Cooking at home doesn’t need to be as complicated as you might imagine. People who make dinner for their families every night aren’t superheroes – they just have a great system in place and know how to make the task easier for themselves.
If one of your 2023 goals is to cook more at home, improve your health, and save some money, then here are five simple steps you can take to make reaching that goal much easier for yourself.
Invest in High-Quality Equipment
First of all, make sure you’re working with equipment that’s actually usable. Nobody wants to be chopping vegetables with a blunt knife or struggling to find a dish that’s actually oven-safe.
Start by grabbing some good pots and pans, and invest in a high-quality knife set. Along with your knives, you’ll need a good knife sharpener to keep them performing at their best. These tools alone will enable you to create some great recipes with ease.
Organize Your Space
Next, you want to make sure that you’re organizing your kitchen to maximize space and be able to find, identify and access all your ingredients easily.
When everything you own is scattered and shoved into random places, it can be tough to motivate yourself to sort through it all each night to prepare a meal. Take some time to go through your pantry, fridge, and freezer, toss what you don’t need, and implement some kind of system.
Develop A Repertoire of Go-To Recipes
This can take some time, but building up a list of easy, go-to recipes will make weeknight meals quick, easy, and painless.
Try out a new, simple, budget-friendly dish at least once per week. The ones that are awesome can go into a list on your phone to be repeated regularly. The ones that take too long, make too much mess, or just don’t taste that great can be forgotten about. Over time, you’ll have a long list of easy recipes to choose from at any time.
Keep Some Backups
Some nights, you’re just not going to want to do it. That’s part of life, and even the most put-together people have those days! For times like these, it’s a great idea to have some backup meals in the freezer to reheat and enjoy. This will help you avoid the takeout trap and ensure you’re still eating a healthy and nutritious meal even when you’re too lazy to cook.
If you have some time over a weekend or after work, dedicate yourself to preparing a few easy freezer meals to keep as backup.
Learn How to Meal Plan and Prep
Finally, if you really don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen in the evenings, meal prepping can help lighten the load.
You can take a few hours on a Sunday or Monday to make some of the meals you’d like to eat throughout the week. If you don’t like the idea of preparing one big meal to eat three or four times in a row, that’s understandable! Instead, you might consider ingredient prepping instead, and using those ingredients in different ways over a few days.
