Planning, shopping, meal prepping, cooking, and cleaning- kitchen tasks are tiring and they never seem to end. No one wants to spend hours in the kitchen every day. If you cook two or three meals a day, that’s almost three to five hours of kitchen work. This can be overwhelming, frustrating and bad for your mental health. There are some tips and tricks that can help you reduce your daily kitchen time.
5 genius ways to save time in the kitchen
1. Make a grocery list and stick to it: Instead of going through the aisles of your grocery store aimlessly looking for things to cook, make a grocery list beforehand and stick to it.
This will save you time in the long run because you’ll know what ingredients are needed and won’t have to wander around looking for something specific.
2. Preheat your oven before cooking anything: This may seem like an obvious tip, but by preheating your oven before cooking anything you’ll save yourself time in the long run.
Not only will this speed up the cooking process, but it will also prevent food from sticking to the oven walls or getting burned. As a tip, using imarku knives makes meal prep easier.
3. Clean as you go: When cleaning up after cooking, try not to do too much at once. Try cleaning one dish at a time, then set it aside to finish drying while you continue with the next one. Doing this will help prevent accidents and save time in the long run.
4. Plan meals ahead: Planning your meals ahead of time can help cut down on preparation time significantly. This is especially helpful if you tend to forget things like ingredients or meal ideas during busy moments.
5. Cook frozen items according to package directions: Cooking frozen items can be tricky because they often don’t come with specific instructions on how best to prepare them.
However, following package directions usually results in better-tasting food that’s easier on your stomach since frozen foods are considerably less processed than their fresh counterparts.
Get the right appliances
A gas range that won’t heat up easily or a dishwasher that won’t drain the water automatically – things like these can make kitchen tasks a nightmare. Appliances like refrigerators, stoves, and dishwashers are kitchen essentials. Faulty and troubled appliances are not only annoying and time-consuming, but they are also health hazards.
If your appliances need servicing, don’t ignore or procrastinate. If you have the budget, get some high-end appliances that can save kitchen time. For instance, you don’t have to wait for a kettle of water to boil if you have a black boiling water tap. So get the right appliances and work smarter, not harder.
Plan weekly meals
No one wants to decide what to make for dinner on their way home from work. Planning and shopping for the ingredients right away is frustrating. Plan what you are going to make for the next few weeks. When you have a cooking schedule on your hand, everything else will feel a lot easier. Planning ahead will help make the prepping and shopping process more organised.
Shop twice a week
Shop only once, the highest two times a week. Once you plan the meals for the whole week and you know what ingredients you will need, make a thorough list. Shop according to the list for the next week. If you want to cook something fresh, you can always run to the store occasionally. Shopping once a week will save you a lot of time. And when you don’t have to run to the grocery store two or three times a week, you will instantly feel better.
Meal prep ahead
Prepping meals is the most time-devouring kitchen work. But if you prep for a week’s meal at once, it can save you some time and effort. When you are prepping for the whole week, you are chopping vegetables only once. You don’t have to grab your chopping board and knives every day – so there’s less to clean and put away. Also, wash the vegetables and other ingredients before storing them so you don’t have to do that every time.
The best way to freeze food is in ice cube trays. You can use these cubes to make healthy snacks, meals, and smoothies. Simply place the frozen food into the ice cube tray and then pop it into the freezer. You can also use this method to store vegetables, fruit, chicken breasts, and other meats.
If you love pizza but don’t want to spend hours making it from scratch, try making frozen pizzas instead! To make a frozen pizza, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread a layer of sauce on top of each crust dough. Place the pizzas on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Store fruits and vegetables in ice packs. Not only will this keep your fruits and vegetables fresh longer, but it will also save you time in the kitchen when you need to cook with them later on. Wrap individual fruits or vegetables in plastic wrap before placing them into an ice pack so they won’t get squished together. Then place the ice packs in a freezer bag for easy storage.
Convenient meals
Do some research and come up with some convenient meal ideas that are suitable for your family. If you have kids, cooking meals that are easy and healthy is a difficult thing, especially if they are picky eaters. But there are a lot of recipes for one-pot meals or sheet meals that are easy to cook and full of nutrients. If you can pick the right recipe, you can save a lot of kitchen time.
How to Make Desserts that will Wow Your Guests
Making a dessert is always a fun and exciting task, but sometimes it can be tedious and time-consuming. If you want to wow your guests with delicious desserts but don’t have the time to spend hours in the kitchen, follow these time-saving kitchen hacks that actually work!
One of the best ways to save time in the kitchen is to make your desserts ahead of time.
You can either make them in advance and freeze them, or you can prepare them the night before and store them in the fridge. This way, you won’t have to spend any extra time preparing them on arrival.
Another great way to save time is to make easy ice cream. Rather than using an ice cream maker, you can simply put all of your ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. This recipe takes only 10 minutes to prepare and will produce creamy ice cream that will impress your guests.
Thank you for reading! These time-saving kitchen hacks are really effective, and I know that you’ll be able to save a lot of time in the kitchen if you try them out. We hope that you find these hacks as helpful as we do and that they help make your cooking experience a little bit easier.
