General Courses/
- AuthorMadeline Johnson
Mrs. Johnson has a bachelors degree in psychology, and masters degrees in teaching and business administration. She has six years of experience teaching all subjects at the elementary level and three years of experience teaching English and math at the secondary level.
View bio - InstructorBeth Hendricks
Beth holds a master's degree in integrated marketing communications, and has worked in journalism and marketing throughout her career.
View bio
Learn about basic food preparation techniques, and understand the importance of food safety. Explore various types of cooking methods and techniques with examples.Updated: 11/21/2023
Table of Contents
- What are Food Preparation Techniques?
- Basics on How to Cook Food
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
What are 4 cooking techniques?
Four cooking techniques are peeling, kneading, sifting, and stirring. People often use cooking techniques to prepare ingredients for further preparation.
What are 5 methods of food preparation?
Methods of food preparation include sautéing, stir-frying, steaming, baking, and grilling. These methods use different types of food preparation equipment or appliances and utilize varying cooking time and heat factors depending on the food being prepared.
Table of Contents
- What are Food Preparation Techniques?
- Basics on How to Cook Food
- Lesson Summary
Food preparation techniques are the techniques used to prepare a variety of food items. People use different preparation techniques depending on the type of food, and using the correct preparation technique is important to ensure the food is properly cooked.
People prepare different categories of foods, such as meats, fruits, and vegetables, differently depending on the characteristics of the food items and the contamination risk posed to a consumer for each food type. Culinary skills incorporate food preparation techniques with other skills such as selecting various foods for a dish and appealingly presenting that dish. Culinary skills help individuals to ensure that they can safely prepare food and select a balanced variety of food to support a proper diet.
Food Safety
Food safety refers to the guidelines set by the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. These guidelines are designed to prevent foodborne illness related to contaminated or improperly handled food items.
Individuals with different levels of food preparation skills and abilities use degrees of food safety. Novice food preparers can use food safety when preparing food in a home kitchen, such as using clean kitchen tools for each different type of ingredient. Restaurants and other establishments that employ professional or commercial chefs will outline food safety guidelines in a formal plan.
Food safety guidelines include safety precautions such as the precautions listed below.
- Wash hands and surfaces often and properly.
- Use clean food preparation tools that have been sanitized using heat.
- Prepare spotless preparation surfaces.
- Ensure food is stored at appropriate temperatures and refrigerated appropriately before and after preparation.
- Reduce cross-contamination by separating items at risk of spreading harmful bacteria and using separate preparation tools for each food category.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
An error occurred trying to load this video.
Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support.
You must cCreate an account to continuewatching
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Create Your Account To Continue Watching
As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help yousucceed.
Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons.
Try it now
It only takes a few minutes to setup and you can cancel any time.
Already registered? Log in here foraccess
Resources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons& teaching resources‐allin one place.
Video lessons
Quizzes & Worksheets
Classroom Integration
Lesson Plans
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Try it now
Back
Coming up next:Halal Food | Definition, Rules & Restrictions
You're on a roll. Keep up the good work!
Take QuizWatchNext Lesson
Replay
Just checking in. Are you still watching?
Yes! Keep playing.
Your next lesson will play in10 seconds
- Video
- Quiz
- Course
- Video Only
Food preparation will vary depending on the type of food someone is preparing.
Cook time and temperature are important factors in food preparation. Fruits are often eaten without cooking, whereas people typically cook vegetables using cook times and heat, improving the edibility of vegetables. Meats are cooked using specific time and heat recommendations because meat products are likely to contain bacteria that could potentially cause foodborne illnesses if cooked improperly.
Cooking foods in recipes often involves measuring and weighing various ingredients. Liquid food items are measured using measuring instruments such as cups, while people weigh solid food using a food scale.
Types of Cooking Methods
There are different types of cooking methods used to prepare meals. Sautéing uses a heated pan with a small layer of oil to cook food quickly. Stir-frying uses a heated pan to fry meat or vegetables over high heat while stirring rapidly. Steaming uses a specialized tool called a steamer or pot with boiling water to create water vapor to cook the food. Baking uses an oven set at a specified temperature to cook a variety of dishes; baking typically takes longer than other cooking methods. Grilling uses a specialized tool called a grill to cook food items; people often cook meats and vegetables using grills.
Before cooking the food, people often use methods of food preparation. These methods prepare ingredients for different cooking methods or to use in certain recipes. Some of the common food preparation methods are listed below:
- Peeling is the removal of an outer layer of a food item using a knife or specialized peeling tool. People often prepare fruits and vegetables by peeling the outer layer of skin off the item before consuming or cooking it.
- Kneading is a technique used for dough-based food items such as bread. Kneading involves pressing and pushing the dough with the hands repeatedly. Kneading dough helps distribute ingredients evenly and activates compounds within the ingredients, leading to better results when baking the dough.
- Sifting is a technique for preparing dry and powdery food items using a specialized tool called a sifter. Sifting ingredients leads to an even distribution, such as sifting powdered sugar onto a pound cake. Sifting also prevents the clumping of dry and powdery ingredients by catching clumps of powered ingredients that are too large to fit through the holes of the sifter.
- Stirring is a technique used for many dry, liquid, and solid food items that do not require specialized kitchen tools. Stirring is mixing multiple ingredients using a spoon or other elongated instrument and a bowl. Stirring helps evenly distribute ingredients in a recipe and is typically used to prepare ingredients for further processing.
- Blending is a technique used for dry, liquid, and solid ingredients. Blending solid ingredients requires a specialized tool called a blender, whereas people can blend dry or liquid ingredients with basic kitchen tools such as a whisk and bowl. Blending mixes ingredients to a greater degree than stirring, especially when using a blender that cuts solid ingredients into small enough particles that they will become indistinguishable from other ingredients.
- Whipping is a technique used for certain liquid ingredients that transform the liquid into an ingredient with a creamy consistency similar to whipped cream. Whipping is similar to stirring but requires a kitchen tool called a whisk. Whipping requires stirring certain types of liquid very rapidly for some time before the liquid transforms into a creamy consistency. People use whipping to create creams for drink recipes or dipping sauces.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Food preparation techniques are techniques for preparing food. These techniques will differ based on the type of food item someone chooses to prepare. Following food safety guidelines such as using clean prep tools on a spotless work surface and washing hands properly before handling food helps to prevent foodborne illnesses. Culinary skills help ensure safe food preparation using a variety of ingredients that will support a healthy diet.
Understanding differences in cook times and temperatures are basic food preparation skills. Following proposed cook time and temperatures are especially important for meat dishes to prevent foodborne illnesses and ensure meat dishes are safe for consumption. Liquid food items are measured using a measuring instrument such as a cup, and solid food items are weighed with food scales. Fruits and vegetables are often prepared by peeling or grating them. Peeling is a technique involving the removal of an outer layer of an item using a knife or peeler. Kneading dough helps activate compounds in the dough and distribute the ingredients, which allow it to bake efficiently. Stirring and blending are used to mix dry, liquid, and solid ingredients to varying degrees depending on the recipe.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Video Transcript
Culinary Career Skills
After struggling to find a career path that interested him, Tony thinks he's finally found his calling. Following a semester of studying culinary arts at his vocational school, he has decided he might want to pursue a career in the food service industry. But, being relatively new to culinary arts, he decides he needs to brush up on the basics over the summer to determine if it's really a good fit for him.
He sets up a meeting with a friend, Will, already working in the industry. Will shares some information about basic food preparation skills that will come in handy for Tony. Let's take a look at what he came up with.
Food Preparation Basics
Spending time in the kitchen requires a mix of practical skills for cooks and bakers, from weighing and measuring liquids and solids to properly using equipment such as a microwave, oven, or food processor. Here are some key skills important in the culinary world.
Achieving the right weights and measurements of both liquid and dry ingredients can make or break a recipe. Solids, such as flour or sugar, are often weighed using a kitchen scale, while liquids such as milk or oil are measured in measuring cups or measuring spoons. Proper weighing and measuring are vital for achieving success with recipes, both in cooking and baking.
Most workers in the culinary arts will tell you that proper knife skills are important for properly slicing and dicing food while being safe to avoid injury. The two most common ways to hold food while using a knife are the bridge hold, where you place your empty hand over the hand holding the knife to form a ''bridge'' above the cutting process, and the claw grip, which requires you to make a claw shape with your empty hand for holding food while cutting with the other.
Many times, dishes will require fruits or vegetables that need to be peeled or grated before being introduced into the recipe. Apples are traditionally peeled for an apple pie. Cheese may need to be grated (or shredded) to melt properly in a recipe. A box grater can be sat on a countertop and held at the top with one hand while the other hand grips the vegetable, for example, and rakes it downward over the sharp openings on the surface of the grater.
Unless you want your food to be under- or over-cooked, understanding the right temperature and length of time to prepare a dish is a crucial food prep skill. It can also help you determine which foods to prepare first. For example, potatoes will take a longer time to cook than most steaks. Time and temperature are also important in determining whether food has been cooked to a proper temperature that makes it safe for diners to eat.
Food Safety
Before most food preparation skills can be put into place, it's important that a cook grasp the importance of food safety. This includes proper hand-washing and using clean work surfaces and tools such as knives and cutting boards. This step can help prevent contamination that can make those consuming your food ill.
Sifting is a basic preparation skill that incorporates straining or processing a food product through a sieve. Sifting flour, for example, can remove lumps from the mixture and make it easier to mix with other dry ingredients.
The idea of marinating is allowing meat or other foods to sit in a mixture of sauces and/or spices to impart more flavor into what you're preparing to cook. It also can help make meat more tender for cooking.
If you've ever baked a cake from a box mix and observed the rule about greasing and flouring a baking pan, you already know a little about this important skill. You may be required to grease and/or flour a pan before starting the cooking process. These methods help keep foods from sticking to the surface, for example.
The kneading process typically refers to food preparation that involves preparing dough for baking. Kneading helps to develop compounds in dough that make it bake more efficiently. Kneading is a process of pushing and pulling with your hands to work all the ingredients together.
Unlike kneading which requires only a cook's hands, whisking involves the use of a tool known as a whisk to whip together ingredients. The purpose of whisking is to not only blend ingredients using light turns of a whisk but also to incorporate air which adds fluffiness.
No, this doesn't have anything to do with the holidays, but the act of using proper seasonings as you're preparing food. Meat may require salt and pepper, for example, while sweet dishes may need added vanilla or powdered sugar.
Lesson Summary
Understanding basic food preparation skills can make you a more effective cook or baker, both at home and in a commercial kitchen. Some of the most common types of skills that can be beneficial during food preparation include understanding how to weigh and measure foods and how to season ingredients appropriately. Strong knife skills can help prepare food while keeping your hands safe.
Paying attention to food safety ensures that diners receive food that has been handled carefully. Preparing cooking surfaces and understanding which foods require certain cook times and temperatures are important preparatory measures. Finally, a variety of preparation processes such as sifting, shaking dry ingredients through a sieve; marinating; kneading, working ingredients together by pushing and pulling with your hands; and whisking can turn combined ingredients into a delicious dish.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Unlock Your Education
See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com
Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a Member
Already a member? Log In
Resources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons& teaching resources‐allin one place.
Video lessons
Quizzes & Worksheets
Classroom Integration
Lesson Plans
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Try it now
Back
Recommended Lessons and Courses for You
- Related Lessons
- Related Courses
