cooking. Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone likes to read up on it as much as I do, not everyone has parents that let them help cook while they were growing up. So today I want to talk about 5 common mistakes when you are cooking meat and easy fixes that will make an incredible difference in your cooking. 

1. Turning it too often. Have you noticed that when you turn the chicken in the pan, you leave little pieces of the chicken behind on the pan? These little pieces are great to season the sauce you want to make in that same pan, but if you start turning too early, those little pieces are going to burn. To make things worse, your chicken isn's going to have that gorgeous golden color you are looking for. So now your chicken is pale and tastes burnt because of those little pieces left behind in the pan. Yum, right? Remember to be patient while you are cooking. The food is going through a reaction. Trying to speed it up or slow it down is going to alter the result. 

2. Not letting it rest. I know you just rolled your eyes and said something like this, "I have 7 kids who all need something as I cook and will all need to eat dinner at the same time before we start the fight to get them in bed. You want me to care about something like letting my meat rest? Really?" Yeah. I do. Hear me out though. In order to have food finished at the same time, we start by cooking the thing that will take the longest and finish with the food that takes the least amount of time, right? Well, let's all start pretending that meat takes 10-15 minutes longer so it can be cooked and rested and still finished at the same time as everything else that needs to be cooked.

3. Overcooking it. Well done doesn't mean black. I understand wanting your food to be cooked all the way through. I am going to recommend getting a meat thermometer. You get to know that your food is safer to eat and you don't have to eat burnt meat. Don't know the temperatures you are looking for? Let me help.

Beef will continue cooking as it rests. Expect about 5 degrees higher after it rests. I recommend medium-well. 

Medium - 140-145 degrees

Medium-well - 150-155 degrees

Well-done - 160+ degrees

Pork will also continue cooking as it rests. Expect about 5 degrees higher. I recommend medium. 

Medium - 140-145 degrees

Well done - 160+ degrees

Poultry is easy to talk about. Get it to 165 degrees. 

Seafood. If you cook seafood this long, I now know why you don't like it. If you want to know about a specific fish or cut, please look it up.

One final thought about temperatures, reheating is a different story. Aim for 165 degrees the second time.

4. Under-seasoning it. I already told you about salt, so I know you are using it to season your meat before you cook it. Good job. Now I am going to tell you that seasoning can't just be in the breading or marinade. You should be seasoning those things, but you also need to season the meat directly. Your taste buds will thank you. Then you will thank me. Everyone wins. 

5. Room temperature. Remember a couple of tips ago when you rolled your eyes at me? Get them ready to do that again. (At least I put a couple of tips between these two so you could give them a rest. You're welcome.) Get your meat out of the fridge and let it rest for a while. I will give you an analogy. When you are coming in from playing in the snow, what happens if you jump into a hot shower? Panic, maybe some yelling, definitely jumping back out of the shower and getting water everywhere. The point is that the extreme difference in temperature causes an adverse reaction. Well, your meat does the same thing, it just can't jump back out of the pan once you forced it in. Seems mean, doesn't it? (Okay, I know the meat has no feeling, but it is going to change the texture and that is just bad for you.)