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Try Recipe Or Ingredient Boxes
There are dozens of options of these boxes. Some deliver ingredients for complete recipes, with everything already weighed out for you, and others focus on a particular area, such as sending out a mix of vegetables or meats. See if these boxes are for you by reading this butcher box review from Umami Girl.
These boxes save you time by delivering ingredients so you don’t have to spend time grocery shopping. Many come with tried and tested recipes, so you know you aren’t wasting your time cooking something that won’t turn outright.
Meal Plan
When you have a block of free time, sit down, and plan out your meals for the next week. This helps you to plan meals with similar bases of ingredients and to use up leftovers. For example, on a Monday, you could cook up a big chilli. Throughout the week, this can be eaten with rice, on a jacket potato, or with pasta. You get several meals from one batch of cooking, saving you a lot of time and wasted food.
Meal planning in advance also means you can work around nights when you know you will be home late. For example, if you know you have to work overtime one night, you can make sure you have a fast meal planned, or leftovers than can just be reheated.
Prep In Advance
If you have more time on the weekend, you can prepare meals to eat throughout the week. Invest in a set of reusable containers. Spend the weekend cooking, portion up your meals into your containers, and then you have a fridge full of meals that just need to be heated up.
If you don’t want to lose your whole weekend to cooking, there are still some tasks you can do to speed up cooking. Prepare marinades the day before, and leave the meat to soak overnight, ready to be cooked the next day. Make several days worth of salad greens in one go.
Make One-Pot Recipes
One of the parts of cooking that take up a lot of time is cleaning up afterwards. Reduce the number of dishes you have to wash after dinner by embracing the one-pot recipe. These recipes are designed to produce a whole meal, including sides, by just putting all the ingredients into one pot or onto one sheet pan. There’s minimal prep needed, and hardly anything to clean up after you’ve eaten.
Stews, soups, and roasts are all good options for this. Crockpot recipes are also good. Just fill it up before you head out for the day, and you have dinner reading and waiting when you get home.