Cooking Vocabulary

Cooking Vocabulary: What’s the Difference?

English has many words related to cooking, and each one has a specific meaning. Let’s look at some common cooking words, how to use them, and when not to use them!

Cook

This is the general word for making food. It usually involves heating food.

✅ You can cook dinner, cook a meal, cook pasta.
❌ You can’t cook a sandwich, cook cereal, or cook a salad because there’s no heating involved.

e.g. “I usually cook dinner at home.”

Make

This word is general but focuses on creating or assembling food (putting many things together).
It can include both heated and unheated dishes, so we can use it for pretty much all food items.

✅ You can make a cake, make a sandwich, make a salad, or make tea.
❌ You can make pasta (but that means creating from the start (with egg, flour etc..), so we say “cook pasta” because it involves boiling).

e.g. “I made a cake for her birthday.”

Prepare

Prepare means to get ready. It often describes the steps before cooking, like chopping or measuring.

✅ You can prepare ingredients, prepare a salad, prepare a meal.
❌ You can’t prepare tea or prepare toast (these are specific processes).

e.g. “I need to prepare the vegetables before cooking.”

Fry

Frying is a method of cooking where you use hot oil in a pan.

✅ You can fry eggs, fry chicken, fry potatoes.
❌ You can’t fry soup, fry cake, or fry tea.

e.g. “She fried the fish in olive oil.”

Bake

Baking means cooking food in an oven without oil. It’s often used for bread, cakes, and pastries.

✅ You can bake bread, bake cookies, bake a pizza.
❌ You can’t bake soup, bake tea, or bake an egg.

e.g. “I love to bake cookies on the weekend.”

Boil

Boiling means cooking food in water that is very hot and bubbling.

✅ You can boil eggs, boil pasta, boil potatoes.
❌ You can’t boil bread, boil salad, or boil steak.

e.g. “He boiled the eggs for breakfast.”

Grill

Grilling means cooking food over direct heat, like on a barbecue or in a grill pan.

✅ You can grill chicken, grill fish, grill vegetables.
❌ You can’t grill soup, grill tea, or grill rice.

e.g. “We grilled some chicken for dinner.”

Steam

Steaming is a healthy cooking method where food is cooked using hot steam instead of direct heat or oil.

✅ You can steam vegetables, steam fish, steam dumplings.
❌ You can’t steam bread, steam a pizza, or steam tea.

e.g. “They steamed the vegetables to keep them fresh and healthy.”

Quick Summary:

• Cook = general word for making food (with heating).

• Make = focuses on creating or assembling dishes (heated or unheated).

• Prepare = getting ingredients ready before cooking.

• Fry = cooking in hot oil.

• Bake = cooking in an oven (no oil).

• Boil = cooking in bubbling water.

• Grill = cooking over direct heat.

• Steam = cooking with hot steam.

Understanding these words and when to use them will make your English more accurate and natural. Practice using these in sentences to explain how you cook your favourite dishes!