Alton Brown's Best Food Hacks

Alton Brown is best known as Food Network's resident nerd. Since his flagship series "Good Eats" premiered in 1999, Brown has been teaching cooking in a scientific way that is anything but boring. His kitchen techniques are very analytical and distinctly his own, occasionally causing some people to disagree with his methods of experimentation. 

Brown's entire inspiration for going to culinary school and eventually starting "Good Eats" came from his overall boredom with food television. "I remember I was watching food shows, and I was like, 'God, these are boring. I'm not really learning anything,'" he said in an interview with Bitter Southerner. He did just that with "Good Eats" and its eventual spinoff "Good Eats: The Return" with over 250 episodes (via IMDb). The catalyst to making food science approachable was his assortment of wacky hacks. They somehow worked, and Brown was always quick to explain how and why. 

Throughout his career, Brown has taught home chefs some pretty innovative ways to create tasty dishes. His approaches might not necessarily be intuitive, but they tend to work better than expected. We decided to scope out Alton Brown's best food hacks that will hopefully serve to inspire your own creations along the way. 

It's almost too easy to throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and let it do its job while preparing snacks for movie night. Brown will be the first to tell you though, that popping it yourself yields way better results, and it's not even hard to do. His secret is using a large metal bowl to pop the kernels. 

Brown mixes ghee, kernels, and salt in a bowl then covers it with foil and pokes holes in the top. Next, he places the bowl directly on a medium flame and shakes it with a pair of tongs. He tells those at home to keep shaking the bowl, even if it seems like nothing is happening. In just a few minutes, you'll have fresh popcorn. Brown recommends topping it with Japanese furikake, nutritional yeast, or sifted cheese powder for an added flavor boost. 

A metal bowl makes the best vessel as it allows the already popped kernels to travel to the top and away from the heat source. Meanwhile, the unpopped kernels sink to the bottom to remain closer to the flame, resulting in a primitive-looking, yet shockingly simple cooking strategy (via Southern Living). 

Brown has a knack for teaching people how to make creative and delicious meals using appliances they might not think of as multipurpose. Take the humble panini press; if you have one, you probably only use it to press sandwiches. Brown, however, believes it is the best tool for indoor grilling. In an Instagram post, Brown shares a video of himself cooking an entire chicken in a panini press. He places a 15-pound weight on top of the appliance for a different take on the old-school chicken under a brick recipe. "I don't need no stinkin' brick," Brown writes in the caption. 

Brown has been a panini press advocate for a long time, encouraging people to experiment with the countertop appliance. He's made omelets on it in the past, so it only makes sense that he would feature it as a mini indoor grill. If you try this chicken cooking method at home, it's important to ensure that the internal temperature of the chicken reaches at least 165 F before serving (via USDA). 

Using a chimney starter is pretty standard for anyone with a charcoal grill, as it's one of the easiest ways to get it fired up quickly. Typically, a chimney is used as a compact vessel to start a fire with coals before transferring it to a grill. However, Brown recommends placing a chimney starter with coal and newspaper on top of your grill grate while it heats up. Once it is piping hot, remove the chimney, brush off any ash, and lay the steak or whatever you're grilling (a dry-aged chimney porterhouse in Brown's case) directly on top of the grate where the chimney sat. 

The "Good Eats" host then puts the chimney back on top of the steak to cook both sides. In the case of a thick steak that needs to be cooked longer in the middle, Brown does a quick switch by putting the chimney under the grill grate and then placing a metal bowl on top of the steak to create an oven-like environment. It's important to knock any coals off the steak while it's cooking or they may fall onto it. This may sound confusing, but watching Brown do it is enough to inspire you to rethink your barbecue methods. 

Mayonnaise is among the more polarizing kitchen staples. You either love it on everything, hate to even look at it, or don't pause to think about it when the condiment is added to your sub sandwich. Brown insists that the controversial ingredient is the key to perfect scrambled eggs. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil, egg yolk, and acid, so Brown considers it much like emulsifying your scrambled eggs with an existing emulsion. 

Brown introduced his interesting breakfast recipe in his book "Everyday Cook," where he insists that the finished product does not at all taste like the condiment. "You'll never know the mayo is in there until you go and leave it out," he claims (via Southern Living). You've probably heard of people adding water, milk, butter, and/or oil to their morning eggs, but it only makes sense that Brown would have his own special ingredient. 

The internet is full of chocolate chip cookie hacks, whether you're a fan of the soft chewy kind or crispy cookies that melt in your mouth. Brown's method is based on the recipe on the back of the Nestlé chocolate chip morsels bag — but with his own spin. The biggest difference is that Brown swaps in bread flour instead of the typical all-purpose flour, which results in an extra chewy cookie. He also swaps one egg white for milk and switches up the brown to white sugar ratios. 

According to King Arthur Baking, bread flour has a higher protein content than all-purpose. It can be replaced in any recipe that you want to give a chewier consistency, since more protein results in a higher amount of gluten produced. If you're looking to make a light and airy baked good like cake or pastry dough, bread flour is not your friend. In cookies though, it's a simple substitution that could end up resulting in your new favorite recipe.

Lemonade is one of those drinks most people don't spend much time thinking about. The majority of us probably buy the premade stuff whether it be in a can or as a powder to add to water. You might even find yourself toasting summer with an ice cold glass of freshly squeezed lemonade you made at home or bought from a fair every once in a while. As with most kitchen concepts, Brown has a distinctly one-of-a-kind take on lemonade that turns it into a complex drink you'll want to sip on all summer long.

Brown's recipe for the classic summer drink uses preserved lemons to add complexity. "There's a real depth of flavor here, and the bit of salt that comes across balances the sweetness and mingles with the fizz," Brown writes. He recommends drinking it straight up or using it as a mixer with a shot of vodka. 

Alton Brown's Instagram account is essentially an archive of how the chef's brain works. We see not only what he cooks at home, but how he uses standard household items in a pinch to make any meal possible. One key tip from his personal page comes from a post from 2018, where Brown recommends roasting a crown pork roast in a bundt pan if you don't have twine. 

His website showcases a recipe for a crown roast of lamb, in which Brown still recommends using a bundt pan even if you have twine. He points out that the roast shape is a natural fit and the middle part of the pan comes through the center of the cut of meat. It's so simple that you're probably shocked you haven't tried it yet. The entire exterior of the roast gets a nice crust because it is in contact with the pan, and the cleanup has the advantage of being much easier than a typical roasting pan. 

Hard-boiled eggs appear to be a simple preparation, but making them can come with headaches that Brown knows all too well. If you manage to add the eggs to the water without cracking them, you're still at risk of overcooking them and ending up with rubbery whites and green yolks, or having them fall apart when attempting to peel them. Brown's foolproof method of making hard-boiled eggs skips the boiling altogether and replaces it with steaming. 

He adds just half an inch of water to a pot on low heat and puts at least four eggs in a steamer basket on top. Then he closes the lid, steams them for 12 minutes, and immediately dunks the eggs in an ice bath (via Food Network). Give it a try and you'll see that the shells come off easily and you're met with perfectly hard-boiled eggs every time. It makes it a breeze to prep a batch for salads, sandwiches, and other weekly meals. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Brown has a recipe to make the humble saltine cracker taste even better — and you probably already have the ingredients in your kitchen. He starts by mixing up his favorite hot sauce with dry mustard powder and melted butter in a bowl. Then, he tosses the saltines in the liquid so that they are totally coated. After that, he lays them out on a baking sheet and pops them in the oven for a few minutes until they become crunchy. 

It's like a DIY version of a spicy cracker that could somewhat resemble a Cheez-It if you don't think about it too long. Sure it's kind of goofy to come up with a saltine cracker hack, but it epitomizes why Brown is so beloved by foodies. He understands that simple ingredients combined with well-thought-out techniques yield the best results every time, even when it comes to an unassuming snack.