If you are reading this then you are obviously already curious about marijuana edibles — definitely a great start! But where from here? Chances are you’ve been smoking or vaporizing for a while. Maybe you haven’t gotten around to making delicious edible marijuana treats because of how complicated and time consuming people make cooking with cannabis out to be. Maybe you’ve tried looking up marijuana recipes in the past only to became confused or by all the conflicting information. We’re here to arm you with the latest and greatest of proven methods for making cannabis and, more importantly, teach you how to be an awesome cannachef. When everything is said and done, a great chef is part artist and part chemist — and a great cannachef is no different.

Take Stock Of Your Skills

The first thing that you will need to do on journey to culinary greatness is to really take a good, long look at yourself and take stock of your current cooking capabilities. Before you know what you need to improve on, you’ll need to know where your current skill level lies. Are you a master of French cuisine, perhaps some kind of pastry savant? Or is your idea of cooking more along the lines of taking something out of the freezer and putting it in the microwave? This is an honest question that you’ll need to ask  yourself, and for a very practical reason: weed can be very costly.

If you burn things more than you don’t, your best bet is to really focus on your basic cooking skills before attempting a fancy weed recipe — if for no other reason that not wanting to waste your weed. That is not to say there aren’t marijuana recipes out there that can be made by a bad cook (in fact our site is full of super easy to make marijuana edibles), but before you go using up 4 ounces of delicious Northern Lights on a giant batch of brownies that you’ve never made before, you might want to make sure you get some practice in first. Just sayin’.

Once you feel comfortable with your cooking abilities you should read up on the science of cannabis. While cannabis is easy to smoke — pack bowl, apply flame, inhale — to be an effective cook it is best to understand at least a little about cannabis chemistry. Understanding the chemical make-up of cannabinoids and how they react to things like heat and acids is essential to making powerful edibles and getting the “biggest bang for your buck.”

Decide What You Want To Eat

The world of cannafood is no different than regular food — there are a million options and a million way to make each option. While some kinds of medical marijuana edibles can be very similar (hard candies and chocolates share a lot in common for example), others can be quite different from each other (a marijuana milkshake and a lobster canna-bisque are quite different altogether). We recommend that you pick a dish that is easy and cheap enough to make a lot of, but something that you won’t get sick of: brownies. Of course, you aren’t limited to brownies — literally any food can be turned into a cannafood after all! — but they are a great starter food.

Figure Out Your Chemistry

First, read as much as you can about cannabis chemistry. Google is great for this, as is this site. Then take a look at a recipe you’d like to make. What do you notice about it? Does it call for the marijuana to be pre-heated? Are there any special instructions? How does it compare to a “normal” recipe for the same dish? “Backwards engineering” existing recipes is a great first step towards learning the rules of cannacooking and when to apply them.