How to save time in the kitchen: 10 useful tips
There seems to be an obvious answer to the question of how to save time in the kitchen: not cooking at all. However, despite the abundance of food delivery services, many people still prefer home-cooked meals to ready-made restaurant meals. The explanation is simple.
Your own food is cheaper and made just the way you need it: with your favorite seasonings, the right amount of salt and no unnecessary ingredients. The only disadvantage is that cooking requires direct involvement and takes a lot of effort.
In the article we tell you how to optimize the cooking process so that you always have a home-cooked meal and still have free time for hobbies and communication with loved ones.
Plan the menu
Cooking starts with choosing a recipe and purchasing groceries. Often dinner ideas are thought up on the way home from work, so you have to go to the store for the missing ingredients. Daily trips to the supermarket take 30 minutes to an hour. To save this time, it is enough to spend part of the weekend to plan the menu for the week, make a list of products and buy them.
Do not include too complex or multi-ingredient dishes in your diet. Remember that some ingredients are suitable for several recipes at once. For example, boil more meat or poultry for soup, set aside half for a salad or serve it later with a side dish.
Planning the perfect menu the first time around is unlikely to work, because thinking that far ahead is difficult without experience. But you'll soon learn to take all factors into account and you'll be able to put together a hassle-free diet.
Make preparations
Preparations help speed up the cooking process. Peel and chop frequently used vegetables, put them into individual ziplock bags or containers and send them to the freezer. You can freeze anything: carrots, onions, broccoli, green beans, cauliflower. When you don't have the energy to cook, pan fry a turkey fillet, add frozen vegetables and a healthy lunch in 20 minutes is ready!
From time to time on the weekend, it's great for the whole family to make dumplings or cutlets. They also freeze well and keep for quite a long time, so on weekdays there will always be a backup version of dinner.
Freeze meat properly
If you bought a whole chicken, then after cutting it up, distribute it into separate bags in small portions. Too large a piece of meat, too, cut it up and spread it out so that only the part that will be useful for one meal has to be defrosted. When everything is piled up, it takes much longer to defrost.
Homemade mincemeat is also better to transfer immediately into containers in portions.
Prepare ingredients in advance
Before you start cooking, carefully read the recipe and lay out on the table all the necessary ingredients. Cut the vegetables at once, get the necessary seasonings, make sure that the dishes are washed and ready to use. This preparation will take a maximum of 15 minutes, but then you will not need to panic remember where the nutmeg is or regretfully realize that the cream, it turns out, has expired.
With pre-prepared ingredients, everything will go smoothly, the dish will not overcook or burn.
Cook with a reserve
If you do not plan the diet for a week, it is desirable to think through the menu for two or three days. As an option, cook porridge for breakfast in a double volume, and in the morning change only the way of serving: once - with apricots, prunes and honey, another time - with fresh fruit. A large pot of thick soup is enough for three lunches. And for dinner, fry a large fish and serve two days with different side dishes. Let your imagination run wild!
Use the oven
The oven is a godsend for time-conscious cooks. For cooking, 10 minutes of active participation will be enough, and then the food will bake itself. The main thing is not to miss the moment of turning off, otherwise the dish will be overdried. Do not forget to set a timer or alarm clock while you watch the show.
Without prolonged marinating, you can bake in the oven fish steaks, chicken wings, turkey medallions.
Do several dishes at the same time
If you try hard, you can cook the first, second and even put a pie to bake in an hour. It's all about the dishes themselves and the competent distribution of actions. Soup with meat turns out hearty, but it takes a long time to cook. Instead, it is faster to make, for example, vegetarian soup with lentils. Legumes are healthy and good to satisfy hunger. Some varieties of lentils are boiled for 15-20 minutes. Or make lean borscht from pre-frozen vegetables and canned beans.
While the broth is boiling, place chicken thighs smeared with honey mustard sauce in a baking dish and place in the oven for 45 minutes. Or cook beef steaks with chimichurri sauce.
There are many combinations of quick meals, choose according to your taste! Here, too, it's important to prepare all the ingredients beforehand: chop the vegetables, rinse the cereals, take out the spices.
Keep your kitchen utensils in good condition
The speed of work in the kitchen depends largely on the tools used. A dull knife will not cut meat, but will take an agonizingly long time to saw through. A sharply sharpened knife will facilitate and speed up the cutting of products.
A frying pan with a quality non-stick coating will not spoil food, you will not have to scrape off pieces of sticking food.
Pots, cutting boards, graters, spatulas should be in good condition, so as not to distract during cooking.
Purchase useful kitchen gadgets
People like to be lazy, and laziness is known to be the engine of progress. To help cooks have long created devices that have automated most culinary processes. Do not neglect the achievements of mankind. Electric meat grinder, blender, mixer, coffee grinder will allow you to save strength and save a lot of time.
In addition to electric appliances, there are many other small useful gadgets: vegetable peeler, grater with different attachments, measuring spoons, oil dispensers, etc. Take an interest in the novelties, maybe they invented a tool you've been missing.
Wash dirty dishes right away
Some people get so caught up in cooking that they don't notice the mountain of used dishes growing in the sink, which they then have to wash. If you don't have a dishwasher, this can take 15 to 30 minutes. It is better not to multiply dirty plates, and wash at once: put vegetables in the pot - rinse the bowl, grated carrots - rinse the grater. With this approach, food residue will not have time to dry and stick to the walls of the kitchen utensils, so it will be quickly washed away.
We have listed only 10 useful tips. Share in the comments with your own kitchen safety hacks. Tell us how you save time in the kitchen?
