Coming home late, after a tiring day and then stepping in the kitchen is stressing. The stress doesn’t allow you to go near the stove and cook food for the family? You should be prepared and plan things out before you leave for the office.
Following some habits can help you keep meal time organized and make meal prep a breeze.
Have a Meal Plan
First habit that everyone should follow is having a meal plan. It can save you a lot of time, planning what to cook on days when your work shifts are longer and selecting a meal that can be cooked easily will be perfect. Similarly, you can keep time consuming meals on weekends as the whole family would be at home and you can cook while taking help from your kids. Make a meal plan that works for you.
Make a Weekly Organized Grocery List
As you are making a meal plan, you should organize your grocery list as well. Make your list based on your meal plan for the week so that you could be stress free as you’re having all the required ingredients to cook food for the whole week. Furthermore, you will be safe from last minute drills to the store. Going for monthly grocery purchasing actually don’t let you to have an idea that your bill is exceeding your expectations. However, if you organize your grocery according to the weekly plan, you will have a clear sense of your spending and will be able to save money.
Pre-cut and Measure ahead of Time
Precutting the raw products needed for the meal will make you more organized. When you are going to buy the grocery, the same day you can cut the food that requires cutting and save your time in near future. You just need to take them out of the refrigerator and start cooking. You can make equal packets of each item and then refrigerate or freeze it.
Freeze Chopped Veggies
If your meal plan has several onions and peppers, you can cut them or dice them at once. Fill the snacked size freezer bags with the veggies and store them in the freezer. There are some vegetables that are used in cooking and some meals are incomplete without them. It’s a huge time saver to not to have them cut for every meal. One more important habit you should follow is to clean and keep the used freezer bags so that they can be reused for keeping the same things again.
Pre-cook Meat
Another habit that you can follow to save time is precooking the meat. Meat takes time to cook properly, the best thing you can dois browning a few pounds of ground beef all at once. We tend to eat a lot of ground beef, and browning it for every meal takes extra time and dirties an extra pan. Having it browned in advance is easy and saves time.
Fill your Freezer
If you are preparing a dish that is loved by your family, plan to make it more. Dishes like pastas and casseroles can be stored in the refrigerator and these foods can freeze and reheat easily. Making an extra meal every week will keep your freezer stocked with something to make when you need to save time in the kitchen.
Set Out Supplies ahead of Time
If you know youll be rushed to prepare dinner after work, take a few minutes in the morning to set out all of the pots, pans and utensils and be ready to cook as soon as you reach home. This will save you time and ensure you won’t be searching for the strainers in the cupboard. Minimize the Number of Pots and Pans You Use One pot meals and one pan casseroles, cut down on the number of dishes youll get dirty. If you want to save your time than minimize the number of dishes you use for cooking. This way you won’t have enough dishes to wash and you don’t have to stand in the kitchen for long.
Clean As You Go
Another time saving habit is to clean your dishes before you go to sleep. Fill the sink with warm, soapy water and soak the dishes. Keep them soaked for a little time so that you don’t have to make an effort to wash the dishes. You will be done with your work in no time.
Some habits are useful and they should be followed if you want to save your time, and surely the mentioned above ones deserve to be applied for a better lifestyle.