Brazilian Cooking Skills Questionnaire evaluation of using/cooking and consumption of fruits and vegetables

•Factor analysis is useful to shorten the Brazilian Cooking Skills and Healthy Eating Questionnaire (BCSQ) and to show its theoretical-based dimensions.•The cooking skills of young adults depend on their culinary attitudes, behaviors, self-efficacy and knowledge, as well the use of different kinds of food to improve their diets, but not on the time available to cook.•The Cooking Attitudes scale is a valid and reliable measure of BCSQ but does not seem to be sufficiently correlated to other scales because it does not strongly encourage young adults to cook.•The Short BCSQ is applicable for use in health professionals’ practices to find cooking skills and healthy eating levels of young adults and presents an evaluation of their barriers to preparing meals.