If you are finding yourself spending hours every day in the kitchen chopping vegetables and washing up, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most time-consuming aspects of most people’s days.
The good news is that there are plenty of ways you work more efficiently and perform fewer tasks but still get the same results. All it takes is a little know-how. With the right approach, you could literally half the amount of time you spend preparing food and cleaning up afterward, freeing you up for everything else life has to offer.
Here’s what you can try:
Simplify Your Recipes
Following a 30-step recipe might produce a wonderful-tasting omelet. But when you delve into many of these complex recipes, you soon discover you can skip or combine steps. Many are unnecessary or only change the taste of the final dish in some minor way.
Try cutting down recipe steps to below 10. If you still find yourself following complicated recipes, look for recipes online that simplify the process but still give you the meal you want.
Use More Kitchen Gadgets
It’s also a good idea to use more kitchen gadgets. These help you reduce the amount of time you spend performing repetitive tasks, letting you focus on the more fun aspects of cooking.
For instance, instead of always chopping vegetables by hand, get your food processor to do it for you. Many have easy-to-use attachments you fit before chopping bucket loads of vegetables in record time.
Delegate Tasks To Others
If you live with other people, you might be able to cut down on work by simply delegating tasks. Getting one person to chop and another to wash up can help you establish a more efficient workflow that lets you finish cooking even more complicated dishes in record time.
Rethink Your Kitchen Layout
You might also want to go to a kitchen design center and rethink your kitchen layout. You could be arranging items ineffectively, forcing you to spend longer walking to cabinets and hunting for the items you need.
Changing your kitchen layout can prevent this by providing you with a state-of-the-art design. Moving cabinets around and changing the sink’s location can make a tremendous difference in how long you spend in the room.
Cook In Batches
You can also reduce the amount of time you spend in the kitchen by cooking in batches. This approach helps you prepare multiple meals in one sitting and simply add them to your freezer, warming them up again when you are ready to eat them. Just make sure you have enough space for everything you cook.
Clean As You Go
A final tactic experienced kitchen users use is cleaning as they go. Tidying up as they proceed reduces the amount of clearing up you need to do at the end. It also helps the kitchen stay tidier as you cook, which can increase your efficiency further, making it easier to chop, find ingredients, and work on sideboards.
So, which of these methods will you use to halve the time you spend in the kitchen?