The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

A New York Times Bestseller

Winner of the James Beard Award for General Cooking and the IACP Cookbook of the Year Award

“The one book you will have to have, it doesn’t matter what you’re planning to cook or where your skill level falls.”—

Ever wondered how to pan-fry a steak with a charred crust and an interior that’s perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge when you cut into it? How to make homemade mac ‘n’ cheese that is as satisfyingly gooey and velvety-smooth as the blue box stuff, but far tastier? How to roast a succulent, moist turkey (disregard about brining!)—and use a foolproof method that works every time?

As Serious Eats’s culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered some of these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji makes a speciality of the science at the back of beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that continuously, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results the usage of new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you are going to find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to turn out to be one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.