River Cottage Cooking Diploma: Next Level

Learn the art and science of cheese making with Marcus Ferguson, an award-winning cheesemaker from an organic farm in Somerset.

Marcus will guide you through the process of how cheese is made and provide you with the necessary skills and confidence to make four different types of cheese - a Caerphilly, Camembert, Ricotta and Labneh. Marcus also shares his tips on how to adapt common household items for cheesemaking, rather than buying expensive specialist equipment.

Nutritionalist Naomi Devlin teaches you how improve your gut health and boost your immunity by feeding your gut microbiome with beneficial foods on a daily basis.

You'll learn about polyphenols, how they help to keep us healthy, where to find them and how can you get more in your meals. Naomi will also explain prebiotics, the food our gut microbes love to eat! She’ll look at the whole range of prebiotics that you need for robust gut diversity. You'll learn about the digestive system and about beneficial gut bacteria.

Learn how to make pasta at home with Chef Steven Kiernan from River Cottage.

Steven's pasta making course demonstrates different styles of pasta dough, where you’ll learn about different flours - why is ’00 favoured in Italy, how to source great local equivalents, what’s the most important element to look for when sourcing flour, plus the difference between stoneground or mill rolled flours when making your dough.

Expert outdoor chef, and River Cottage tutor Gill Meller show you how to cook over fire - this course goes far beyond a BBQ cooking course!

Gill will teach you how to cook fresh fish on the beach, how to create and cook meat using a spit and inspire you with new recipes for cooking wood-fired veg. You'll also learn how to build a wood fire, cook with fire safely and how to extinguish a fire once you've finished cooking.

Baker, chef and River Cottage bread expert Andy Tyrrell teaches you how to bake bread, brioche, and focaccia.

Andy also covers international breads like baguettes, through which you’ll learn how to fold and shape the perfect long loaf. You’ll gain skills to master wetter, olive oil-enriched doughs like ciabatta and focaccia, as well as sweet, buttery treats like brioche, doughnuts, cinnamon buns and a fruity spiced tea loaf.

River Cottage's Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will inspire you to take your vegetarian cooking to the next level by teaching you new vegetarian cooking techniques and using plant-based ingredients in original ways.

The plan is not just to help you incorporate more veg into your diet, but to build your confidence and expand your repertoire so that seasonal veg feature as the bedrock of your creative cooking. All the dishes are vegan, but they are designed to be equally tempting for vegetarians and omnivores too.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and River Cottage's Executive Chef Gelf Alderson combine to show you how to source sustainable and ethical meat and cook all types of meat cuts - to make the most of every piece of meat you eat.

River Cottage's fermenting expert teaches you how to ferment food and drinks at home to create delicious fermented flavours.

On this more advanced course, you’ll learn how to transform pulses into homemade miso, local honey into mead (an ancient style of honey wine), apple scraps into apple cider vinegar, cream into cultured butter.

Next Level Fish and Shellfish dives into deeper waters where you’ll learn to tackle more difficult seafood recipes such as Crab Bisque and Oysters Rockefeller.

Expert chef, Gelf Alderson, will tell you more about using sustainable fish and guiding you through sourcing and preparing a broad selection of seafood such as cephalopods (squid and octopus), oysters, raw fish and more. You'll learn some favourite River Cottage recipes including Squid with Pumpkin Seed Satay and plenty of classics, including ceviche, carpaccio (made with bream) and a scallop tartar.

River Cottage's food preservation expert Rachel de Thample teaches you how to capture the best of each season through preserving techniques inspired by the food from River Cottage kitchen garden, orchards and the hedgerows.

With each recipe, Rachel will give you the skills and techniques so you can apply the recipes taught to other seasonal produce throughout the year, making it relevant to you no matter where you are in the world or what season you’re in.

In this course, Adam embraces his love for rare and flavourful varieties, intelligent and low-maintenance growing techniques and thoughtful organic practices to guide you through growing ingredients that with not only enrich your cooking but will also inject beauty and joy into your garden space (no matter how large or small).

In this course, Adam embraces his love for rare and flavourful varieties, intelligent and low-maintenance growing techniques and thoughtful organic practices to guide you through growing ingredients that with not only enrich your cooking but will also inject beauty and joy into your garden space (no matter how large or small).