Let’s be honest – who hasn’t wished for more hours in the day, especially when it comes to cooking? Between prepping, cooking, and cleaning, the kitchen can feel like a time-sucking vortex. Cooking at home is also associated with having a healthy diet. However, sometimes it can take a lot of time from our daily routines which some people just can’t afford.
But don’t worry! there are several cooking hacks that can help you save time in the kitchen while making proper meals at the same time. In this article, I am going to discuss the top 12 of these hacks with you. Let’s start.
12 Best Cooking Hack for Time Saving
With a little knowledge of cooking, you can make use of the below given best cooking hacks for a great meal in less time.
1 – Clean as You Cook:
Handling the kitchen isn’t all about cooking meals. It’s also about cleaning the mess created in the aftermath. Sometimes, the cleaning part takes even longer than the actual cooking process. To deal with this time-consuming issue, you should clean as you cook.
During the cooking process, we get free time in periods during thins like boiling rice, sauteing vegetables, etc. Make sure to use this time to clean out the things around you.
The cleaning part doesn’t have to be lengthy as well. For example, in the first free period, rinse the used utensils. In the second period, clean out the counters. Keep on doing this during the whole meal preparation process and you’ll have very little cleaning left to do at the end.
2 – Make Staple Items at Once:
We spend a lot of time spending time on preparing staple items like rice and pasta. These consume a lot of time to prepare and dealing with them at once can be useful.
In other words, you should prepare staple items at once. It can be once a week or twice a week. The point here is to make big portions of these items and then use them later on whenever needed.
In order to save a lot of time the next time you cook, make sure you make these basic dishes in huge amounts. All that you will need to do is put some extra ingredients in these items and prepare the food quickly. While performing this hack, try to pick versatile staple items like chicken, rice, and pasta. In this way, you’ll have more options for cooking next time.
3 – Cook Once for the Whole Day:
If you live a really busy life and do not want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, preparing meals once for the whole day will be beneficial for you. In usual cases, people have two main meals (lunch and dinner) in the day that include similar items. It is wise to prepare big portions at once and then eat them again in the next meal.
The fact that this hack may be used for both lunch and dinner is a plus. For instance, make a little extra food for lunch while you’re preparing lunch. Similarly, if you’re cooking dinner, prepare extra so you may have it for lunch the following day.
4 – Precut Vegetables and Fruits:
Not many people realize that we spend a lot of time cutting fruits and vegetables. Even cutting these items for one meal takes a while. So, in order to save this time, you should precut vegetables and fruits.
In general, we all know how much vegetables we’re going to be using for one meal. So, it is very easy to calculate how much of them you need to precut for the next few days. Now that we have smart refrigerators that keep these items fresh for as long as we want, you don’t have to worry about them going stale as well.
5 – Stock Your Pantry Well:
When we talk about the time being consumed in the kitchen, it doesn’t only include the time that you actually spend within the kitchen. Performing things that are related to meal prepping and cooking is also included in it.
One of its biggest examples is grocery shopping to stock the pantry. It’s important to stock the food all at once rather than spending time going shopping repeatedly.
Make a list of the foods you plan to eat throughout the next weeks. Then, spend some time shopping for these items at once. Stock the pantry well so that you don’t have to go buy things again and again. Performing this hack will help save a great deal of time.
6 – Preplan the Meals:
People spend their valuable time getting confused and thinking about what they’re going to cook for the day. It is both a frustrating and tiresome habit. It makes people waste time thinking instead of actually preparing the meals.
So, you should use the one of this great cooking hacks for preplanning your meals of the day. The best way to do so is by making a weekly meal plan. Decide what you’re going to be eating each day of the week. Write it down on a paper or somewhere else so that you don’t forget it. Then, simply look at the plan and start making food without wasting time in decision-making.
7 – Include Fast and Simple Recipes:
Some food recipes are very complex and take a great amount of time to prepare. People prefer these recipes since they taste good. It’s not essential to cook these kinds of things constantly, though.
Numerous recipes are available that taste great and are much quicker and simpler to prepare. These recipes cover dishes including salads, sandwiches, and pasta.
There are hundreds of these delicious but easy recipes online. The point here is that you should include these meals in your diet at least a few times a week. It will not only save time in the kitchen but also help improve overall diet routines.
Besides that, these recipes require a fewer number of ingredients and utensils to cook. In other words, you’ll save money and time that would otherwise be spent on cleaning dishes.
8 – Leave the Peel On:
One of the simplest and most overlooked cooking hacks that you should try out is leaving the peel on of vegetables. We spend a lot of minutes peeling these items before cooking which sometimes is a total time waste. Instead, leave the peel on in order to save time and have a healthier meal as well. It is also a healthy thing to do since peels have nutrients in them.
Also, sometimes the vegetables with the peel might make a recipe tastier than the items with the peel-off. So, experiment with the recipes and see which one will be better with the vegies that have their peel on.
9 – Make Breakfast After Dinner:
Another one of the best cooking hacks to save time is making breakfast after dinner. It is a great hack for people who live busy lives and have to head to work early. We usually spend a little time in the kitchen after having dinner to clean it up and wash the dishes. This time is a great opportunity to use the flow and make breakfast for tomorrow.
Whether you eat a little or have a proper breakfast meal, preparing it beforehand is always helpful. For example, you can quickly make breakfast burritos, smoothies, etc., at night in order to save time in the morning.
Even if you don’t want to make the whole breakfast at night, preparing a few side items like chopping fruits and preparing the coffee maker can make a lot of difference.
10 – Soak Used Dishes in the Hot Soapy Water:
We all know that washing dishes takes a lot of time. Although it is a necessity, it doesn’t mean you should spend your valuable time on it. There’s a way you can make cleaning dishes easier. It’s that you should soak them in the sink full of hot soapy water.
While doing other chores in the kitchen, put dirty dishes in the sink. Leave them in the water for a while and they will begin losing any food residue or grease. Once you’re done with other chores, come back to the dishes and drain the soapy water. Now, it will be a lot easier to clean them completely.
11 – Use Smart Appliances:
It’s not hidden to anyone that the technology is helping people save a lot of time no matter what purpose they’re used for. So, it is important that you utilize smart appliances in the kitchen to save some time.
Many companies are now making devices that are automating much of the kitchen chores. For example, utilizing a dishwasher will help be useful to avoid spending time washing them by yourself.
Besides cleaning, these devices also help with meal prepping and cooking as well. There are machines like smart ovens and smart pressure cookers that make making meals less time-consuming. These devices might be a bit expensive to purchase but act like a proper investment for the future.
12 – Be Better at Cooking Skills:
One of the best and most promising cooking hacks that you can utilize is being better at cooking skills. It is an overlooked fact that you should focus on being efficient in the kitchen. When you’re skilled, you can perform tasks in a better and faster way. For example, better knife skills will help cut vegetables and fruits faster.
Besides that, good cooking skills also allow performing multitasking and handling things in a more elegant way. So, spend some time learning different skills to help yourself out. It’s a time-taking process so you need to be patient as well. Once skilled, you will have to spend a lot less time in the kitchen than usual.
So, Finally:
Cooking is a time-consuming process. There are different things we need to do even while making a simple meal. It is important to utilize cooking hacks in order to save time and be more efficient. There are a lot of these hacks available out there.
The mentioned ones are some of the hacks that you should utilize in your life. Follow these points and start making meals in a better and more efficient way in order to avoid wasting time.
