Intuitive cooking 101: the 6 easy steps to help you trust your intuition in the kitchen

When I started my Instagram profile last year, I was happily sharing photos of my yummy lunches and dinner as “food inspo” for you all. But when some of you started asking me for recipes to my meals – I was stuck. I started realising that actually – I hadn’t followed a step-by-step recipe for my own cooking since I left secondary school.

My cooking process was intuitive, followed my own rules and never resulted in the same meal twice. And so, how could I share a recipe when each meal I created was its own glorious creation with infinite potential for tweaks and ingredient swaps?

How do you name a dish with no conventional recipe?

The simple act of trying to capture my photographed meals in a recipe format made me see my years of experience in creating delicious home-cooked meals in a fresh light. Now it made sense why I could never clearly describe “what was for dinner” in a one or two word answer. I realized that my recipes had no name! And when I tried to name them, it was usually a long-winded name listing off the ingredients, the general style of the dish and a country or continent that inspired my use of flavours. For example, my French-style cod stew with sautéed potatoes and olives. Or my Asian style tofu, ginger and vegetable stir-fry. And I think putting the name “intuitive cooking” to this style of meal prep helped me identify what it was that I was actually doing. I was using my intuition to create my own delicious master pieces!

What is intuitive cooking?

Intuitive cooking is using (and trusting) your intuition when cooking, rather than following a recipe step-by-step. It is making the most of the availability of fresh ingredients, and enhancing their flavours by using your own preferred cooking methods and flavourings.

Why are we afraid to share our intuitively-cooked meals?

I attempted to share some of my recipes on Instagram with a clear (and almost apologetic) disclaimer that my cooking methods were intuitive and not based on a true cuisine or cooking style.

My ingredient lists were rough estimates. My methods unconventional.

But your feedback was phenomenal! So many of you recognized yourself in my honesty. Some of you shared that you often did not even post your more “intuitive” meals on social media. You felt as though they did not fit into a conventional template.

With so many of us looking to recipes in our cooking, it can feel as if cooking is only a process to get to the end-goal – a meal that represents the name of the recipe we followed. Experts put up a new recipe, and you only succeed in completing the recipe if your dish looks and taste like the expert’s dish. We follow distinguished steps to make a “lasagna”. We want our teriyaki tofu stir fry to look like the picture in our recipe book. And so an intuitively cooked meal that does not look or taste like a conventional dish may not fit into the normal template of meals that we see being shared online or discussed in magazines. Perhaps this is why we feel that our intuitive dishes do not deserve to be shared openly.

How common is intuitive cooking?

I believe that we all use elements of intuition in our cooking – even when following a recipe. We intuitively look at the colour of the top of the cake when we bake to see if it may be ready to come out of the oven. We know to what to expect in the texture of the potatoes when we are checking to see if they are cooked. The more experience you have in cooking, the easier this type of intuition will come to you.

But no matter how experienced you are in cooking, I know that deep down you will all know if you like or dislike the smell, taste and look of the food as you are preparing it. Does it need more salt? Shall I leave out the broccoli from this recipe because I don’t like it? Should I cook the pie a little longer to get that extra brown crust I like?

Perhaps cooking is one of our oldest intuitions. Using food that is available to us, cooking it in a way that makes it easier to digest and flavouring it with ingredients that will make it taste better – we have been doing this stuff for millennia! So trust your gut a little – it’s in your genes!

Is there a link between intuitive cooking and intuitive eating?

In short, intuitive eating is a hugely popular and growing philosophy around eating where you focus on trusting your body to tell you when and what to eat. If you’d like to hear more about intuitive eating, let me know in the comment section below and I can make a post for you guys on that topic sometime soon!

Much like intuitive eating, I feel that intuitive cooking is a great step towards trusting our bodies to tell us what we need.

Does the meal need more or less salt? Taste and make the call there and then! Do you want your pasta dish to be more filling? Perhaps add beans and lentils for a great boost of fibre. Does the recipe call for some difficult-to-find ingredient? Experiment by using more locally sourced and in season veg that you feel may work instead. You are the master of your dish. Trust your gut, and listen to your instincts. Suddenly cooking becomes a lot less daunting, and a lot more creative!

What are the benefits of intuitive cooking?

There is little to no research (or even simply anecdotal information) available on formally recognized benefits of intuitive cooking. However, some potential benefits of moving away from using recipes and learning to trust our intuition more in the kitchen may include:

Less food waste

Using up foods that are in the cupboard or fridge already in your intuitive recipe, rather than those described in a formal recipe, means that you can cut the all import food waste! You could even use leftovers for your recipes, cutting waste even further! Food waste has a huge environmental impact, not just from the physical decomposing of the food in our landfills (which creates a lot of green house gasses), but also by wasting all the resources that were needed to produce the food in the first place! So get your intuitive thinking caps on, and make up a recipe which includes those peppers at the back of the fridge.

More sustainable:

I love basing recipes on foods which are locally sources and in season. Not only are they more environmentally sustainable (because of reduced transport or production costs) but also because they often taste so much better when they are fresh. Go to your local farmers market, or browse the veg aisle in your local supermarket (keeping a careful eye on local veg). Now allow yourself to be inspired by the delicious fresh veg you come across. Cook them in ways that you can imagine will bring out their flavours best. Be inspired by the seasons, the weather, the dishes you have tasted in the past. And cut food transport costs while you’re at it!

More fun

Getting intuitive with your cooking means you give yourself the freedom to have fun. You are not striving for perfection, but instead are looking to create a meal that YOU like the taste of. And your taste may surprise yourself! I like using the “sniff test” to see if a funky spice or herb matches my bubbling sauce or dish that I’m cooking. I’ll explain more of that later! Allowing myself the freedom to be creative in my cooking has made my time in the c=kitchen far more interesting and fun!

More satiating.

Intuitive cooking makes it easier to cater for specific diets. I am pescatarian and have IBS, so many conventional recipes simply didn’t match up to my dietary needs. Simply cutting out the ingredients that I try to avoid could easily leave a dish feeling bare and not as satisfying. But using my intuition to adapt these recipes allows me to easily replace a meat-based protein for a veggie alternative, and has given me confidence to replace flavourings and ingredients that may trigger my IBS with less volatile ones! And hence, my adapted intuitive recipes are far more satisfying and nutritious.

So how do I cook intuitively?

Honestly, there is no “one way” to cook with your intuition. Whatever floats your boat and soothes your soul will work or this! But as so many of you were interested in my recipes and my own personalized dishes, I thought I would let you in on my intuitive cooking process!

Prep work

Being a little prepared does help me in my intuitive cooking journey. I always try to stock some cupboard essentials that will help me flavor or compliment my meals. Of course these can be different for everyone, but here is my cupboard essentials list for making savoury meals:

• Pepper
• Chopped canned tomato
• Vinegar
• Rapeseed oil
• Olive oil
• Sesame oil
• Lemon
• Onion
• Garlic
• Soya sauce
• Rice
• Pasta
• Beans
• Lentils
• Bulgar wheat
• Quinoa
• Sweet chili sauce
• Maple syrup
• Stock cubes
• Coconut milk
• Herbs and spices:  
• Basil
• Oregano
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Cumin
• Chili
• Smoked paprika
• Curry powder

And here comes my step-by-step guide on how to cook intuitively:

Step 1: Gather your star ingredients

And for me, these are always veg! I try to shop in season and local. And I love trying something new! If I pick one particular star veg (for example broccoli), I do try to stock up on some old-time favourites to accompany it. For example, I may pick some carrots, peppers and tomatoes to go with my star veg.

Step 2: Decide on general style of your dish

Here I mean, decide if you are feeling up for a soup, salad, stew, pasta dish, rice and sauce dish, stir-fry, roast. The list is endless. But as you may have guessed, I am not fond of meat/veg/potato. However, this is definitely an easier version!

Be aware guys, tougher and harder veg need longer cooking, or they need finer chopping. This would include your carrots, parsnips, pumpkins and so forth. So if any of these feature as my veggie stars, I tend to go for a soup, stew or saucey dish.

Step 3: Choose a flavour style

Now this is where I usually add my “country or continent” inspiration label (for example, my French style cod). Just a disclaimer: In no true way to I fully stick to a true authentic flavour profile of a country’s cuisine.  I am merely inspired by the flavours of these countries. But as I cook intuitively, I tend to add in, or take ingredients from, each of these profiles.

I was asked to share a few of the common flavourings that I would use in each of these profiles. So here we go:

Now before we start, just letting you know that I tend to cook without onion and garlic because these flare up some of my IBS symptoms. But honestly, onion and garlic fit very nicely into any savoury meal profile! I tend to use the green parts of spring onion and garlic oil to supplement these flavours.

Also, I use maple syrup to sweeten my meals rather than honey, again for IBS reasons. But please chop and change these as you like!

And lastly before we dive in, I use very little salt in my cooking. But add salt to flavor as you wish.

When I am cooking “Asian-style” dishes, I like using some of the following:

Ginger, Sesame oil, soya sauce, lemon, sesame seeds, maple syrup and sweet chili sauce. Quantities can vary a lot. But experiment with some or all of these flavours to find your perfect balance of sweet, salty, gingery goodness!

My “Italian-style” dishes often contain the following flavours:

Chopped tomato, basil (fresh and dried), oregano, thyme and/or rosemary, pepper and maybe some maple syrup. I also love adding in the salty hints of olives, capers or parmesan cheese at times here.

Next, my “French-style” dishes often feature the next few ingredients:

Chopped tomato, stock cubes, thyme, rosemary, parsley, pepper, tarragon and occasionally some nutmeg!

My South-American dishes were mostly inspired by my time in Peru, and include the following:

Lemon, coriander (fresh), onions and fresh tomato.

But I also have my go to chili-sin-carne mix of chopped tomatoes, a stock cube, paprika, smoked paprika, chili and cumin.

And lastly, my “Iberian-style” flavours are combined by a mix of both Portuguese and Spanish dishes and include:

Chopped tomatoes, paprika, pepper, vinegar, cloves, nutmeg and even a little cinnamon sometimes!

Again, keep in mind that these flavor profiles are only there to guide you. Please use them as rough guides and add or take from them as you wish!

Step 4: Choose a protein source to suit the cooking style.

I prefer veggie or fish-based meals. However, you can of course choose meat if you wish. Most of my veggie dishes contain beans and/or lentils, and then occasionally also some form of veggie alternative protein such as quorn, cheese, eggs, tofu or tempeh. I especially enjoy tofu and tempeh in Asian-style meals, where I will marinade them in my Asian-style mix of flavours mentioned earlier.

Step 5: Choose your carb.

I am a sucker for wholegrain rice as its so filling and really versatile. I find it works for most of my south American, Asian and Iberian meals! I prefer using pasta or bread for my Italian dishes and potatoes for my French dishes. But again, this is only a rough guide!

You can also get a little creative with your carbs, and cook some buckwheat or quinoa in your stews and soups to thicken them. This instantly creatives a full one-pot meal full of wholegrains, and can help increase the variety in your dishes!

Step 6: taste, sniff and test.

I think step 6 is one of the most important steps of this intuitive cooking game! As you and your taste buds are the focus of attention here, you have all the freedom in the world to add flavours that you feel are missing! If you are feeling extra creative, try the sniff test to see if your curious mind can piece together even more unusual flavor combos.

The sniff test:

Taste the dish while its still cooking.

Now waft some of the steam coming from your dish towards your nose and smell.

Have the open pot of herbs or spices that you hope to add in your hand. While smelling the vapours coming from your dish, hold the jar of new flavor at your nose.

Does it smell like it suits the dish? Great, give it a go and add a little.

You’ll know pretty quickly if it doesn’t suit. So then give it a miss!

This is how I suddenly started adding a hint of cinnamon to my Spanish dishes. It smelled right, and as expected from my sniff test, it somehow tasted right too…

So the 6 steps of my intuitive cooking process are:

• Gather your star ingredients – the vegetables.
• Decide on general style of your dish
• Choose a flavour style – and I gave you a few of my flavor profiles to try!
• Choose a protein source to suit the cooking style.
• Choose your carb.
• And the last step: Taste, sniff and test.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my intuitive cooking process. I would love to hear more about your intuitive cooking styles, adventures and flavours! And please share a photo of your intuitively cooked dishes with me! Let’s celebrate unconventional cooking. Let’s celebrate the all so common mish-mash dishes! And let’s start cooking more meals that suit OUR taste buds, rather than those of a star-chef or Instagram recipe creator!

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