Tips For Teaching a Culinary Class

We always want your creativity to shine in your Skillshare class -- and that’s especially true for a culinary class. We encourage you to experiment with new ways to teach your favorite recipes and cooking methods, but we also want to make sure you have a good foundation to work from. After watching countless Skillshare culinary classes, we’ve compiled a few helpful tips to make sure you teach the best class you can. 

Rule of Thumb:

A successful culinary class shows students how to create a new dish or master a cooking skill. It’s important for you to demonstrate every step of the process for the students, so that they can walk away confident to try it on their own.

We can’t count the number of times we’ve read a recipe online, only to feel discouraged by not actually knowing how to perform a necessary step. Being able to see exactly what the dish should look like or how a certain technique works is important. This is the beauty of teaching a Skillshare class. A video demonstration helps students learn by doing. Whether you’re teaching beginners or seasoned cooks, demonstrating your recipe or cooking method helps your students succeed. Be sure to capture all of the important steps of your process on camera and narrate clear instructions.

Designing Your Class:

We think it’s best to design your class with the skills you are most confident sharing with others. It’s also best to keep your topic focused, as specialized classes that teach a distinct skill tend to be most resonate with our student community. There are many ways you can focus your class to highlight your culinary skill, here are just a few we think work well.

Single Recipe

Sometimes you are simply the master of one recipe. Maybe it’s a hand-me-down sauce recipe or a killer key lime pie or kale chips crisped to perfection. Check out Italian Chef Secrets: How to Make Perfect Thin Crust Pizza as an example. In this class, the teacher is just focused on the perfect pizza pie. Single recipe classes show students how to complete the specific recipe, from start to finish. Be sure to show students every step of the process, and share any helpful tips or tricks. This type of class is great because it allows you to follow up with a new recipe every month (helping you build out your Skillshare Channel).

Cuisine or Diet

Maybe you’re big on Japanese cuisine or follow a plant-based diet. Instead of trying to teach an entire cuisine, food type or diet in one class, use a handful of recipes (we think 1 to 4 recipes work best) that highlight common flavor profiles and techniques. The class, How to Make Gelato: Tips and Recipes to Make the Delightful Italian Frozen Treat is a perfect example. In this class, the teacher focuses on gelato by sharing different techniques and flavors to use. Quick and Healthy Dinner for (Really) Busy People is another great example, as the teachers share four dinner recipes catered to an on-the-go healthy lifestyle. This type of class is great if you are excited about a number of recipes that can be feasibly taught in one class. It also allows you to stake your claim as the cuisine or diet expert on Skillshare.

Technique 

On the flip side, you can focus on one type of cooking method or technique. You can choose to use one recipe or demonstrate how the technique can be used for an array of recipes, either way works! This class Summer Slow Cooking: Getting the Most from Your Meat is a good example of focusing on one cooking method. While the teacher is specifically using a slow cooker for meats, she shares deeper insight on how the slow cooking method works. This class Super Noms Sous Vide Cooking At Home is another great example. The teacher shows how you can use this cooking technique on anything from a cocktail to a main dish. Be sure to highlight how the technique you’re teaching works and can be applied to other recipes. This type of class is great if you have a particular passion for a style of cooking that you want to be the expert on on Skillshare.

Skill

You can also create a class that is focused on one type of cooking skill, like Knife Skills: A Mini Class to Chop Like a Chef. If there are specific skills you think are important for students to master in the kitchen, creating a shorter class just demonstrating the skill is a great way to help your students.

These are just a few things to keep in mind as you plan your next culinary class. As always, keep your class focused on the skills you’re passionate about, and don’t try to cover too much in one class. When in doubt, consult the Teacher Handbook for more guidance! And if you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the culinary class catalog.