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Last Updated on August 24, 2022
Most days, life tends to rush right by us. We are always running from one place to another, behind on time and at the end of the day, we still have to get home and prepare dinner for our families. Prep work and cooking usually takes at least one hour, even for simple dishes, which means another hour is removed from our relaxation or family time. Fortunately, there are some ways that you can save on the amount of time needed to be spent on preparing dinner each evening. Here are a couple of ways:
- Organize a meal plan: How does this help? Well, knowing what you will be preparing for the coming week can help you to have everything ready after you go grocery shopping. Having an organized shopping list also helps save time at the grocery store. Once you have all of your ingredients, you can portion everything apart and save it in the freezer or fridge. This doesn’t have to be super rigid and you can certainly leave windows for takeout nights.
- Take out nights: It is a good idea to designate one or two night for takeout meals because some days you just aren’t going to feel like cooking! During the week, choose a healthy restaurant and on weekends, why not have a “cheat” meal. Pizza is always a family favorite! It is best only to reserve this for a couple of nights per week because it can get expensive! Remember that food from restaurants, almost always involves more expense than ones that are made at home.
- Pre-cooked meals: Taking advantage of these products is one option when we have very little time on our hands. There is a huge variety of these kinds of meals in your local grocery store. You can even find some that are actually healthy, you just need to stop and check the labels, paying special attention to sodium. Just make the best of what your supermarket carries! This certainly isn’t the best option to incorporate regularly into your dinners but sometimes it’s necessary.
- Use a slow cooker: Slow cookers are great for families because you can put a whole mean inside of it in the morning and have dinner already ready for you when you get home. With this appliance, you will be have a full, home cooked meal, which is healthier than pre-cooked food. Another good “hack” is to make meal kits and keep them in the freezer. All you will need to do is add them to the slow cooker every morning and leave it working!
- Pressure Cooker: If you are not a fan of leaving electronics on while you are away, another great option for fast cooking is a pressure cooker. It will speed up the cooking time and will allow you to fit cooking into your busy schedule. You can do a whole variety of preparation with this appliance and again, you will be eating healthy and home cooked food. They’re surprisingly simple to use and you can get one in any home good store or if you want something more professional, you will find it in specialized kitchen stores or online. Pinterest is a great place to find recipes for your pressure cooker!
