How Do Chefs Cook So Fast? All The Secrets Explained!

Have you ever noticed that chefs don’t take more than 20-30 minutes to serve food no matter what you order? It’s amazing how these chefs can prepare meals that take hours to cook at home so fast.

Chefs cook so fast because they pre-plan everything, organize their workspace properly, practice mise en place, have amazing knife skills, and multitask instead of waiting for every step to complete. Restaurants facilitate their chefs with the finest tools and equipment for faster cooking.

Cooking faster only requires learning a few skills and practicing them every time you cook. Professional chefs have specific skills and techniques that help them cook faster. All the secret techniques that chefs use are explained here today. So, let’s get started!

5 Secrets Why Chefs Cook So Fast

It doesn’t take more than 20 minutes for waiters to serve our meals whenever we visit a restaurant. Chefs quickly prepare meals for everyone present at a restaurant. While an ordinary home cook would take hours to prepare the same meal at home. 

So, why is it that chefs cook so fast even when they have to serve multiple people? 

The secret is:

Chefs are trained with important skills and a lot of practice. They don’t spend hours preparing food, marinating proteins, chopping vegetables, and preheating ovens on the spot.

We have all the secret techniques and methods that chefs use to cook faster. All professional chefs follow specific routines while cooking so that they don’t spend their entire day cooking only one meal. So, let’s check out the secrets!

1. Chefs Preplan Every Meal

Preplanning is the game changer in the kitchen. It saves the chefs from finding out halfway through cooking that they forgot to boil water or an ingredient isn’t enough for their dish. Chefs know exactly which steps to do first and which ones to save for later.

Before starting to cook, chefs go through all the steps in their heads. They arrange the steps in order from what takes the most to the least time. Things like boiling water for pasta, preheating the oven for baking, etc come first.

2. Chefs Practice Mise en Place

Mise en place is a French phrase meaning “gathering” or “establishing”. In the chef world, it means setting up your workspace beforehand and gathering all the ingredients and tools before starting to cook.

Mise en Place is a famous practice that most chefs follow. It saves them a lot of time and hassle. Everything stays organized and well-managed. 

Chefs go through the recipes of the dishes they plan to make, gather every ingredient, tool, etc, and place them all nearby. 

Chefs at restaurants don’t have to wash and chop vegetables while they are cooking. Such things are usually done before starting to cook.

Chefs require chopped garlic, diced onions, sauces, sauteed vegetables, etc all the time. Therefore, the chefs do these steps in advance for more than one dish. 

Keeping all the kitchen tools and ingredients within reach while cooking saves the chefs from running here and there and wasting their time.

3. Chefs Have Exceptional Knife Skills

Chefs have exceptional knife skills whether it is for cutting or chopping. It doesn’t take hours for chefs to cut vegetables and meat, unlike home cooks. 

Chef Frank Proto emphasizes the importance of knife skills. According to Chef Frank Proto, there are 9 essential knife skills for restaurant-style cooking. 

Cutting and chopping everything evenly ensures that all the pieces cook at the same time. Otherwise, the dish won’t taste uniform. 

Moreover, chefs use the right knife and a sharp knife so they can complete these steps in no time. They have the finest knives with sharp blades designed for professional chefs.

4. Chefs Multitask Different Steps Together

Multitasking in the kitchen is one of the biggest secrets of successful and fast cooking. Chefs don’t wait 15 minutes in the kitchen waiting for the oven to preheat or the pasta water to boil. They multitask and perform more than one step at a time. 

While preparing different dishes, chefs multitask everything together. Chefs don’t wait for one step to complete to start the next step. They align all the tasks according to the time they take and multitask things that can be done at the same time.

5. Chefs Use Pot Hacks For Faster Cooking

Knowing how to use all the utensils and pots correctly improves the cooking speed. Here are some of the hacks that chefs use for faster cooking:

• Covering pots with lids results in faster cooking and boiling.
• They use wide and shallow pans for quick meal preparations. These pans have a larger surface area that is in direct contact with the cooking element. 

Adding salts to vegetables helps them cook and boil faster.

How Do Chefs Cook So Fast at Restaurants

Restaurants don’t have a single chef working on everything. One chef might spend their entire day chopping and sauteing vegetables while others might be giving end touches to all the dishes the whole day.

Therefore, restaurant chefs don’t take as long as home cooks might take for the same dish to cook. Moreover, restaurant chefs have high-quality tools, good organization, and professional ovens and stoves. 

The ovens and broilers operate on high heat in restaurants. The broilers with 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit temperature take only a matter of 2 minutes to cook steaks. That’s the reason why chefs at restaurants prepare steaks so fast.

Chefs at restaurants prepare gravies in advance. They simply toss in other ingredients when an order comes.

Final Thoughts

Chefs cook so fast because of the facilities they have. They preplan everything beforehand. At restaurants, chefs have all the ingredients and tools within their reach. They have exceptional equipment with high temperatures to cook food faster. 

Chefs use their knife skills and multitasking skills to cook faster. Preplanning, multitasking, and practicing mise en place, all these secrets help chefs cook fast while maintaining a standard taste.

All these secret techniques help chefs to cook faster than home cooks. They prepare multiple yummilicious dishes in no time.