Strategies for When You Feel like You’re too Busy to Cook
Not only do you have to work and juggle projects and deadlines, but you’re also running around with the kids' schedules, the housework, and trying to find time to spend with your partner and your friends… Feeding everyone on top of that can be so hard.
It’s easy to find yourself swinging by a fast food drive thru on the way home, or ordering in doordash for the 3rd time this week, but cooking healthy meals doesn’t have to be a huge time suck.
There are some great strategies you can use to make things easier on yourself while maintaining good nutrition for you and your family.
You’re probably even too busy to read this article, so I’ll keep it super quick.
1. Meal Plan
I find the easiest way to keep the homemade meals coming is to have a plan. No scrambling. No endless ‘what do you want for dinner?’ conversations. Take a few minutes each week to plan out your meals, and create a grocery list. I love apps like Mealime that allow you to add and search recipes and it will automatically create a grocery list for you! You can have your groceries delivered to help carve out more time.
2. Meal Prep
Choose one afternoon a week to prep your meals for the week. You can take this as far as you like. You could chop all your veggies and get meat marinating, whip up sauces, and make a big batch of rice… Or even make all your meals ahead in batches and have them ready to eat in the fridge or freezer.
3. Make Friends with your Freezer
Speaking of your freezer, you should make friends with it! Make larger batches of your go to soups, stews, pasta sauces, chili, etc and freeze so you always have something to pull out and heat up when time gets tight.
4. Mix and Match Meals
An easy way to speed up, and freshen up your meal prep is to pick out some key components that can be worked into plenty of different dishes so you aren't eating the same thing everyday. For example, prep a large pot of rice, a pot of steamed veggies, roast a chicken or cook up a big batch of ground beef. Then you can take these and combine them in different ways with different fixings.
5. Meal Delivery Kits
Meal kit services like HelloFresh, Fresh Prep, or Chef’s Plate are a game-changer for those who want to take the mental work out of meal planning and skip the grocery store but still want real food. Simply select your meals each week and they arrive at your door. The ingredients come pre-measured, the recipes are laid out step-by-step, and they’re usually ready in about 30 minutes.I don’t love the amount of packaging, but hopefully with time companies will get better with utilizing reusable options.
6. Recipes Ready in Under 30 mins (for real)
Here are a few compilations of quick and easy meal ideas! Ready in 30 minutes or less.
The internet is your friend here, you can find endless easy and quick recipes at your fingertips!
Taking back control of your kitchen amongst a hectic schedule may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! Your body will thank you, and in no time at all you’ll have a solid routine that feels like second nature and leaves you nourished.