10 Best ASMR Cooking Sounds

To those of us that regularly spend time chopping, stirring, and kneading in the kitchen, we have long understood the calming effects making a meal for our family has on us. Cooking has long been known for its stress relieving attributes — home cooking, that is. The men and women on the line at your local restaurant would tell a different story.

But making waffles in your jammies on a Sunday morning or making dinner after work with a glass of wine? Hell yes.

While most of the calming effects of cooking come from the creativity involved in creating a dish, and is often recommended for quelling anxiety, as the shortage in random grocery items during quarantine only further proved, what about the sounds of cooking?

Often called “brain massage”, ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, are soft sounds that have a sedative dreamy effect on the listener.

These ASMR food sounds will either have you headed for the couch to take a snooze or back into the kitchen to eat. I will probably end up doing both. Check out these 10 best ASMR cooking sounds.

Sizzling Pan

Meat, veggie, whatever — when something hits that hot oil — oooOoooOO, baby, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

Tongs Test Clicks

Hearing the clicking of cooking tongs, whether I’m one doing it or not, makes me get excited for what’s about to be in my stomach. AND YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO TEST THE TONGS.

Chip Bag Crinkling

Does anything get your ears perked up more than the sound of cellophane, especially a chip bag, crinkling? The sound of any kind of plastic bag being crinkled will make you scream, “Bring me some, please!” from the couch.

Popcorn Popping

No matter if you’re at home or a movie theater in the good ol’ days, there is no better sound. I can already smell the butter.

Mixing Butter

Speaking of butter, mixing butter straddles the line between the soothing and sickening. But I also greatly enjoy the sound of fingers sliding over a new packaged stick of butter. That sentence is also borderline soothing and sickening. Nonetheless, you have so many possibilites, butter stick. I love you.

Knife Chopping

Cutting veggies is probably the most mediative, albeit tedious task, in the kitchen. The sound of a knife rhythmically hitting a cutting board is money, but when you factor in the sound variation between the blade cutting through cabbage or a more subtle vegetable like scallions? Dopamine and oxytocin flood my bloodstream with every cut.

Refrigerator Opening

That tiny suctioning sound with a little breeze of refreshing cool air. Oh, the possibilities that lay inside…

Kneading Dough

Kneading dough can be a subtle sound, quite the opposite from my plaintive cries about my aching shoulders from kneading stiff bagel dough for 8 to 10 minutes.

Kitchen Timer

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon… *ding!* YES.

Cereal Poured Into A Bowl

This is my favorite. Maybe because I love cereal so much, but mainly because someone committed to pouring 19 DIFFERENT CEREALS. I thank you for your thoroughness, whoever you are.

Can you think of any ASMR cooking sounds I left out? Comment below with your favorite!

Originally published at http://katiehack.com on August 25, 2020.