Household cooking skills cover much more than preparing a recipe. They include deciding who cooks, making meals from basic ingredients, handling leftovers, judging doneness, controlling temperature, and preventing contamination. Food Standards Agency surveys in England, Wales and Northern Ireland provide the main evidence below, while a separate USDA Economic Research Service analysis gives historical context from the United States. The surveys are self-reported, and their dates and question wording differ.
Contents
- Who cooks at home
- Scratch cooking and family meals
- Cooking food through and reheating leftovers
- Handwashing and cross-contamination
- Fridge temperatures, defrosting and dates
- Cooking to save money
Who cooks at home
The Food Standards Agency’s Food & You 2 Wave 5 measured household cooking responsibility among adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2016. Nine in ten adults, or 90%, reported at least some responsibility for cooking or preparing food at home. However, having some responsibility was not the same as carrying most of the work: 48% said they were responsible for all or most household cooking or food preparation. In the same wave, 59% reported cooking or preparing food at home at least once a day. These figures describe participation and frequency, rather than the level of culinary ability.
Responsibility was distributed differently by sex in that 2016 survey. Women were more likely than men to report all or most responsibility for household cooking: 63% compared with 33%. Women were also more likely to report cooking at least once a day, at 71% compared with 46% of men. Conversely, 16% of men reported no responsibility for cooking or preparing food, compared with 4% of women. The figures show a substantial difference in reported household roles, but they do not measure the amount of time spent cooking or whether meals were prepared from basic ingredients.
The earlier Food and You Wave 4 result, also measured in 2016, showed a similar division: 67% of women and 30% of men reported all or most responsibility for cooking or preparing food. Because the wave and source presentation differ, this result should be read as a separate survey measure rather than combined mathematically with Wave 5.
Where people learn cooking is another part of household skill formation. In the Food and You UK 2014 bulletin, 77% of people in households with children under 16 said they learned some or all cooking skills from a family member, compared with 71% in households without children under 16. Women were more likely than men to report learning cooking from a family member, at 82% versus 64%, and at school, at 42% versus 21%.
Age differences also appeared in the 2014 results. Among respondents aged 16–24, 80% reported learning cooking from a family member, compared with 72% of respondents aged 25 and over. For learning at school, the corresponding figures were 47% and 29%. These are historical UK measurements and should not be treated as a current estimate of how people learn cooking.
Scratch cooking and family meals
Recent Food and You 2 evidence indicates that cooking from basic ingredients remains common among adults who prepare food at home. Across Waves 2–4, covering November 2020 to January 2022, 59%–62% of adults who did household food preparation reported cooking from scratch every day or most days. The range reflects different survey waves, not a single average.
Financial pressure was associated with more scratch cooking for some respondents. In Wave 6, covering October 2022 to January 2023, 25% of adults reported cooking from scratch more for financial reasons in the previous 12 months. The share was 27% in Wave 9, covering April–July 2024. A separate FSA Consumer Insights Tracker reported that 34% of respondents had cooked or prepared food from scratch rather than buying it ready-made to save money in the last month in August 2023. The corresponding tracker share was 41% in March 2025. The tracker’s shorter recall period means these measures should be kept distinct from the annual-recall Food and You 2 results.
Batch preparation and leftovers were also reported as money-saving approaches. In Wave 6, 29% of adults said they prepared more food to keep as leftovers or cooked in batches for financial reasons. In Wave 7, covering April–July 2023, the share was 33%, and in Wave 9 it was 26%. These measurements suggest that batch cooking was a notable household response to cost pressure, although they do not show how many meals each batch produced or how often leftovers were eaten.
USDA Economic Research Service analysis provides a separate historical comparison. US households of working-age adults and children under 17 averaged 5.8 family meals per week in 2007–08 and 6.3 in 2009–10. The same analysis reported 5.4 family meals prepared at home per week in 2007–08 and 5.8 in 2009–10.
| Measure | 2007–08 | 2009–10 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family meals per week | 5.8 | 6.3 | USDA ERS, “More family meals prepared at home following the 2007-09 recession” |
| Family meals prepared at home per week | 5.4 | 5.8 | USDA ERS, “More family meals prepared at home following the 2007-09 recession” |
These US figures concern a defined household group and are not a UK estimate. They are useful context for meal planning because they distinguish family meals from meals prepared at home, two measures that are often treated as interchangeable even though they are not.
Cooking food through and reheating leftovers
Food and You 2 tracked whether respondents always cooked food until it was steaming hot and cooked all the way through. The share was 76% in Wave 1, covering July–October 2020, and 79% in Wave 2, covering November 2020–January 2021. It was 77% in Wave 8, covering October 2023–January 2024, and 80% in Wave 10, covering October 2024–February 2025. The separate observations range from 76% to 80%; they should not be read as a continuously measured annual trend.
Wave 10 also asked about eating poultry when it was pink or had pink juices. In October 2024–February 2025, 89% of adults reported never eating chicken or turkey in that condition, while 9% did so at least occasionally. Wave 9, covering April–July 2024, found that 68% reported never eating duck when it was pink or had pink juices. In the same wave, 66% reported never eating beefburgers when they were pink or had pink juices. The different results relate to different foods and a different wave, so they are not a ranking of overall cooking skill.
Reheating practice was also measured in Wave 10. Eighty-one percent of adults said they would reheat food only once, 10% said twice, and 3% said more than twice. The response categories do not cover every possible household practice in the supplied figures, but they show that reheating frequency is a distinct part of leftover management alongside batch preparation and storage.
Handwashing and cross-contamination
In Wave 10, 70% of adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reported always washing their hands before preparing or cooking food. The corresponding figure was 72% in Wave 6, covering October 2022–January 2023, and 86% in Food and You Wave 4, measured in 2016. Because these are different waves and periods, the figures should be compared cautiously rather than treated as a single uninterrupted trend.
The same recent Wave 10 survey found a higher level of reported handwashing after a specific contamination risk: 92% said they always washed their hands immediately after handling raw meat, poultry or fish. By contrast, 44% reported always washing their hands before eating at home. Outside the home, 62% reported always or most of the time washing their hands or using sanitizer before eating. These measures cover different situations, so the percentages illustrate how reported behavior varies by context.
Wave 6 found that 91% always washed their hands immediately after handling raw meat, poultry or fish. It also asked about washing raw chicken: 56% reported never doing so, while 40% reported doing so at least occasionally. The result separates two behaviors that can be confused in household advice: washing hands after handling raw poultry and washing the poultry itself.
Fridge temperatures, defrosting and dates
Wave 10 tested knowledge and reported monitoring of refrigerator temperature. Sixty percent of adults correctly identified 0–5°C as the appropriate fridge temperature range. The same share of adults with a fridge reported monitoring its temperature. Among adults with a fridge, 49% monitored temperature manually and 11% used an internal temperature alarm. The monitoring categories account for the reported methods in the survey and should not be interpreted as a measure of temperature accuracy.
Wave 9, covering April–July 2024, produced a very similar knowledge measure: 59% correctly identified 0–5°C as the appropriate fridge temperature range. Among Wave 9 adults who monitored fridge temperature, 48% checked it at least once a week. The question about weekly checking applies to people who monitored temperature, while the 59% figure applies to all adults in the reported measure; the denominators are therefore different.
Defrosting choices were also reported in Wave 9. Forty-three percent of adults said they defrosted meat or fish in the fridge, while 42% said they defrosted it at room temperature. These percentages describe reported methods and do not establish how long defrosting took or whether a particular method was used for every item.
Date checking is another practical planning skill. In Wave 10, 65% of adults reported always checking use-by dates before cooking or preparing food. Together with the fridge-temperature results, this shows that knowledge, monitoring and routine checking are separate parts of household food management: knowing the recommended range does not by itself show that a household monitors its appliance, and monitoring does not show how often dates are checked.
Cooking to save money
The Food and You 2 trend evidence distinguishes money-saving changes to ingredients and preparation from changes to cooking time or temperature. In Wave 6, 2% of adults reported changing cooking time or temperature for financial reasons in the previous 12 months. The share was 4% in Wave 7 and 2% in Wave 9. These are specific annual-recall measures and should not be combined with the tracker’s last-month estimates.
The FSA Consumer Insights Tracker reported that 12%–16% of respondents reduced cooking time in the last month to save money between July 2023 and March 2025. The share reporting a lower cooking temperature rose from 11% in July 2023 to 13% in March 2025. From May to October 2025, 14%–17% reported lowering cooking temperature to save money. These figures are estimates of reported behavior during the stated periods, not forecasts of future household practice.
Using a cheaper cooking method instead of an oven was more commonly reported than changing cooking time or temperature in the same tracker. In September 2022, 59% said they had used cheaper cooking methods instead of an oven in the last month. The share reached 67% in October 2022. From July 2023 to March 2025, it ranged from 53% to 58%.
For meal planning, the measures point to several distinct behaviors: cooking from scratch, making extra portions, choosing a lower-cost cooking method, and changing time or temperature. They should not be treated as synonyms. The reported shares come from different surveys, recall periods and questions, so each percentage is most useful when read with its original geography and measurement date.