Would you burn a salad? Do you friends grimace when you invite them over for supper?

Cooking is like flirting – it’s all about the confidence.

Once you feel at home in the kitchen, you’ll be a culinary goddess in no time!

Here are a few tips on how to boost your confidence in the kitchen.

1. Keep it simple
You don’t need to kick off your culinary tutorials with a super complicated dish! That would be like trying to run a marathon before you’ve even master the ‘Couch to 5K’ app! Start with a few simple recipes that need few ingredients and not much time to make. Once you’ve got the hang of them, you can move on to something a little trickier.

2. Invest in the right tools
Again, it’s like buying a decent pair of trainers before you decide to start running! You don’t have to spend a ton of money, but it’s worth investing in a few high-quality basics, like a good chopping knife and the right pots and pans.

3. Make it a labour of love
Rather than making some super healthy dish because you feel like you should, start with a recipe for one of your absolute favourite foods, and maybe a little bit naughty too. Looking forward to trying it afterwards is motivation enough to get you cooking!

4. Read the whole recipe

There’s nothing worse than getting  halfway through a recipe and realising you don’t have everything you need.  Read the whole recipe before you start, and make sure you have all of the ingredients on-hand. Try to follow the recipe to the letter the first couple of times you make it. Then, after you’ve mastered the basic version of the recipe, you can move on to trying out some variations.

5. Stick to what you know when cooking for friends

It can be super exciting to try a new recipe out on your friends, but it can be stressful too! Finding that thing you’re really good at making builds confidence, because who wouldn’t feel amazing about her cooking skills after mates gush about it all night!