Are you looking for ways to improve your cooking skills? Whether you are an amateur cook who wants to impress friends and relatives by inviting them to enjoy amazing dinners at your place or you are thinking of becoming a professional cook and don’t know where to start, this article will come in handy. We have reviewed several online programs and looked at what previous learners have to say about them in order to provide you with a list of the best free online cooking classes.
It’s time to put on your best kitchen apron and to get your cookware ready. Your cooking learning journey is about to begin.
Gordon Ramsay (YouTube Channel)
Gordon Ramsay is one of the world’s most renowned chefs and owns several top-rated restaurants around the world. He is also known for his role in several television shows like Masterchef and Hell’s Kitchen.
He started his cooking career in the UK and perfected his skills in France and Italy. He also travels extensively to discover new cooking techniques around the world and add them to his amazing recipes.
His YouTube channel has over 13 million subscribers, is updated regularly, and offers hundreds of free lessons on how to prepare the most amazing food specialties. In addition to being a very skilled cook, Gordon Ramsay is also a skilled teacher and explains his techniques and recipes with clarity, effectiveness, and a bit of fun too.
His video tutorials go from teaching you very basic skills like how to finely chop an onion to showing you more advanced recipes like how to prepare a perfect beef wellington for Christmas.
Not all the videos on Gordon’s channel are dedicated to recipes. You’ll also find many entertaining videos that are either short summaries of his television shows’ episodes or short documentaries in which Gordon takes you around the world to discover new cuisines and cooking styles.
He also hosts other experienced chefs and cooks regularly on his channel. If you are a beginner, Gordon Ramsey’s videos will not only teach you some amazing recipes and style tips but also bring you closer to food and cooking in general.
Skillshare Cooking Video Classes
Skillshare is a great online learning community that offers several video classes in different fields, including cooking. It provides both free video classes and additional lessons for those who sign up for a premium account.
All video classes are posted by very skilled teachers who must be approved by Skillshare before they can publish content on this website. This platform is updated regularly, and new video classes are published each month.
There are several sections dedicated to food and cooking. Some of the most relevant sections are cooking, baking, culinary, cuisine, and recipes.
Across these categories, you will find dozens of free classes you can join today. Some examples of free cooking classes available on Skillshare are: “Slow Cooker Secrets: Get More Flavor in Less Time”, or “Japanese Home Cooking”. In the “recipes” section you will classes like “Corn, Fire & Spice: A Blueprint for Making Enchiladas Verdes” and “Easy, Delicious, Cheese Sandwich Maker Recipe”. And so on.
Some free cooking classes available on Skillshare
While Skillshare’s free online cooking classes are definitely enough to get you started, the majority of video classes on this platform are available only to those who sign up for a premium account (Skillshare offers both a monthly and a yearly plan).
The good news is that this platform also offers a commitment-free 14-day trial period, which gives you instant access to more 250,000 video classes in all categories and more than 30,000 videos dedicated to food, cooking, and recipes.
The free-trial option will allow you to test Skillshare for two weeks (learning dozens of new skills and recipes in the process) without having to pay for a subscription. You can decide later whether to become a premium member or to use a free account.
Italia Squisita (YouTube Channel)
Most international polls show that Italian cuisine is the most popular cuisine around the world today. Italy is a country whose culture and its cuisine are strongly intertwined and its dishes and food specialties have gradually conquered the favor of international food lovers.
Italian food can be as simple as spaghetti with fresh basil and tomato sauce and as sophisticated and hard-to-prepare as a “Pastiera Napoletana”, an Easter’s tart made with wheat, ricotta, eggs, and orange flower water.
The number of specialties you can find in Italian cuisine is so vast one could literally fill the entire Colosseum with food recipes.
Knowing how popular Italian food is in most countries, we have looked for the best free Italian cooking classes available online. Our pick is this amazing YouTube Channel managed by some of Italy’s best chefs.
While professional chefs on these videos explain their cooking tricks and secrets in the Italian language, most videos on this channel have great English subtitles (as well as an English title), allowing everybody to learn how to prepare the best Italian dishes. It’s no wonder that this channel has over 350,000 subscribers from all over the world.
We could have easily chosen other channels where recipes are explained in English without the need to look at subtitles but believe us when we tell you that the skills and preparation of the cooks behind this channel are way above what you normally find around.
Even with subtitles, these video classes are very easy to follow. They show you all the essential steps needed to cook a great dish and impress your guests or customers. Many advanced cooks from around the world also follow this channel to learn the secrets of some of Italy’s most experienced chefs.
A video on “Italia Squisita”
This channel has been publishing videos for years, and the number of available recipes is huge. In addition to being very skilled, the cooks posting on this channel are also very friendly and outgoing, making your learning experience way more enjoyable.
So are you ready to start learning the original pesto recipe? What about the right way to cook great seafood risotto? Or do you prefer starting by learning how to prepare a pizza, the world’s most favorite food, from the comfort of your home kitchen?
Kent Rollins (YouTube Channel)
If you love good ole’ American food and are looking for instructions, tips, and advice on how to cook the best homemade hamburger or a delicious chicken-fried steak, you will love Cowboy Kent Rollins’ YouTube Channel.
Kent has been active for over 25 years, cooking mostly outdoor. His channel is updated regularly and contains tons of free videos explaining in detail how to cook some of the most inspiring dishes from the US and beyond.
Some of his most popular videos are those on how to cook a “caveman steak”, how to prepare a cowboy-style homemade Big Mac, what are the secrets to getting crispy fried hash browns and what’s the method to prepare a fool-proof method and easy recipe for a killer prime rib. These are only a few of the hundreds of recipes you can find on his channel.
To make it easier for viewers to find a specific recipe, Kent Rollins’ channel is divided into different playlists: breads, veggies, soups and stews, beef, pork, seafood, sourdough recipes, and dutch oven desserts. Additionally, you will find specific playlists for easy meals, comfort food, holiday recipes, grilled food, smoked food, and Mexican food. Finally, his channel offers free bonus playlists on grilling techniques and cast iron reviews.
In addition to being a very skilled cook, Kent Rollins is also a very sociable and friendly man. Not only does his channel contain hundreds of tips and tricks to cook great food, but his videos are very entertaining and pleasant to watch. It’s not a secret that learning and having fun doing it is the best combination possible.
Passion is Key in Learning How to Cook
Cooking is at the same time a science and an art. While it requires you to develop specific skills, like how to select and balance the right ingredients, how to determine what’s the right sequence for preparing a particular dish and what is the perfect cooking time, it is an activity that requires passion and dedication from the moment you start learning to the day you become a professional cook.
The world’s greatest chefs might have different cooking styles, give different advice and use different recipes but what they have in common is a great love for food, cooking and anything culinary, in addition to a great deal of creativity.
We wish you good luck in your journey to becoming an experienced and successful cook, whether you’re doing it only for yourself or you are planning to start a career in this field.
If you are also interested in baking, check our review of free online baking classes.
Should you have any thoughts or comments you want to share with us and with other readers, feel free to drop a comment below.
(Last updated on April 19, 2020)
Never thought to look for cooking classes online. This is great news for me. Thank you so much for the research put into this site and the information you provide. You went into some great detail of all the different foods and types of recipes offered in these classes. Look forward to your future research and will be back to visit.
Love, Light and Blessings
Thanks for the comment, Surina. It’s great to know that this article made you interested in online cooking classes.
it surprises me when some people just decide to make anything to eat. i feel they do not love their body as they should. cooking is an art and there is application of science. so it is only natural to learn every day. i love learning with videos and this article has given me pointers on what to do. thank you
Hi Smoochi, it’s great that you found this article useful!
Awesome article on the best free online cooking class. i have been searching for a platform like this although i used youtube formally.
It is good to know that Kent has been active for over 25years, cooking mostly outdoor. Also, his channel is updated regularly and contains tons of free videos explaining in detail how to cook some of the most inspiring dishes
Yes, Kent Rollins’ videos are amazing and his channel is updated very often.
Hello! With COVID-19 in full effect, this is the perfect timing for an article like this. Personally, I love cooking and have been to a few in class lessons but never heard of online ones before. This is something I am very interested in trying out! I hope I will be able to impress people with my cooking skills!
That’s true. COVID-19 forces us to spend entire days at home. So it can be a great opportunity to improve our cooking skills!
Hi,
Thanks for this educative post, I’ve been in search of a good place to learn how to cook Italian dishes and Luckily for me, your post recommended one for me. I’ve always had a passion for cooking since childhood so it wan fun reading your post. I love how you put in enough details to your post. Thanks alot, your content is outstanding.
Thanks, Isanren. It’s awesome that you found what you were looking for thanks to our article.
Hi there. Very enjoyable article, first – because I love cooking and second – because it gives you 3 excellent choices if you want to learn to cook a good meal. As I said I love cooking but sometimes you run out of ideas and you don’t know what to cook for the next day which is my biggest problem. Although there are thousands of recipes online, simply you don’t know where to look at. But people like you make it easier for people like me. Thank you again for your great article and thank you for giving me an idea where to look at when I want to cook something special.
Hey Petar, thanks for your comment and we hope you find these websites useful to discover new recipes.
Cooking has been a major challenge to so many, This lockdown is really a nice and free time to go for this cooking course. I have a friend who doesn’t know how to cook but always depending on me to help him out. This article bus just what he needs, this best free online cooking classes are going to be so helpful to him. Thanks for this informational article.
Thanks for your comment, Sheddy Ovb. We hope your friend will find this article useful.
Hi there,
Thank you for doing the research and narrowing the choices down for us!
Reading this review could not have come at the most convenient time – with all of my family spending their days at home and not being able to go out to eat, we are always on the lookout for some new exciting recipe to try.
I subscribed to Italia Squisita straight away. We will be making homemade pizza!
Have a successful day.
Great to hear you liked our reviews, Monika. Italia Squisita is a great choice. Probably the best YouTube channel for Italian food lovers.