A lot of us tend to cook out of necessity. We know that cooking at home is much cheaper than buying premade food and it offers some benefits such as being able to control exactly what we’re eating and the size of the portions. It goes without saying that learning to cook is essential for a healthy and frugal lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve our cooking skills.

Instead of getting by with the bare minimum in cooking skills, why not consider learning how to cook tastier meals and challenge yourself with difficult recipes? There’s never been a better time to start learning more cooking skills and here’s why.

There are a plethora of ways to learn to cook in your own time

Learning to cook can be difficult because it involves a bit of trial and error. Thankfully, we can skip much of this process by looking at a variety of different cooking resources. This could be a YouTube video on how to bake a cake, a recipe book from your favorite chef, or even signing up for local chocolate making classes. There are so many ways to learn how to cook these days that you can truly pick something that fits with your lifestyle and the amount of time you can commit.

Want to learn a recipe that you’re craving? Check up on YouTube and you’ll find plenty of videos about it. Interested in learning how to bake so you can start your own bakery in the future? Consider attending classes for it. Want to see where you’re going wrong with your pasta making technique? Sign up for a message board like Reddit and ask away.

No matter what you want to learn or how you want to learn it, there are resources out there that are easily accessible for everyone, making it a breeze to learn how to cook. You can even get support from professionals and more experienced cooks if you know where to ask.

Fresh meal kits are getting incredibly popular

We all know just how frustrating it can be to stand in a supermarket aisle and have no idea what to buy and what to cook at home. To make things worse, it’s easy to buy too much of something and end up wasting it or forgetting about it in our fridge.

This is why meal kits have been growing in popularity over the past few years. You pay a service to deliver you a box of ingredients for the week and you cook according to the instructions. You end up paying a very reasonable price for each meal, you don’t have to go shopping as often, and you don’t need to struggle with too much choice.

However, this is also a fantastic way to expose yourself to new recipes, new ingredients, and try out different cooking techniques. While it’s not the most challenging cooking experience, it definitely expands your horizons and can introduce you to lots of new food.