Your cooking journey starts here.
Learn to cook familiar family staples, international favourites, and gain confidence in the kitchen with this 8-week Absolute Beginners Online Cooking Course.
★★★★★
Leiths School of Food and Wine has “seen oodles of students start up their own businesses or work in Michelin-starred restaurants.”
– The Independent
★★★★★
“Leiths is the Oxbridge of the Food World.”
– Tim Hayward, FT Magazine
Kickstart Your Journey to Becoming a Confident Home Cook
Are you just beginning to experiment in the kitchen, or have you been cooking the same, repetitive recipes for a while, without really knowing where to turn next? Are you at university and keen to learn how to make a wide range of tasty staple dishes? Or perhaps you’re seeking out new inspiration when cooking for the family at home?
Never feel at a loss in the kitchen again with our hands-on, comprehensive eight week online cookery course, designed exclusively for ambitious beginners. Benefit from learning the basics from the same expert teachers who teach our industry-leading culinary diploma, and receive encouraging individual feedback from your Leiths mentor throughout.
The recipes taught on this course have been cleverly selected to cover a wide range of foundation cookery skills, so you can begin your journey towards becoming a confident home cook. On completion of the course, you’ll know how to rustle up all the elements to make a speedy midweek supper, batch cook hearty winter warmers, and effortlessly entertain friends and family.
Learn to confidently cook familiar family favourites, such as Macaroni Cheese with a Cracker and Parsley Crumb, and experiment with vibrant international dishes, including a tasty, flavourful Prawn Pad Thai. You’ll also master simple, satisfying desserts such as a Peach and Raspberry Cobbler, guaranteed to put a smile on everybody’s face. Along the way, you’ll pick up chefs’ tips and tricks and learn about easy kitchen organisation, recipe planning, simple presentation and much more. On completing Absolute Beginners, you will be more confident in the kitchen, have a useful repertoire of contemporary recipes, and the confidence to use your newfound skills to keep on cooking.
We look forward to welcoming you to Absolute Beginners, where you’ll meet a community of like-minded cooks, and introducing you to the joy of cooking at home!
Earn a Leiths-approved Certificate of Completion
Get your Leiths-approved Certificate of Completion, and earn the opportunity to come to London to receive full accreditation
Learn from the Finest Teachers in Your Own Home
Learn a vast variety of professional cooking skills, techniques and practices from the world-renowned Leiths School of Food and Wine
Access your step-by-step, video guided cooking sessions anywhere on mobile, tablet or on the web
Learn alongside a class of likeminded aspiring cooks and receive real feedback on your cooking sessions from your dedicated class mentor
Absolute Beginners Cooking: 8-Week Online Course
Written for the novice cook this course is ideal for the absolute beginner in the kitchen. This 8 part course covers a wide range of eating occasions and you will cook alongside our skilled Leiths teachers who’ll be lifting the lid on some key fundamental cookery skills and techniques.
The 8 units are packed full of popular dishes and recipes have been cleverly selected to cover a wide range of foundation cookery skills. With Workshop’s unique hands-on method of learning, you’ll be cooking from day one with no need to read pages of theory in advance.
By joining the course, you will have access to the following through the Workshop app:
- 8 units, unlocked weekly, guiding you through ~3 hours of cooking time each week
- 16 individual cooking sessions
- Expert guidance and one-to-one support from your class mentor
- Collaborative group chat with your own private class and mentor
- Feedback on your dishes from your class and mentor via a private in-app feed of photo uploads
- A final assessment to earn your course Certificate of Completion
In addition to the core aspects of the course, you will also get:
- Downloadable Leiths recipes and theory notes for you to keep
- Access to all video sessions for an additional 6 months after your assessment
- The opportunity to progress onto the Leiths Essential Cooking Online Course and Certificate
In each unit you’ll unlock a new set of recipes, and as you start cooking you’ll be guided from the beginning to end of a recipe by one of our most experienced Leiths teachers. As you work through the course, you’ll have an expert Leiths mentor to guide you through the sessions. So, if you have a question or need some guidance your mentor will be on hand to support you.
Not only that, but you’ll be cooking alongside a small group of like-minded students who’ve started at the same time as you. Over the length of the course you’ll get to know one another, exchanging ideas and building on each other’s culinary successes.
Once a unit is unlocked, you’ll have access to that week’s sessions and one of the great things about online learning is that you have the flexibility to choose when you want to cook. To help you plan your time you’ll have access to the written recipes plus a weekly time plan and an overview from your mentor to guide through each unit.
Our expert Leiths teachers will guide you through some essential kitchen basics. They will show you the key kitchen equipment you’ll be using on the course.
The course has been designed so you will learn how to cook complete meals such as a harissa marinated salmon dish with couscous and a Sunday lunch favourite – roast chicken with all the trimmings.
You’ll start by learning how to cook eggs and rustle up a simple soup and build your skills from there. You’ll learn how to cook steak, make a curry from scratch, make, bake and freeze mac and cheese – add to this soy glazed sticky chicken drumsticks with a fresh vibrant slaw and a smoky chilli with jalapeno cornbread – and crucially you’ll be cooking alongside one of our most experienced Leiths teachers!
For those of you with a sweet tooth there are a range of simple but delicious desserts, you’ll make a fruit cobbler, indulgent chocolate chip cookies, an orange infused egg custard, lemon and ginger possets and deceptively simple poached plum dessert and pistachio dessert.
Our hope is that this course will ignite your passion for cookery and make you hungry to spend more time in the kitchen.
What Our Students Say
This course is brand new, and so our first classes are still making their way through. In the meantime, take a look at what students are saying about our other courses to give you a flavour of what’s to come…
Leiths School of Food and Wine, on Workshop

Leiths School of Food and Wine has been equipping aspiring cooks with the skills to flourish in the food world since 1975.
With a philosophy grounded in teaching the individual within a close and collaborative community, they have put immense efforts into ensuring that their online course reflects their core values.
With Workshop’s unique learning experience, they are now able to teach hands-on cooking skills to people in their own homes, providing in-depth feedback and a close community network just as they do at their school in London.
Frequently Asked Questions
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£295
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We also offer group discounts. Please speak to a member of our team if you're interested in learning more.
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