Cooking shouldn’t feel like such a drag. If you happen to’re struggling to spend time within the kitchen cooking, try these 6 tricks to help get you inspired and make cooking easier!
It’s hard to cook.
It’s especially hard to cook if you’re cooking 3x a day, 7 days every week. Who has time or energy for that?!
Now that I’m a Mom, I’m finding it even harder to search out the time and energy to cook, especially when you might have a picky toddler who doesn’t wish to eat what you make! I’ve heard from other moms who share the identical sentiment that the invisiblized labor and lack of gratitude makes it tougher to feel inspired to cook.
If you happen to’re burnt out on cooking, I see you. I’ve been you. I recently shared with a few my 1:1 clients that I ordered prepared meals 3x/week for 16 months after my son was born.
All of us undergo seasons when cooking isn’t as accessible for whatever reason and that’s totally valid. We don’t must wrap up a lot morality around cooking. And if you might have no desire to cook or make cooking easier, that’s valid too.
But if you happen to’re here because you would like to be cooking more, you simply want it to feel easier, I’ve got six suggestions for you today.
Make Cooking Easier with these Six Suggestions:
1. Have a loose meal plan.
You don’t must plan out each meal for the week but if you happen to know you’re all the time scrambling and stressed getting dinner on the table then it’d profit you to do somewhat planning ahead of time so you may take the every day guesswork out of dinner.
I’m going to speak more about making meal planning easier next month but for now I’d suggest aiming to plan out not less than 3 or 4 dinners for the week to start out after which counting on leftovers on the off days.
To make this even easier, pick themes for every of those nights so you may take much more guesswork out of it. Perhaps Monday is Meatless Monday (vegetarian meal), Tuesday is Taco Tuesday, Thursday is grain bowl or pasta night, and Saturday is homemade pizza night.
2. Keep your fridge, pantry and freezer well stocked with staples.
That is crucial! If you happen to don’t have an abundance of food in your own home readily accessible, it’s not going to be easy to determine what to eat. Listed here are some staples I like to recommend in your pantry, fridge and freezer (that we all the time have readily available in our house):
Pantry Staples
- Pasta
- Canned tuna and/or salmon
- Quinoa
- Rice
- Peanut butter
- Oats
- Lentils
- Canned beans
- Bread
Fridge
- Eggs
- Yogurt
- Fresh fruit
- Lettuce or salad greens
- Milk and almond milk
- Hummus
- Cheese
- Chia seeds
- Sauces, dressings, and condiments
Freezer
- Frozen fruit (wild blueberries and strawberries)
- Frozen vegetables (broccoli and corn)
- Frozen rice (brown and white)
- Frozen chicken and salmon
- Leftovers that freeze well like vegan chickpea burgers
- Waffles (multigrain)
- Starchy sides from Trader Joe’s like risotto or gnocchi
- Hashbrowns
3. Reap the benefits of appliances and kitchen gadgets.
The oven, slow cooker, Easy Pot, and air fryer are your pals! These are all set-it-and-forget-it appliances that make it easy to cook when you do something else.
We love making vegetables within the air fryer like air fryer cauliflower, air fryer sweet potato fries, air fryer kohlrabi fries, and air fryer zucchini chips.
We like to make soups and stews within the slow cooker and Easy Pot like my Easy Pot Guinness Beef Stew, Slow Cooker Potato Leek Soup, Easy Easy Pot Vegetarian Chili, and Easy Pot Cream of Mushroom Soup.
Other kitchen gadgets / appliances I can’t get enough of because how much they make cooking easier for me include (affiliate links – if you happen to make a purchase order, I receive a small commission):
4. Use convenience options when you may.
There may be NOTHING improper with taking shortcuts when cooking.
I repeat: there may be nothing improper with taking shortcuts when cooking.
We don’t must make every little thing from scratch. We are able to let cooking be as convenient as we want it to be.
We love using frozen rice in our household. I don’t have a rice cooker and don’t have the need to cook rice every week so I like having bags of frozen rice I can pop within the microwave and have ready in 3 minutes.
Ready-made sauces and dressings are helpful for things like stir fries, pasta dishes, grain bowls, etc.
There’s also ready-made pasta available on the market now that you just just must microwave – that will also be incredibly convenient if you happen to don’t have the time to attend for the water to boil!
5. Embrace leftovers.
That is sort of a polarizing topic but I like leftovers. Because nothing feels higher to me than knowing I don’t must worry about or cook dinner each night.
We attempt to make enough food so that we’ll have the option to have leftovers the following night. Batch cooking (making food in large quantities) may feel helpful since it means that you can cook once but get multiple meals out of it.
I like to recommend batch cooking meals you may store within the freezer for later use like veggie burgers, soups and stews, lasagna, enchiladas, pizza, and casseroles.
If cooking feels overwhelming to you, I highly recommend cutting yourself some slack and leaning into leftovers. And if you happen to’re someone who doesn’t really like leftovers or doesn’t jive with having the identical meal two nights in a row then repurpose your leftovers!
Repurposing leftovers looks like taking one component of a leftover dish and turning it into something latest. Listed here are some examples:
6. Attempt to infuse your cooking with some fun and pleasure.
Is there an easy way you may add somewhat more enjoyment to your cooking? I’m talking like 5% more enjoyable. Not asking you to fall in love with cooking but how can we make it somewhat bit more pleasurable or enjoyable, or dare I say, fun?
Listed here are some suggestions to try on for size and see the way it lands with you:
- Placed on your favorite music playlist when you cook (singing out loud is very encouraged). I’ve been listening to Kitchen Swagger on Spotify these days.
- Get your kids involved with the prep
- Pour yourself a glass of wine or make a fun cocktail (if you happen to drink)
- Ask a friend to return over and cook with you or involve your partner and make it a shared activity
- Add your favorite dish or recipe to make to the rotation more often
- Don’t take yourself or your cooking too seriously. Make mistakes!
- Take a cooking class to learn latest skills you may practice later
Which of the following pointers will you are trying first? Let me know below within the comments – I’d love to listen to from you!
For more blog posts like this try:
6 Ways to Find More Enjoyment in Eating
Am I Eating Enough? 8 Signs You’re Undereating
The Beginner’s Guide to Intuitive Eating
Seeking to make food more enjoyable? Get my FREE guide if you enroll for my newsletter: Rediscover the Joy in Eating: 5 Easy Steps to Stop Stressing Over Food + Enjoy Every Bite.