Five Time Saving Cooking Tips for Easy Meal Prep
Cooking Ideas that Cut Time in the Kitchen and Serve up Great Food
May 18, 2009
For a mom juggling meals and a newborn who doesn’t want to leave her arms, a toddler who can’t help getting underfoot, or school-aged kids with places to go, meal preparation can be hectic. These five time-saving tips can help transform meal time from a stressful ordeal to an enjoyable family gathering.
Meal Preparation With Quick and Easy Recipes
Chances are, moms have subconsciously begun realizing those once harmless recipe words chop, dice, simmer, and stir translate to time, time, time, and more time. When it comes to meal prep for busy moms, less is definitely more. Fewer ingredients and fewer steps translate to more family time.
One of the latest trends is cookbooks chock full of recipes with only three or four main ingredients. The only catch is that some of these recipes compensate for fewer ingredients with a long list of complicated instructions. Needless to say, this defeats the purpose.
Thankfully, there are plenty of tasty options with a good balance of minimal ingredients and simple steps. Moms can start a file to organize these when they find them. If they choose these recipes wisely, the only difference their families will notice is that they’re spending less time in the kitchen.
For Easy Meal Prep, Stock up on Easy Foods
Some of the quickest foods to set on the table also happen to be the healthiest. Busy stay at home moms have probably already discovered the benefits of stocking the pantry with healthy snacks such as apples, raisins, bananas, oranges, carrots, apple sauce, crackers, cheese, celery and peanut butter.
They use these simple sides for lunches every day, but shouldn’t forget them when it comes time to round out a dinner. Apple slices, cheese cubes, olives, sweet pickles or the other one-step hors d’oeuvres mentioned above can be an elegant addition to a main course.
Take Advantage of Cooking Short Cuts
Busy moms certainly shouldn’t shy from short cuts in the kitchen. After all, a bag of frozen veggies is practically as healthy as the ones costing more in the produce section. Some moms will have a tough time finding a homemade spaghetti sauce that tastes so good their kids would rather have them at the stove than with the family.
For Easy Meal Prep, Cook First Things First
Before diving in, moms can look at the individual dishes making up their meal. They should then start by cooking the dish which will take the longest. They can sneak preparation of other parts of the meal into gaps where the first recipe is simmering, baking, or stewing free of supervision.
During Meal Preparation, Clean as You Cook
One more tip for prep time will wind up saving moms the dreaded hour of after-dinner clean up. As they work, they can fill the sink with warm water, scrub utensils and pans as they finish with them, and toss them into the dish washer for a thorough cleaning along with the dinner dishes. If moms clean as they cook, food residue comes off easily and they can enjoy dinner in a tidy kitchen.
A few minutes of planning can save moms hours of family time each month. Women who enjoyed these time-saving tips will also want to check out five creative ways common kitchen gadgets can cut prep time just as easily.
