When I first embarked on my healing journey, it was through a culinary adventure. I enrolled in Rouxbe online culinary school’s Plant-Based Certification course and it changed my life. A couple years later, I completed their Essential Vegan Desserts course.
Both were stellar, and even though I am not plant-based/vegan anymore (nor do I think it’s the best diet for most people), I still think Rouxbe is the place to go for top-notch culinary training, especially if you don’t have the time or money for full-time in-person cooking school.
Note: This review post contains affiliate links, which means if you buy something from Rouxbe after clicking a link, I may earn a small commission. I wrote this blog post before becoming an affiliate for Rouxbe, was not paid for this review, and stand by everything written here. I welcome you to email me if you have any questions about their plant-based courses or membership.
Why I enrolled in Rouxbe Cooking School
I’ve always loved cooking, ever since I was a kid. A few years ago, in the wake of a grand trip through northern Spain, eating amazing tapas and drinking the best Rioja reds, I began imagining what my life could be like if I dropped academia and went to culinary school, or tried to start a food truck. Or did something creative involving food. I was in the beginning stages of a career transition, though I didn’t know it yet.
The kind of fantasies you have when you’re super burnt out.
A couple months later, my mom nearly died from a heart attack, had two stents placed in her arteries, and was forced to start taking a lot of new medications. My life was turned upside down. Up until then, I can honestly say I had no idea what caused heart disease or how to prevent it. Now that my mother’s life was on the line, I had to do some research— the medical staff at my mom’s hospital were great when it came to her stent placement but had absolutely nothing to offer in terms of preventing or reversing her condition with anything other than medications. I was on my own to figure that out. It’s also a big reason why I eventually became a health coach.
So I did. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of videos online that described what, precisely, leads to heart attacks. And I gradually came to see that a whole food, plant-based (or at least plant-heavy) diet might be what my mother needed to recover her health, given her advanced stage heart disease.
The questions that remained for me were, how can I help her change her diet? How do you cook plant-focused meals? I loved cooking but my repertoire and skills were limited.
Somehow through all my hours on the internet, I discovered Rouxbe and enrolled in their Plant-Based Professional Cook Certification program. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to save my mom’s life, to eat better, and maybe help other people improve their health, too, so they wouldn’t have to experience what my family was going through. I spoke with one of their instructors on the phone and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. Even though it was quite a financial investment for me, I was ready to take the plunge. I enrolled in the plant-based pro course in December 2015, and completed the vegan desserts course in 2020.
Now, having completed two plant-based courses from Rouxbe, I want to share a bit about my experiences in case you’re considering enrolling in an online cooking school or just want to learn to cook better.
Who is Rouxbe good for?
First thing to know: this is not a collection of one-off cooking classes. Both the plant-based pro and vegan desserts courses require a significant time investment, so this is really for people who are serious about developing their plant-based cooking skills but can’t or don’t want to go to regular in-person culinary school. Many students in the plant-based pro program were professional chefs who wanted to improve their skills in plant-based cuisine (something that’s often an afterthought in traditional culinary school). But there seemed to be just as many students who were home cooks and wanted to improve their skills or learn to cook more healthfully. Many students were already vegan, but there were plenty who were not (like me).
The bottom line is that you need to be serious about cooking and willing and able to put in the time commitment (which I’ll discuss below). You also need to be ok with learning online. If you’ve never done it before, it can take a little getting used to, but I actually liked it a lot because of the flexibility! It also requires discipline to get everything done on schedule.
How are the courses set up?
Everything is online, from the lessons to your interactions with instructors and students. At first this seemed like a weird idea to me (back in 2015 haha!). I’d taken a couple layperson cooking classes at Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island, and the chef would always have to taste the result to see if you made the dish properly. The chefs would also provide a lot of hands on demonstration- how could that be replicated online?
The answer is that a lot of traditional culinary school can be adjusted for the online space, but some things- like hands-on personalized instruction- unfortunately cannot. That said, in my opinion Rouxbe has taken full advantage of all the ways to deliver cooking school online, and the overall result is very professional.
First off, there’s your course dashboard. You can see the entire syllabus- everything you’re going to learn and do- right in front of you, and you can easily see which lessons you’ve completed and which ones you haven’t. This can give you a good idea of how you’re doing in terms of timeline. Years later, having taken a number of online courses, I still think Rouxbe has one of the best online interfaces.
In your dashboard, you’ll also have access to Rouxbe’s full library of recipes. Although these recipes will often take longer to complete that you might anticipate (not for a weeknight experiment), one thing I can say is that I have never had a fail with a Rouxbe recipe. They go through a lot of testing before publication.
The cooking lessons are a mix of reading (including some downloads), instructional videos, interactive activities, hands-on assignments (discussed below), and exams. For the pro course, I took lots of notes. As you go through the various lessons, Rouxbe provides recipes (some basic, others challenging) to practice various skills, but not all of them are graded assignments. Do the optional ones and you’ll learn even more, but depending on how much time you have, you might not be able to do more than the required assignments if you want to graduate on time.
Graded Assignments
Many of the graded assignments are recipes you must prepare (or create on your own- fun!). You’ll have to upload photos and write a description that answers various questions about your cooking process.
Some assignments aren’t recipes but do involve some cooking- for example, you might complete an activity to learn how to parboil vegetables properly. In my opinion, these were some of the simplest but best assignments, where you really learn foundational culinary skills that most home cooks don’t possess.
Additionally, some of the assignments do not require cooking. For example, you’ll need to do a pantry and fridge clean out and prove that you did it, with photos. You don’t need a fancy camera for this- your iPhone will do!
You can see other people’s assignments, many of which have professional looking photos. I was a little discouraged looking at those photos during the plant-based pro course because my food photography was really bad and I was struggling to just get the assignments done. But, you’re not graded on your photography skills- you just need to show enough detail so that the instructors can give you a grade and feedback. Similarly, some students were very good at plating and garnishing artfully. But these are also skills that you’ll learn over time. Once you submit an assignment, one of the course instructors will grade it and provide you feedback. If you provide detailed written descriptions to go along with your assignments, the feedback will also be real and thoughtful.
The other type of graded work you’ll have to complete are exams. At the end of each unit you’ll have an exam, and then you’ll have a big final exam at the end of the course. The exams cover a lot of material but they’re multiple choice, so not too difficult.
Interaction with Course Instructors
In addition to the graded assignments, you can ask questions through the course platform and through regular live webinars (which are recorded for later viewing). Sometimes the webinars are on a specific topic (like holiday desserts or nut cheeses), but often they’re designed to be Q&A sessions for students. The instructors are also active in the course Facebook groups and on social media.
Interaction with students
Once you enroll in the course, Rouxbe will invite you to join their private Facebook community. It’s a great way to meet other like-minded people from across the world, share your food photos and recipes, get feedback and encouragement, and ask questions. Like, you might wonder, “do I really need to buy a dehydrator”? Or, “Which dehydrator should I buy?” Ask those kinds of questions (or search for answers in the group archives) and you’ll find tons of answers and opinions. There are separate Facebook groups for the plant-based pro and vegan desserts courses. I’ve found both groups to be very active and friendly.
A lot of students have Instagram accounts and post their food photos online. I was one of them, and I’m really glad I did that because I connected with a few fellow Rouxbe students who I’m still friends with today (2023 as I’m updating this blog post).
What Will You Learn?
Doing a cooking course with Rouxbe is probably the closest you can get to in-person culinary school. You learn the basics, techniques, and even the science behind key ingredients and cooking techniques. You practice recipes, but the focus is on building the skills and knowledge so that you can develop your own recipes and cook without a recipe.
Another thing I’ve learned is how to follow and adjust recipes that I find on the internet (or in a cookbook). Many of them are pretty bad and do a poor job at explaining cooking processes. But since I have so much understanding of how to cook and bake properly, I can now use internet recipes as more of a starting point from which to build my own dish off of- and I’ll have a higher chance of success.
Mise en Place. One of the first skills you’ll learn is to get all your ingredients and equipment set up and ready to go before you start any recipe.
What you learn in the Plant-Based Professional Course
A photo of part of my pantry after doing the plant-based kitchen re-set
In the Plant-Based Pro course, you’ll start with the very basic steps to turn your own kitchen into a culinary classroom. You clean it out, then fill it with plant-based cooking essentials, from grains to greens. You’ll learn how to buy a chef’s knife, how to handle it properly, and common slicing and dicing techniques, before you learn how to actually cook anything.
Then, when it comes to cooking, you build skills in a cumulative fashion. For example, you start with basic wet and dry cooking techniques. Gradually, things get more complicated: you’ll learn how flavor development works, how to make your own pasta, and even various raw cuisine techniques.
Health and nutrition are an important part of the course- you’ll learn a lot about the science behind plant-based nutrition and which kinds of foods are good for treating conditions like cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, or digestive problems. There are full units dedicated to exploring how to cook flavorful dishes using no oil and omitting gluten.
One thing I really enjoyed about the course is that the focus is not on teaching recipes, but on techniques and processes. You learn the science behind why certain cooking techniques work while others don’t.
For example, before taking this course, I thought it made sense to put a few drops of oil into the water when cooking pasta. I think many Italian Americans (like myself) learn this from their families. However, I learned through Rouxbe that adding oil to pasta cooking water will leave a thin layer of fat on the pasta, making it slippery and unable to pick up the sauce you want to add to it after it's cooked.
Here’s another big takeaway: how to cook garlic properly. When garlic turns brown, you’ve messed up and a burnt, bitter flavor will seep through your entire dish. I learned this through a Rouxbe assignment where you have to cook garlic two ways (properly first, and then burnt), add the each type of cooked garlic to a glass of water, and then drink the water and compare. Through this experiment, you learn why brown garlic is no good. And Rouxbe also teaches you the proper ways to cook garlic so that you avoid burning it. Learning those kinds of small tricks (there were many more) really transformed my cooking.
What you learn in the essential vegan desserts course
The vegan desserts course is set up similarly to the plant-based professional course, though on a smaller scale. You start off learning about the basic ingredients in the vegan pastry kitchen and their functionalities. There’s actually a lot of foundational info that you need to learn and it was little overwhelming. Baking is a science! But when you start putting it into practice through various recipes, things start to make sense.
With this course, too, when it comes to learning baking and pastry techniques, you start with easier ones and then things get more difficult. You learn various ways to prepare fruit-based dishes, how to work with chocolate properly, and eventually you get to the more complicated stuff: multi-layer cakes and pies. You also learn when and how to use ingredients that can help you mimic the functionality of dairy and eggs.
Key example: aquafaba. That’s the liquid that comes in a can of chickpeas. You can use this liquid- something most people wash down the drain- to make a meringue that would fool most people (and it tastes amazing!).
Vegan s’mores made with aquafaba meringue.
Before beginning this course, I was already pretty good when it came to making desserts, but now I feel much more confident. For example, I can now make a proper vegan pie crust and bake a pie or galette perfectly. And I can also bake, fill, frost and decorate a multi-layer cake. These are mostly skills that transfer over into non-vegan baking, too.
Black Forest Cake - a whole new level of skill for me.
What’s the time commitment?
The time commitment for both courses is pretty significant. Firstly, the professional course is supposed to take six months to complete, while the desserts course is designed to be completed in three months. I needed a lot more time to complete both courses; this is partly because other life events got in the way of me being able to complete the lessons and assignments in a timely manner. But it’s also because the amount of time to complete the assignments is pretty significant, probably at least one day, maybe two per week (12-15 hours). If you were the type of student who would do the “suggested reading” in college, in addition the the required stuff, then this course will definitely take more time. I was always trying to do the extra recipes so I could learn more. And I knew I’d be more likely to do them while I was completing the course rather than after the fact.
All this means is that you really need to get good at planning ahead, staying organized, and not striving for absolute perfection. For example, the kitchen and pantry re-set activities took me way too long to complete because I was insistent on getting the right sized new bulk food containers, organizing everything perfectly, etc. I wish I’d just gotten it over with and moved on. (Cue the type A perfectionists!) Done is better than perfect, right?
At the end of each course, you’ll be required to dream up and prepare five small bites and hold a small cocktail/dessert party. Planning and executing this assignment takes a lot of work. The execution part will definitely take up a whole weekend, maybe longer. I probably spent two to three weeks planning my menus, sourcing ingredients, creating my dishes and then holding a little party. The end result in both courses, however, was sooo worth it. To successfully pull off that kind of party is no easy feat, and gives you a great sense of confidence in your abilities.
How much does it cost?
Rouxbe costs a lot less than going to actual in-person cooking school- and honestly that’s partly why I chose the Plant-Based Pro course. I already have a PhD (in sociology) and felt no need to go back to school. I wanted to learn plant-based cooking, not all cooking. I knew Rouxbe was going to teach me exactly what I wanted to learn, and nothing extraneous.
That said, this is still an investment in yourself, and though the price fluctuates based on whether they’re having a promotion or not, you should expect to pay at least $1100.
There’s other costs to doing at-home cooking school, however, that you’ll need to budget for. For both courses- and especially the plant-based pro course- I invested in a lot of new cooking equipment that I didn’t own. They give you a list of things you might need, and some of them are a little pricey so you should query the Facebook group (or message me!) if you’re unsure of whether to buy a particular item. Or, see if you can borrow it from a friend. Where I live there’s a restaurant supply store that’s open to the public so I went there and got many basic items- like quality pots and baking sheets- at a big discount compared to if I’d bought them somewhere like Target or Williams Sonoma. However- as a Rouxbe student you can get a culinary student discount of 20% at Williams Sonoma so definitely sign up for that! I was able to use it to pay for my Vitamix blender and chef’s knife (two items that I use daily).
The other big cost is food. You’ll be encouraged to experiment with many new ingredients, some of which may be expensive. For example, you’ll learn about fleur de sel- a fine finishing salt that I’ll often use on salads or special desserts. It’s kind of expensive, but just a little can take a dish up a notch in quality. Even if you don’t use ingredients like fleur de sel every day, it’s good to be familiar with them, know how they function, etc. I invested a lot of money in trying new ingredients so that at the very least, I’d know whether I liked them, how they tasted, how I might use them in future recipe experiments, and when it would be ok to just use a cheaper ingredient. It was all part of the learning process.
My cooking BEFORE Rouxbe. The first assignment in the plant-based pro course is to make your “go to” vegan dish. This was it. I hope by looking through this website and my Instagram feed that you can agree I’ve improved!
Should you do it?
You can only make this decision for yourself- you really need to ask yourself how committed you are to learning to cook plant-based well. Maybe you can get what you need from a few one-off cooking classes, or maybe you want to go to culinary school full time, in person. As for me, I was very committed to learning plant-based cooking but wanted to do so from my own kitchen. Rouxbe worked out great and, in all honesty, has radically changed my life. If you’ve got questions, leave me a comment or send a message, I’m happy to help.
