Chefs share their best tricks for making 15 foods everyone should know how to cook

• Business Insider spoke with three professional chefs to find out their best cooking tricks.
• Achieve creamier mashed potatoes by boiling your potatoes in milk instead of water.
• Use leftover herb stems to create dressings and salt your ice water when blanching veggies.

Whether you’re hosting a feast or cooking yourself a quick dinner, It’s important to master a few recipes and have some go-to dishes up your sleeve.

Professional chefs know this very well — and many have spent years learning tricks for making even the most common dishes better.

So, Business Insider asked three chefs to share their best tips for upgrading 15 foods everyone should know how to cook.

Here’s what they had to say.