Kitchen wisdom has been passed down through generations like treasured family recipes. Mothers taught daughters, and culinary schools drilled students with “sacred” rules that supposedly meant the difference between cooking triumph and disaster. Yet many of these once-gospel guidelines have been quietly abandoned by professional chefs who’ve learned through experience and science that some old kitchen commandments were, well, completely wrong. Today’s culinary world operates differently than it did decades ago. Modern equipment, better understanding of food science, and changing lifestyles have rendered many traditional cooking rules outdated or unnecessarily restrictive.
Searing Meat Seals In Juices – The Most Persistent Kitchen Lie
This might be the most widely believed cooking myth in existence, yet it’s completely false. The belief that searing meat “seals in the juices” is widespread and still often repeated. This theory was first put forth by Liebig around 1850. German chemist Justus von Liebig convinced cooks that high-heat searing creates an impermeable crust that locks moisture inside meat. Unfortunately for generations of home cooks who burned countless steaks following this advice, experiments to test the theory were carried out as early as the 1930s and found that the seared roasts lost the same amount of moisture or more. Generally more liquid is lost, since searing exposes the meat to higher temperatures that destroy more cells, in turn releasing more liquid.
Food scientist Harold McGee has spent decades trying to debunk this persistent myth. FoodNetwork personality Alton Brown attempted to get the truth out in 2008. He took two steaks of about the same size, seared one in a pan, and left the other alone. He then put them both in the oven on a wire rack and cooked them to his target temperature. When he removed them he weighed them again. The unseared steak lost 13% of its weight, but the seared steak lost 19%! The science is clear: searing actually forces more moisture out of meat than gentle cooking.
That said, searing absolutely serves a purpose. The browning creates desirable flavors through the Maillard reaction. So sear away, but do it for the incredible flavor and attractive crust it creates, not because you think it’s keeping your steak juicy.
Adding Oil to Pasta Water Prevents Sticking
This rule seems logical on the surface. Oil makes things slippery, pasta gets sticky, therefore oil should solve the problem. Some of the best Italian chefs don’t advise it. Although oil helps keep the water from boiling over, it prevents any sauce from sticking to the pasta. The physics here is straightforward: oil and water don’t mix, so the oil floats on top of the water rather than coating the pasta.
Alton added a gallon of water, 1 T of olive oil, and a pinch of Kosher salt to a pasta pot. The pot was covered and placed over high heat until the water reached a boil. Once the water was boiling, Alton added a half pound of pasta to the water, decreased the heat to medium-high, and cooked the pasta until it was al dente. After cooking, Alton drained the pasta, allowing the liquid to drain into a long, clear tube beneath the strainer. After several minutes, the drained liquid had separated into its oil and liquid phases, with the oil rising to the top of the tube. Alton calculated the drained amount of oil to be 0.43 ounces, which was about 85% of the original tablespoon of oil added to the pasta water. Since only 15% of the olive oil remained on the surface of the drained pasta, Alton concluded that not enough oil coated the pasta to prevent the noodles from adhering to each other.
Professional chefs prevent pasta from sticking through proper technique: using plenty of water, stirring frequently during the first few minutes of cooking, and not overcooking. Save your olive oil for finishing the dish instead of wasting it in the cooking water.
Salt Makes Water Boil Faster
This persistent myth likely started because salt does technically raise the boiling point of water. We’ve all heard this one – “add a pinch of salt to your boiling water to speed up the process.” But does it hold any weight? In truth, adding salt does indeed raise the boiling point of water, but not by much. The change is so minuscule that it doesn’t significantly affect the speed of boiling. The effect is so minimal that you’d need to add an impractical amount of salt to make any noticeable difference.
Adding salt makes the water hotter but it’s not going to boil any faster. What adding salt to pasta water actually does is season the pasta itself, which is why you should still do it. Think of the pasta water as a cooking liquid that flavors your noodles from the inside out, not as something you’re trying to speed up.
Modern chefs add salt to pasta water for taste, period. They use other methods when they need water to boil faster: covering the pot, using less water, or starting with hot water from the tap.
Never Wash Mushrooms Because They’ll Get Soggy
This rule has terrorized home cooks into gingerly brushing dirt off mushrooms with paper towels instead of simply washing them clean. Contrary to popular belief, washing the grit and dirt off mushrooms using water is harmless. In fact, Professor Brenner says that aspiring home chefs can test the theory out for themselves. Food scientist Harold McGee debunked this myth decades ago by demonstrating that mushrooms don’t absorb water any faster than other vegetables.
You may have heard that mushrooms should never be washed, since they will quickly absorb any water they touch and become waterlogged, but this is absolutely false. As Harold McGee proved in his 1990 book The Curious Cook, mushrooms don’t absorb water any faster than any other piece of produce, so quickly rinsing under running water won’t hurt them at all.
Professional kitchens wash mushrooms routinely without any problems. He hypothesizes that you could probably weigh a few mushrooms before submerging them in water for various lengths of time, then weigh how much water the fungi retains afterwards. He states that unless you plan to leave mushrooms in water for an extended period of time (they are porous, so they can be subject to liquid absorption), washing them briefly will not cause them to leach out nutrients or be diluted in flavor. The key is washing them right before you plan to use them and not leaving them sitting in water.
You Can’t Mix Seafood and Cheese
This Italian-inspired rule has prevented countless delicious combinations from reaching dinner tables worldwide. One major kitchen rule I never follow is that you can’t mix seafood and cheese. While many chefs will tell you that it’s a sin to do this, I’ve found that some of my best recipes have come from breaking rules like this one (take Plated’s salmon with avgolemono rice and feta and garlic basil shrimp with Parmesan and mascarpone grits). I find when you liberate yourself from rules like this one, you open yourself up to more creativity and fun in the kitchen, which is ultimately what cooking is all about.
While traditional Italian cuisine generally avoids pairing fish with dairy, this stems from regional preferences rather than any culinary law. Modern chefs regularly combine seafood and cheese in sophisticated dishes: lobster mac and cheese, salmon with cream sauce, or shrimp with Parmesan risotto. The rule made more sense historically when refrigeration was unreliable and combining dairy with seafood posed food safety risks.
Today’s professional kitchens embrace these combinations when they taste good together. The key is understanding which cheeses complement which seafood rather than avoiding the combination entirely.
Marinades Tenderize Meat
Home cooks dutifully marinate tough cuts of meat for hours, believing the acidic ingredients will break down tough fibers and create tender results. Marinades are really common, especially for tough cuts of meat. But do the acidic components of the marinade really make the meat more tender? Reality: It’s true that acidic ingredients denature proteins (change their structure), but most marinades don’t actually penetrate deeper than the meat’s surface. The real reason to use a marinade is to flavor your food and help it retain moisture.
Many people (including some professional chefs!) believe that marinades will tenderize meat, but that isn’t true. The salt in the marinade will disperse throughout the meat, increasing moisture retention and resulting in juicier meat, but this is not the same as tenderization. And while the acid can begin to break down the meat fibers if it’s left sitting too long in the marinade, this is technically denaturing the proteins, not tenderizing them.
Professional chefs use marinades primarily for flavoring and moisture retention. For actual tenderizing, they rely on mechanical methods like pounding, scoring, or using salt brines that actually break down muscle fibers throughout the meat. True tenderizing happens through proper cooking techniques, not soaking in acidic liquids.
Fresh Eggs Are Harder to Peel When Hard-Boiled
This rule has caused unnecessary frustration for anyone trying to make deviled eggs from farm-fresh eggs. To ensure easily peeled hard-boiled eggs, the American Egg Board suggests that you buy and refrigerate them a week to 10 days before cooking. This brief “breather” allows the eggs time to take in air, which leads to membranes separating from the shell. The conventional wisdom says fresh eggs are impossible to peel cleanly, so you must use older eggs for hard-boiling.
Modern cooking techniques have proven this rule unnecessary. Professional chefs have discovered that proper cooking method matters more than egg age. Starting eggs in boiling water rather than cold water, cooking for exactly the right time, and immediately transferring to an ice bath produces easily peeled eggs regardless of freshness.
The membrane separation that happens in older eggs can be replicated through technique. Many chefs now prefer using the freshest eggs possible and adjusting their cooking method rather than planning a week ahead for hard-boiled eggs.
Alcohol Completely Burns Off During Cooking
This rule has given many cooks false confidence when serving wine-braised dishes to children or recovering alcoholics. Heat does reduce alcohol’s potency (so you’re not getting anyone drunk with Grandma’s famous rum cake recipe), but the alcohol doesn’t completely cook away. It will if you heat it long enough, but that would take up to three hours in most dishes. The belief that heat immediately eliminates all alcohol content is simply incorrect.
Cooking will result in some, but not total, loss of alcohol. A study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Data Lab reveals that the amount of alcohol that remains in food after cooking is directly related to the temperature at which the food is cooked and the amount of time cooked. Even after significant cooking time, some alcohol remains in the dish.
Professional chefs understand that alcohol reduction depends on cooking method, temperature, and time. A flambéed dish might retain more alcohol than you’d expect, while a long-simmered sauce will have significantly less. They cook accordingly based on who they’re serving rather than assuming all alcohol magically disappears with heat.
