If you've ever made a stir-fry or stew and some parts turned out overcooked while others were undercooked, the size and uniformity of your ingredients might be to blame. Veggies, meats, and other ingredients that are cut into even pieces also cook more evenly, and one meat that definitely deserves your best knife skills is chicken.

Uniformly-cut ingredients maintain the balance of flavors in a dish and ensure that all the pieces of food cook at the same rate. If you cook differently-sized pieces of chicken at the same temperature for the same amount of time, the smaller pieces will dry out while you wait for the larger pieces to cook through so they aren't raw in the middle.

While slightly undercooked or overcooked veggies can be passable, undercooked chicken can give you food poisoning, while overcooked chicken is hopelessly dry. Cut your chicken into uniform pieces so that when you use a thermometer to test the internal temp of one piece, you'll know that all the other pieces are done cooking, too.