I'd add that the cooking community here on Lemmy is helpful, too. It's active enough that you can constantly get ideas.

In my 20s I perfected my chili... It took a long time to get right, and I ate a lot of bad chili (but really, even the worst chili is still pretty good). I found the perfect 'secret ingredients' and techniques and then I got married to a wonderful woman, who is allergic to tomatoes and peppers, and doesn't like beans. It's been years since I've made chili.

Anyway, my point is just that you're absolutely right... you learn to cook by doing it.

Haha. Yes, it's important to get some basics down. Get a small amount of stuff from the store and be able to do many things with it.

The fancy recipes are great and all, but you end up with some items in the pantry you may never use again.

Plus one to Chef John. That's how I learned how to cook, one recipe at a time.

I would recommend this one as a starting point because it's easy, you learn a method that you use all the time (making a roux) and it's delicious. I still make it all the time.

Chicken with Chipotle & Green Onion Gravy

Also a quick tip: you can roast most veggies (e.g. green beans, brussel sprouts, asparagus) with some olive oil and salt at 375° for a bit and they will come out tasty.

Another great YouTube channel for learning to cook and bake is "Glen and Friends cooking". He has years of videos and always aims his content toward those that are new to kitchens.

He does a Sunday morning old cookbook recipe every week as well that goes into food history. He also releases a regular recipe most weeks but his schedule is changing a bit. It is worth going back through his older videos because he does a lot of "what was on sale at the grocery store" recipes that are great for making cheap meals for your family.

Cooking is a skill, you learn it one meal at a time.

Wow, well put.

I'd also recommend America's Test Kitchen (the older ones with Chris, because they focused on basics), and their cookbook (which is like $20) because it explains the "why" for a lot of recipes.

And Good Eats, because he was all about how things work from a food chemistry perspective.

Yes, it really is just having a few basic recipes that are adaptable.

Unfortunately, nobody generalizes their recipes, so you have to look up a lot of recipes before you see the pattern sometimes, and that makes it feel more challenging..

Someone needs to make a cookbook full of recipes like:

1. Add oil to a pan.
2. Add your aromatics [select from the following list.]
3. Add your [vegetables]
4. Add you [meats]

Cook on medium heat for 20-40 minutes, until everything is beginning to brown or something.

Insted, you get a 300 page cook book with all the possible combinations of spices and ingredients and it's overwhelming.