How to Cook Everything: The Basics

The most comprehensive reference book for people who are truly starting from zero. Mark Bittman, longtime food columnist for the New York Times, stripped his bestselling “How to Cook Everything” down to the 185 most essential recipes and paired them with over 1,000 step-by-step photographs showing exactly what each stage should look like.

Why Start Here

Where “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” teaches you to think about food, “How to Cook Everything: The Basics” teaches you to do things in the kitchen. It covers the practical side that other books assume you already know: how to hold a knife, how to boil an egg properly, how to make a basic pan sauce. Every recipe is photographed at multiple stages, so you always know if you are on the right track.

Bittman’s writing is direct and unpretentious. He does not romanticize cooking or make it feel like an art form you need years to master. His approach is more like a competent friend showing you how to make dinner. The recipes are simple, the ingredient lists are short, and the variations he includes with each recipe teach you how to adapt and improvise.

The book is organized by technique and ingredient, making it easy to find what you need. Want to learn how to roast a chicken? It is in there, with photos of every step. Need to know what to do with the vegetables in your fridge? There is a section for that too.

What to Expect

A large, photo-heavy reference book that works both as a learning tool and a daily cooking companion. The 185 recipes are genuinely foundational, covering everything from scrambled eggs to homemade pasta to roasted vegetables. Each recipe includes “learn more” sidebars that explain the underlying technique and multiple variations so you can start experimenting once you are comfortable.

At 486 pages with extensive photography, this is the kind of book you keep on your kitchen counter rather than your bookshelf. It gets splattered and dog-eared, which is exactly how a good cooking reference should look.