I really don’t have to tell you about all the benefits of cooking at home versus eating out – it’s self-evident that regularly having home-cooked meals makes for a better, more balanced diet, with much less sodium, sugars, and unhealthy fats in your diet that would be available from restaurant food. It’s also a great deal cheaper, possibly cleaner, fresher, and allows you to express your creativity in the kitchen by fostering new skills and allowing you to discover new recipes and ingredients. However, it is also time consuming, difficult to master, and… messy.
The whole process of learning how to cook meals for yourself and your loved ones doesn’t begin and end with preparing ingredients – it is also, in large parts, learning how to adapt your schedule and needs in such a way that makes cooking possible without being exhausting. With this in mind, here are some helpful tips for cooking more frequently while staying sane and on top of your already-packed workload.
1. Keep a stash of all your favourite recipes in the kitchen
The first tip to consider when cooking is to create a quick recipe book to have in your kitchen. By having a list of all of your preferred recipes kept on hand, you can prevent wasting time by thinking about what you want to cook, finding a recipe online or on a bookshelf, and making sure you have all of the appropriate ingredients.
I like to have a small list of all of my simple, middle-of-the-workweek recipes in a box in the kitchen, so that when I don’t know what everyone is in the mood for, I can flip through all of them quickly and figure out fast what it is I want to cook.
You can even have them arranged based on length of cooking, from twenty minute recipes to hour-or-longer recipes, so that you don’t have to check through each based on the amount of time you have.
Consider investing in a little box to hold these in, or even a folder to flip through, so that you can easily sort the recipes based on ingredients, cooking time, and flavour pallet, in order to save yourself as much time as possible. A big step in reducing time waste in the kitchen is to work smarter, not harder.
2. Keep all the main ingredients at home all the time
The second tip is probably a bit obvious, but quickly worth mentioning is, to keep all the main ingredients at home all the time. Ordering grocery online has become a breeze now, and you can easily keep the fresh ingredients coming in every week.
3. Cook large quantities & store the surplus in the fridge/freezer where feasible
Another practical tip that will reduce the cooking time by more than half is to prepare large quantities that can be reheated and stored safely.
Certain foods can be cooked in large quantities, like pasta or mashed potatoes, but don’t necessarily reheat well, with the texture going strangely. Some more trustworthy options include plain white rice, flatbread or tortilla, and beans. All of these carbs can be stored in a closed container and refrigerated for another day or two, and if they begin to lose their flavour, there are known ways to revive them. For example, you can add butter or lemon to a day-old rice to give it more life, and you can make slightly stale beans taste new again with the addition of cayenne, lemon juice, and diced red onion.
As for veggies, you could keep a base salad in the fridge, something with ingredients that don’t easily go damp over the next day or two, like green cabbage, broccoli slaw, kale, bell pepper, and carrots. You’ll want a large bowl of this base salad, since what you’ll be doing over the next day or two is taking portions of this base salad, and spicing it up with fresher ingredients, like halved cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, diced onion, or any other vegetables you like, as well as unique salad dressings every day and maybe some fun additions, like croutons or dried cherries.
What I like about this method is that, since you’re making small amounts of salads each day, you conserve ingredients that are a little pricier, like store-bought dressing, while eating a different salad every day! The key to cooking in bulk on the days you have time is to cook things that you can change and play with for every meal with relatively minimal energy, so that you don’t get too tired of any one food, and feel like every meal you eat is different.
Another good method for meal planning is to, if you eat meat or tofu, divide up your meat or meat-replacement produce into the portions you plan on cooking as soon as you get it from the store and freeze it. The way you can do this is by investing in stackable tupperware that can easily go into your freezer, that way you can take the meat or meat-replacement out of the wrapping without it getting frost or freezer burn.
Even better, you can make marinade ahead of time and freeze your food directly in the marinade solution.
Let’s say, for example, that you come from the store with a package of chicken cutlets. Rather than stuffing the whole package into the freezer as it, take each chicken cutlet portion and place it into individual tupperware containers, then cover them with the marinade, before putting them in the freezer. The benefit this has is that, if you plan on cooking them later, you don’t have to wait for each package to thaw before dividing it out and placing portions in marinade. The secondary benefit this has is that it’s a big time saver! If you want to cook meat or tofu that has been in the freezer waiting for you, you already have to wait a long time for it to safely thaw. This way, it marinades while thawing, making the ingredient all the more flavourful once it is ready to use.
When it comes to cooking, a little forethought goes a long way, and it’s important to remember that there’s no shame in asking for help, or even getting premade ingredients to save a little time here and there, like getting frozen bags of diced vegetables ready for stir-fry.
Cooking at home doesn’t have to be a chore, you can make it to be something that you enjoy, and preferably, it can become a moment of respite from the busy thrum of modern life. Keeping this in mind, taking tips and making shortcuts is all part of becoming a happier, healthier, and more sustainable cook!