12 Tips You Need For Cooking In High Altitudes

Moving to or vacationing in a high-altitude environment is an exciting undertaking — the opportunities for outdoor activities like skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and mountain biking abound, and the higher elevations lend themselves to cool, refreshing evenings even on the hottest of summer days. But all that outdoor activity is bound to leave you hungry... and the one thing that might not be as easy to do at higher elevations is to whip up your favorite baked goods or dishes without making a few adjustments.

The thinner air and lower humidity levels of high-elevation environments affect boiling points, the way baked goods rise, and how quickly water evaporates, all of which can wreak havoc on your standard cooking practices. That said, millions of people live, work, bake, and cook at high altitudes, proving it's perfectly possible to master the art and science of high-altitude cooking — all you need is the know-how. Here are some of the best high-altitude chefs around sharing their tips for keeping their customers satisfied, even at 5,000, 6,000, or 7,000-foot elevations.

Thinner air is often dryer air — with fewer air molecules carrying water, humidity levels tend to be lower, which also causes water to evaporate more quickly. All-in-all, this can lead to problems with moisture retention in baking and cooking. In other words, your food may end up dried out.

"When cooking at high altitudes, the air is much dryer and water boils at a lower temperature," says Jason Franey, YUTA Park City's executive chef at The Lodge at Blue Sky, which is located at about a 7,000-foot elevation outside of Park City, Utah. "The largest problem I've had with my recipes from sea level was baking them properly at this new elevation. I had to pivot, using more hydration — about 10% as the flour is much drier than at sea level."

Mawa McQueen, owner and executive chef of four restaurant concepts in Aspen and Snowmass Village in Colorado, including the Michelin-recommended restaurant Mawa's Kitchen, agrees that making changes to hydration levels in baking is critical. "Add more water (or whatever the liquid source is) when cooking and baking. I recommend adjusting your recipe based on humidity; adding more moisture as needed. I learned this when making gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread is hard to make in general, but at high altitudes, it's even more difficult. I figured out how to adjust the measurements to get the quality I wanted," she says.

It's not just the ambient air temperature that will affect the outcome of your bake, but the temperature at which you bake your bread, cookies, or cakes, too. This is tied to the faster speed at which dough rises at higher elevations. Essentially, you want to stop the rise as quickly as possible once you start baking the dough to prevent the air bubbles from expanding too much, which could lead to a collapsed bake.

To get the dough to "set," you'll want to increase the temperature of your oven. So if your recipe typically calls for a 350 degrees F temperature, you'll need to hike that up a bit. "Increase oven temperature by 15-20 degrees F," suggests Saura Kline, the head pastry chef at Local Jones restaurant in Denver, Colorado. Then, to prevent overbaking and drying out your breads or pastries, she says you'll also need to decrease the baking time by about five to eight minutes. Just keep in mind that these specific suggestions may need adjusting based on your specific elevation. Kline notes that these guidelines are appropriate to Denver-level elevations of about 3,000 to 6,000 feet. They may need to be increased for elevations over 6,000 feet.

While most high-elevation cooking tips are geared toward baking, there are a number of ways that your standard dishes can be affected by altitude. Namely, water boils at a lower temperature. "This can change cook times and quality for things like pasta, legumes, and beans," says Daniel Young, the executive chef at Halcyon, a hotel in Cherry Creek, Denver, Colorado. The result is that it takes longer to cook items that need to be boiled.

"Water typically boils around 202 degrees in Denver, which means it can often take various items, such as rice, pasta, braised meats, or vegetables, a little bit longer to cook. I recommend adding time to the suggested cooking time in directions," says Dustin Beckner, the executive chef at Nocturne in Denver. So if you're used to throwing spaghetti in the pot and having it ready to go in about eight minutes, keep an eye on it and test the consistency at eight, 10, or even 12 minutes to figure out when it's actually cooked to your liking. Remember, even this adjustment in time may vary based on the actual elevation where you're staying.

One other way to help mitigate the longer cooking times that are expected at higher elevations is to use a pressure cooker instead of other cooking methods, when appropriate. This is particularly helpful for beans or dishes that need to cook at low temperatures for long periods of time. "I recommend using a pressure cooker, which can sometimes speed things up," says Beckner.

This is the perfect time to buy and put an Instant Pot to use, which is what Young says he does when he's cooking at home. He says that the Instant Pot helps alleviate some of the issues that arise with cook times and quality when at a higher altitude. That said, you shouldn't expect your Instant Pot cook times to be exactly the same, either. The best practice for adding cooking time is to increase the time by 5% for every 1,000 feet above sea level you are after 2,000 feet. In other words, if you're at 3,000 feet elevation, just add 5% to the suggested cooking time for your Instant Pot recipe.

One thing you might not think to take into consideration when cooking at high elevations is the temperature of the foods you're going to cook before you cook them. Yet, this is one of the primary tips imparted by Victor Mena, the executive chef and owner at Super Mega Bien in Denver, Colorado.

"Before boiling any products, such as vegetables, you want to get them out of your fridge about 10 minutes before starting the cooking process. High altitude makes for longer cooking time, and if the vegetables are too cold, they can easily become over-cooked," he says. Veggies at room temperature will be more predictable for achieving a proper boil, but just remember that exact cooking times vary based on your specific elevation.

As such, it's particularly important to keep an eye on whatever it is you're boiling as it gets close to the right texture to make sure you're removing it from the heat at exactly the right time. It's also a good idea to pay attention to the specific cooking times you end up using, making note of how long each type of vegetable or dish requires so that it's easier to cook without a second thought in subsequent attempts.

One of the reasons why fish are so nice for cooking up on weeknights is that the cooking time is already quick. And unlike vegetables or pasta that require more time to boil at higher altitudes, the low humidity and faster evaporation rates that take place at higher elevations mean that cooking fish is even faster.

"For pan-searing fish, it is a much shorter sear time at high altitude due to the fact that liquid from the fish evaporates more quickly. If cooked too long, your fish will be dry, chewy, and tasteless," says Mena. So if your typical high-heat sear is 30 to 60 seconds followed by three to five minutes of cook time per side at a lower temperature, keep the high-heat sear shorter (15 to 30 seconds), and pay close attention to how long you're cooking the fish per side after that. Aim for a couple of minutes per side and test the fillet. If it's flaky and cooked through, it's ready to serve. So instead of an eight to 10 minute cook time, you may be looking at closer to six to eight minutes, depending on your elevation.