Kitchen Hacks to Save Time

Do you ever feel like cooking meals at home is a part-time job?  (Let’s be honest, it can feel like a full-time job!)  With all of the deciding on meals, shopping, cutting, chopping, clean up…just the thought of it can be so daunting.  

Being overwhelmed with cooking at home is also the main reason we zip through a drive-thru or order take-out, which is undoubtedly the less healthy option. 

Lucky for you, I’m here to let you in on a few of my favorite time saving tricks to use in the kitchen so you can enjoy your healthy meals at home.

A few kitchen hacks to save you time and sanity...

·      Chopping veggies can be a major time-sucker.  Save a slew of time by purchasing your veggies pre-chopped in the produce section at your grocery store — and an even smarter trick, load up on your pre-chopped veggies on the salad bar.  Many grocery stores have a salad bar that is priced per pound, and loading up a box of pre-cut veggies from the salad bar can cut down on waste and time.  

·      Plan your meals for the week ahead of time.  Each weekend, take a look at what you have in your kitchen to create a plan of your meals for the week.  You can then make your shopping list based on what you’ll need for the week, which will cut down on mindless browsing at the store.  (We’ve all been there, right?)  There are some amazing websites to help you out in this department -- a few options being plantoeat.com, meals.com and thefresh20.com. 

·      Cook in bulk.  I love to do batch cooking! This is beneficial for several reasons.  For example, roasting a big pan of veggies to use with meals during the week saves loads of time, and also allows you to use the ingredients in different ways.  A large pan of roasted veggies could be your side item for one meal, the veggies could be thrown atop a plate of zucchini noodles for pasta the next meal, veggie soup, etc.  Cook once, use many times.  It's a huge time-saver!  

Another smart trick is to clean up your workspace as you go.  After you’ve sat down and enjoyed a meal, the last thing you want to do is spend time working in the kitchen again.  As much as you can, clean up as you’re cooking, and leave the remaining clean up to be for the plates and utensils you eat with.  Easy, peasy. 

What new tip will you try in the kitchen this week?