For some, daily cooking is a hated chore, while others enjoy the process and the result. But everyone has one common desire - to spend less time in the kitchen, but to eat healthy, home-cooked food. What are some ways to reduce cooking time?
Order in the kitchen
Convenience is one of the main conditions for quickly preparing meals. Dishes and food must be placed so that they can be quickly reached from memory and with your eyes closed. After use, they must be returned to their place.
If you regularly use the same frying pan, you don’t need to put it in the farthest closet with those rarely used after use. And if you add cinnamon to tea, to meat, to season porridge, place the jar next to the salt.
Clean utensils for cooking
After lunch, you should transfer the leftover food from the pan into a container and store it in the refrigerator, and wash the pan. After all, when you need the dishes, you still have to take them out, empty them and wash them. And this will delay the cooking process.
Planning your menu ahead
Make a list of the dishes you cook most often and cook them in a circle. This way you will immediately get rid of several problems:
- You will know in advance what to cook tomorrow.
- Go to the store once and buy everything according to plan.
- Moving along the list, you will cook different food every day.
- You'll soon have the recipes memorized by heart.
This way, money will be saved, because there is less chance of making spontaneous purchases.And also, even if the baked fish was on Sunday, and will be repeated, for example, on Thursday, the menu will still be varied.
Rational approach
Use your time wisely by chopping ingredients as you cook them. For example, while the meat for pilaf is browning, you can chop the onion. We dropped it off at the future zirvak, start chopping carrots and so on. This approach will allow you to make the most of your time and reduce cooking time by 30-50%.
Preparing food in advance
If you plan to cook beans, beans, chickpeas, soak them for 10-15 hours in cold water. Then cooking will take no more than an hour. The same applies to some cereals. For example, corn and barley grits, after pre-soaking for a couple of hours, boil 3 times faster and turn out crumbly. Soaking rice in 50C water with a spoon of salt 40-90 minutes before cooking will make it fluffy and ready in 30 minutes.
Once you've decided what to cook, place all the ingredients on your work surface. Everything will be before your eyes. You don’t have to climb through drawers and cabinets looking for the necessary spices or a pack of rice while cooking.
Cooking for 2 days at once
Not everyone can have dinner with the same soup 2 days in a row. In between adding ingredients to the borscht, cut up the chicken, spread the marinade, put it in the refrigerator and forget about it until tomorrow. All that remains is to remove the film and place the pan in a preheated oven.
If you are preparing stuffed peppers or eggplants, cook double the amount. The time will not take much more, but the finished dish can be frozen and used within 3 months at any time, spending 20 minutes on heating.You can also freeze ready-made schnitzels or pilaf. The same applies to homemade dumplings or manti (they need to be frozen raw).
Smart helpers
And we are not talking about children or a man, after whom you will have to wash not only the dishes, but also the walls. Kitchen electrical appliances are the main helpers that help reduce cooking time. If any device is needed daily, do not put off buying it.
Whipping egg whites with a mixer will take no more than 5 minutes, and manually you can spend a good half an hour, but still not get "stable peaks". A multicooker will cook excellent buckwheat while you are busy cooking fish. A convection oven will cook chicken faster and more evenly.
Using prepared and frozen foods
Using semi-finished products is a bad habit. Freeze food cooked at home. Firstly, it tastes much better, and secondly, you know what it contains.
Cut the purchased meat into portions, and grind some into mince. In this form, the product defrosts much faster. In addition, you know in advance what you will be cooking.
When mixing the mixture for cutlets, make cutlets for several pans at once and freeze. You can always defrost and fry them. Freeze peeled eggplants, peppers, chopped spinach, paprika. You can simply pour boiling water over them, stuff them and put them to simmer. You won't have to waste time peeling.
Are you fond of canning? Use lecho to make soups in the winter - the vegetables are already chopped. You just need to open the can and add the contents to the broth with potatoes.
Waste-free production
When cutting up chicken for frying, leave the back, because there is almost nothing to eat there. Make broth from it and freeze. You can defrost it and add vegetables at any time. The nutritious soup will be ready in half an hour. You can use meat bones in the same way.
You've stewed too much cabbage, you're left with mashed potatoes - freeze them. On a free day, you can make pies or a pie without wasting time on preparing the filling. Unused whites or yolks can be used to make cookies.
Always sharp knives
You can’t cut much with a dull knife, much less quickly. Every time you wash your knives, sharpen each one. Then you won’t have to waste time on this during your next cooking.
Buy cut fish or meat
Cleaning fish and cutting up a piece of meat takes a lot of time. You also need to clean the table and sink from waste and odors. Cut-up steaks or fillets are convenient because they can be cooked immediately, even without defrosting. They are more expensive, but reduce the cooking time by 2 times.
To spend less time preparing homemade food without sacrificing its quality, you just need to plan the menu in advance and set aside half a day a month for cutting and freezing the preparations. Use these tips to think differently about cooking at home.
