How do I become good at cooking?

I would add, eat around widely-other cuisines, friends who can cook, good restaurants. The more experience of food you have, the more you learn what you like & what you don’t. Good quality ingredients really help but are not essential as you get more skilled. Cooking classes and courses are great too as you can usually taste as you go along. Suggest people get them as presents for you.
another suggestion is to take one ingredient like say, tamarind, and see what you can do with it ( or anchovies, or Parmesan, or shallots etc etc)Some food writers suggest eg an Italian week or a Korean week , where you buy all the ingredients and try out lots of different dishes within the same tradition. Ultimately though, good food is good food! Don’t turn into one of those who thinks food is just fuel.

Experiment, plain and simple

Agreed re the Spicery link. Just add loads more salt and bouillon powder.

also don’t keep making new recipes. Just make the ones you like as many times as you can bear so you get better each time.

a one pot helps as you can ‘slow cook’ quickly .

Kitchen Sanctuary recipes are good. To be good at cooking - get a weighing scale, measuring spoons 2 tablespoons down to 1/8th teaspoon and a timer and use them. Also follow recipes to the letter until you know what you are doing however I still follow recipes with no shortcuts and no-one has died - yet 😂

I think the main thing is practice practice practice. There was some turning point for me when I used to like cooking and then all of a sudden went from okay to pretty good because I was just learning all the time. In theory depending on your schedule you have several opportunities to practice everyday.

Buy cookbooks, read cookbooks, watch TV cooking shows, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram - just watching people cook over and over you will pick up good technique and methods. Also cook with together with friends that are a really skilled and you will definitely get some good tips.

Then you'll get to a point where you don't need cookbooks as practical crutch and can freestyle and invent things by combining all those little nuggets of knowledge in your brain. (I still buy them and read them because there is an unlimited amount of techniques you can learn and ideas to have)

These are the best general cooking tips that I've learnt and come back to over and over

• Always brown meat in a hot pan before roasting. For example if you were cooking skin on chicken thighs I'd brush them all sides with olive and seasoning then cook in a hot pan. Searing them on both sides for 4-5 minutes without moving around the pan so a nice brown colour appears. That colour is the pure flavour you've just developed. Then just put in a baking dish and roast until cooked in the oven.
• A meat thermometer is your friend esp for steak and fish. You never need to cook it as long as you think so. Look up exact temps and work with them rather than numerical timing. Always insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the protein you are cooking for the most accurate reading.
• Let roasted meat rest in it's juices for 20-30 minutes out of getting out the other. Wrap in foil then wrap the foil in tea towels to keep warm (also makes timing easier for a roast etc!)
• Most sauce based dishes like Bolognese, Stews and particularly curries and daals do not taste good on the day they are made. Always so bland. I would cook these things, decant into some glass tupperwear and let them sit in the fridge for at least 2-3 days - the flavours will develop and that's where you get the rich flavour and taste.
• If you cook asian food a lot - cornstarch is your best friend. When you make sauces mix a cornstarch slurry into it (equal part cornstarch and cold water mixed together). It will thicken the sauce and give you that lovely silky texture you get at a chinese restaurant.
• Again for asian dishes - technique called velveting is amazing. Coat protein like Tofu, chicken, prawns, beef - whatever you are using - in cornstarch. I cut up the meat, say 2 chicken breasts, add to a tupperwear box with 2 tsp of cornstarch, salt, white pepper, chinese 5 spice. Close the lid and shake to coat. Fry on a hot wok or pan.
• If using tomato puree in a dish always make sure to fry with your aromatics (onion, garlic) at the start of a dish rather than just squeezing it directly into a sauce. The taste is raw and sharp if you miss this step so it adds depth and flavour and it also helps break down the paste and release the flavour and antioxidants.

The first Prashad cookbook took my curries to the next level. It's vegetarian and superb. I have a spice tin as you need decent spices. I add a stock cube to anything I think needs a flavour boost and homegrown herbs help too.

BBC good food is useful for various veggie recipes. Reading the comments is a must before making a dish. Also I substitute veg mince meatballs etc in non veggie recipes. It works.

Try getting Hello Fresh or Gousto boxes for a few months. The recipes have all the seasoning included so will make you use more than you might tend to.

It’s just practice really. It’s important to taste your food as you go along and with experience you’ll start to know what needs adding to make a recipe sing. Until then just follow recipes from reliable sources - if I see a recipe on bbc food I always read the comments and you can pick up tips from there.

I don’t really bother with cook books anymore as there’s so much choice online.

Lots of practice and plenty of tasting the food during the cooking process. After a while you start to get a sense of what it's lacking and an inituation for what to add.

Generally I find when my food is a bit meh its because it needs salt, umami or else is too watery and needs reducing.

Recipes on the BBC Good Food website are generally straighforward and reliable and have ratings so you can see if other people think they are good.

Fresh herbs are a great way to perk up most dishes.

I think my cooking is now pretty good. First thing is practice practice practice and do not be put off when it does not quite work first time. IME it is often very minor things that really impact the taste. I have found some recipe books really good. Full disclosure I am ethnically Indian but really love Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible which I have learned so much from. Older women also have a lot to teach us as well and are usually so happy to pass skills on. I spent a day with DH Aunt learning how to make a proper trifle which we had great fun doing. Also I have done a couple of cooking school days which people got me as presents. Though these were really nice.

I think that recipes are often missing a bit of "oomph". Try adding miso or Marmite or also turmeric for a bit if earthiness. Always add some salt and black pepper.

I always use double the amount of garlic for recipes. If using cheese in a dish you could also add some nutritional yeast.

As others have mentioned, find someone whose cookbooks you like and it will make a huge difference.

I'm no real fan of Jamie Oliver as a person on TV etc, but his food almost seems to be specifically geared towards my own tastes so I absolutely love his books. I started with Ministry of Food as I wasn't a great cook and it's designed to show you how to make things tasty easily. I also lived Jamie's Dinners - his pasta peperonata is now one of my favourite meals (although I sacrilegiously add chorizo to it....)

Curries are best eaten the next day, when the flavours have had time to marinate

Fresh garlic, ginger fresh, fresh chili ( or in jar or tube or paste) are your friend

Plus other herbs & spices

I cook chinese/Thai stir fry with similar ingredients; but eat same day but add soy or chili sauce

The more you cook the more chef’s ‘intuition’ you will develop and you’ll get to know when there is too much liquid called for, or not enough garlic/onion etc. Or when something needs another 15 mins reducing.

Lots of practice.

Restaurant cooking often involves heavy salting or MSG for flavour enhancement.

I'd say buy a couple cookbooks and cook your way through them. I'd start with Start Here by Sohla El-Waylly and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat.

Learn the different cooking techniques. Braising, saute, roast, and so on.

Learn about flavour profiles from different cuisines and try them out. For example, make a basic lentil soup with a classic French flavour, then with Middle Eastern spices, then Ethiopian.

Learn basic knife skills. There's good YouTube tutorials

Agree with PPs.
Flavour comes from proper browning, sweating, balance, sauce reduction and of-course seasoning. And good ingredients.
Being a good cook comes from having a good palette but also, practice & experience.
Also, if you are following recipes, a good WELL TESTED recipe.
Be wary of recipes found online and even in some modern good books and recipes. Proper recipe testing and development takes skill and patience and dedication and unfortunately not all food writers and sources have the integrity required.
Simon Hopkinson, Diana Henry, Claudia Roden & Ottolenghi are my core trusted food writers. You can also usually trust Good Food. They have a test kitchen and testing their recipes before publishing them is part of their ethos.

Yeah, this is right, but I am your husband in this scenario because I don't know how to judge "ready" (or anything else). Whereas DP happily goes off-piste, uses the recipes as vague guidelines, and produces much more delicious food.

I don't really have an answer to the OP's question, it continues to elude me tbh. I suspect that like everything else is to practice, practice, practice, but it's hard to do that when you're conscious of the potential waste and hunger if it's inedible.

In lieu of that I'd suggest taking a step back and working out which aspects of cooking you struggle with specifically. For me, it's anything that requires dexterity (a surprising amount of cooking!) or using my own judgment. That means I know what my limited wheelhouse is and can throw together simple things within it (traybakes and soups and, um, that's it).

I think I am a pretty good home cook. I did not learn this growing up. Here is what I think have helped me to become a good home cook

1 Watching cooking shows. Honestly, it's so helpful as you can see what they're doing and there's a lot of useful and interesting chat. eg, when you're cooking curries, you want to be toasting off the spices at least slightly. this is hugely important to the final flavour. Even things like curry pastes - I was watching something once where they talked about cooking the paste and "almost taking it over" and I realised that they were literally cooking the paste with a bit of coconut milk and sort of frying it almost for mch longer. And suddenly one of my recipes made a lot more sense!

2 Do not be stingy with oil/butter/fat and seasonings. Again, when you watch on tv, you can see the way they're putting these things in. A lot of homecooks are so terrified of fat or seasonings that they don't use enough. this reduces flavour and often impacts the cooking process. I was amused to read a recipe last week for Chicken Chasseur - the (traditional french) chef writing the recipe bangs on and on about butter but is hilariously blase about the wine and brandy - basically the butter cannot be skipped, but the alcohol can!

3 Learn about the benefits of different heats. A lot of cooks cook everything at the same heat. DH, for example, has never mastered cooking anything on the stove at anything less than full whack. His steak is great, his scrambled eggs less so.

I would als try some hello fresh or similar meals - it's great for inspiratino and to see how it all comes together.

Honestly, it's just practice.

I grew up in a home with a very disinterested cook. My mum cooked to keep us alive, nothing more. Nothing really had any flavour. We didn't own any seasonings. There was salt because mum liked to put a bit on her chips when we had them, both nothing else.
I remember being utterly thrilled with the food when I moved into a fully catered hall in university! To everyone else it was very bland, but to me it was fantastic!

I taught myself to cook just by being interested. I found a few recipes on the BBC good food website that looked nice and pretty easy, and just went from there. Some were misses, but some were hits that are still in regular rotation 20 years on.

I am really bad at cooking, I am not a natural cook like friends or my mum/sister. But what helps me is following recipes online, either the visual ones (which help more) or any to be honest. I dont deviate from the recipe, sometimes my mum will say "oh you dont need that" or add this etc but because I am not a natural I cant improvise so I have to follow it to a T even if its a recipe I have done before.
My dishes never look like the great ones online, look a bit messier but its gone quite well really.

I find Hello Fresh and Gousto come up short on spices so unless you add your own the food is quite bland.

I get my hands on Delias complete cookery course and Nigellas How to Cook. Both cover the basic well, and Nigella follows the natural links to process, so if you can make a custard you can make an ice cream type thing. Once you have the basics mastered you can experiment with different ingredients. It’s really a case of practice while building a good basic knowledge of how food works, ie what balances too much salt, what things are prone to curdling, how can you stop that etc, the difference browning meat makes, how long it takes to sweat onions and the difference that makes to flavour.

My dad was a chef, growing up I spent hours in the kitchen with him learning the basics almost by osmosis. Get a good foundation and go from there.

Work you way through the Hello Fresh and Gusto introductory deals to build some confidence and variety with ease then either use cook books or BBC recipes/ GoodFood.

I would definitely recommend Hello Fresh or Gusto. Recipes are easy to follow, give you inspiration and also introduce you to different techniques you might not usually use.

I think Delia Smith is your friend here .I literally learnt to cook with her books in the 80s. She can be a bit twee at times ,but as she says we are not chefs we are cooks! She takes you through the recipes step by step in a kind of Big Sister vibe . I think anyway to host people casually as well .No one expects Haute Cuisine. and a nice big pot of Chilli or Spag Bol . plenty of wine/Crusty bread and off you go!

Season in layers
Learn which flavours add umami, things like aminos, parmesan, olives, nduja, miso, Worcester sauce
Season throughout the process eg when you saute raw ingredients not just the end
Find a chef that you like.
I start off by working out what I like to eat and looking up a few recipes from different chefs to see what is the most authentic
In general when I cook food that isn't British I try and follow recipes written by someone from that country rather than the British version of...

I find this site good for simple recipes with lots of flavour https://www.recipetineats.com/