8 Budget-Friendly Cooking Classes for After the Holidays
Let me guess: you spent all of your money flying home for Thanksgiving or buying Christmas or Hanukkah presents. Or maybe you blew the last of it on an epic rager on New Year’s Eve. Even if you’re feeling the pinch, you can still tackle your New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier and cook more for yourself. Start the year off right and check out the best bang-for-your-buck cooking classes (less than $100!) in all of NYC.

Soy good, soy good.

japanese food
tofu

A staple ingredient in countless Asian cuisines, soy isn’t just a sauce you add onto your Chinese takeout. It’s an essential component in many of your favorite dishes like shrimp and tofu pad thai and Asian chicken edamame pizza (you read that right). In this soy cooking class, you’ll learn the fundamentals of cooking with soy products, tofu and more. It’s soooooooy awesome!

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Top Chef, New York edition.

dessert
recipes
cooking class
cooking

Too broke to eat out? Recreate dishes from your favorite restaurants in your own kitchen with the help of this cooking class. Welcoming newbies and experienced chefs alike, this class will show you and your fellow foodies how to make dishes worthy of your favorite NYC establishments. Take home recipes like Spice Market's ginger margarita, Barbuto's Brussels sprouts salad, Tao's miso-glazed sea bass skewers and Levain Bakery's chocolate chip walnut cookies. Ditch the dining out and feel like a James Beard Award–winning chef yourself.

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raaka-chocolate

Willy Wonka’s got nothing on you.

foodie
learn
informational
fun
dessert
sweets
cacao
tour
factory
brooklyn

Chocolate is made from beans, beans are vegetables, so it’s fine if I eat two or three or eight candy bars right? Chocolate demands to be eaten, damn it! It also demands to be made, and now you can craft it yourself with this chocolate-making class for beginners. With a visit to New York’s very own Wonka Factory aka Raaka Chocolate Factory, you’ll get the chance to make your own chocolate bars to take home. Sounds like a golden ticket experience, doesn’t it?

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This is how we roll.

byob
cooking class
date night
couples cooking class
rolls

What did Sushi A say to Sushi B? Wasabi. Are you California dreaming? Of California rolls. Bad jokes aside, we all know that sushi is amazing. It can get a bit pricey, but not if you’re making it from the comfort of your own home. With this BYOB sushi and dumplings class under your belt, you’ll learn to roll, season, cook and steam sushi and dumplings with the best of them. You might even come up with a new sushi joke along the way.

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Sunday, funday, brunch day.

byob
cooking class
date night
couples cooking class
brunch
bacon
eggs
french toast
mimosas
oj

“Sunday, Funday/ Better than a Monday/ Can only do it one way/ And that is the drunk way.” Don’t recognize these lyrics? Then make them your Sunday brunch anthem while you attend this cooking class exclusively centered around everyone’s favorite meal. Between the Bloody Marys and mimosas, delicious breakfast and lunch dishes and the BYOB factor, you’ll have the best Sunday ever learning how to perfect the most-anticipated part of the weekend.

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Taste-Buds-Kitchen-handmade-pasta-twist

Hasta la vista boxed pasta.

byob
cooking class
date night
couples cooking class
pasta
dough
fettuccini
ravioli
italian
pesto
alfredo
spaghetti

Boxed pasta might as well be called an impasta (get it?). If you’re a fan of Italian food and cooking, you gotta learn how to make handmade pasta. In this BYOB-friendly class, you’ll study and practice making pasta the old-fashioned way with a variety of ingredients like whole wheat, beets and spinach. From kneading to shaping to tasting (the best part), you’ll create classic pastas like fusilli, rigatoni and bucatini that go perfectly with vodka and alfredo sauces. By the end, you’ll be chowing down so fast that you might as well be saying hasta la vista, pasta!

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A slice of the good life.

byob
cooking class
date night
couples cooking class
pizza
basil
italian
donuts

Do as the New Yorkers do: learn how to make fantastic pizza. In this intensive pizza-making course, you’ll pick up tips for creating a perfect thin crust (the only kind of pizza that matters, IMHO) inspired by the city’s best pizza joints. As a bonus, you even get to make a chocolate-drizzled donut for dessert. Welcoming all 21 and older amateur chefs, sip on your favorite BYOB drink while learning how to make this classic dish from the masters. Well, at least on this side of the Atlantic.

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Dump the junk food for this healthy cooking seminar

cooking

New year, same problems—you just don’t know where to find affordable, healthy food options near your apartment. Or in the city. Or anywhere. By tackling the annoying buzzwords you don’t understand (re: organic, farm-to-table, grass-fed, free-range) and focusing on cooking healthy with a busy schedule, this class flips the narrative on food education upside down. Finally, there’s a no-nonsense, affordable course that practically teaches you how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Sip on some wine as you learn how 2016 can be the year you become and stay healthy.

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