Roy Choi Shares the Rules You Should (and Shouldn’t) Break in the Kitchen

For decades, wellness wasn’t a part of chef Roy Choi’s eating habits, but reaching for fast food, chips, and snacks all the time wasn’t sustainable. So he turned things around by using his chef instincts to create vegetable-forward dishes that still hit those comfort food cravings.

In his new cookbook (with co-authors Tien Nguyen and Natashan Phan)The Choi of Cooking: Flavor-Packed, Rule-Breaking Recipes for a Delicious Life, Choi provides recipes to re-create at home so you’re able to “take control of what and how you approach the food in your life.”

As a professional chef, Choi knows all about the dos and don’ts of the kitchen. So, what should we be doing differently in our own kitchens? Here are two rules he hopes you’ll break—plus one to keep.

Rule to Break: Cooking with Toasted Sesame Oil

A seemingly big rule you’ve probably heard is that you can’t cook with delicate oils like sesame oil, which is commonly used in marinades, sauces, or dressings. Choi begs to differ. “I’ve been cooking with sesame oil for years, and it tastes great,” he says. “Going into cementing a philosophy, that was just something I kept private as a cook.”

Now, he’s embracing the broken rule and letting readers know it’s ok. “I found by writing about it and by pushing it forward is that rule of not cooking with sesame oil on high heat was wrong. It was a fallacy.” If you haven’t tried it, go ahead and add a drizzle to your stir-fry. Oh, and always opt for toasted (or roasted) sesame oil.

Rule to Break: Don’t Be Precious with Your Produce

When it comes to preparing vegetables and fruits, Choi feels like we’ve been taught to treat them “gingerly” or “let them shine on their own.” But he’s over that. “I’m all about disrespecting them,” he says. “Throw them in a blender. Fill them with a bunch of vinegars and chilis and spices. Make them tasty. Make them completely outrageous. Don’t be so gentle with them.” His goal is to use the same language around nutritional foods as marketing campaigns do around candy, chips, and soda.

Rule to Keep (That You’re Probably Breaking): Take Your Time

Choi says rushing in the kitchen is a commonly broken rule that should be respected, meaning allowing food to cook correctly and using the time it needs so you can experience it at its most optimal state. “If you’re making it quick, you’re not going to get what you want out of it,” Choi says. “That in turn leads to people choosing frozen meals over something that is homecooked.”

Tips for Staying Healthy on a Time-Crunch

So what if you don’t have time to cook? Choi likes to be prepared to combat hunger cravings on busy days. “You have to think about comfort and craving. Those are different feelings than just eating normally,” Choi notes. When a lettuce-based salad might not do the trick, Roy relies on a “sweatpants version” to help “not take you down the dark hole of eating stuff that is totally horrible for you.”

“Cooking doesn’t always have to be done in one session,” Choi says. “Sometimes we have to look at cooking as an accordion of stages.” Take the time to whip up a few sauces or “flavor agents,” as he calls them in his book. “You take the time to do those things, then on days throughout the week when you have to make a meal in 10 minutes, you take these out and make a quick sauté or stir-fry,” Choi says. “Then you have the elements of long cooking and slow cooking, but you’re making a quick meal.”