During the week, life is pretty busy. And more often than not, the last thing you want to do after a long day of working, taking care of the kids, running errands, or any other time-consuming activities is spend hours making dinner. But it’s still important to provide healthy, yummy dinners for the family. This is especially true if you want to keep your family healthy, looking for ways to lose weight and avoid becoming one of the three million patients that visit urgent care centers each week. So what can you do to still make great dinners but not have to spend an insane amount of time doing so? Well, let’s take a look at a few simple tricks that can help speed up the process of making weeknight meals.
First things first, always try to make foods in batches whenever possible. Whether it’s grains, like pasta or rice, vegetables, or sauces, making food in batches is a serious time-saver. Having several pre-prepared foods to choose from can make a huge difference. This way, you can simply grab a grain, grab some veggies, make a quick protein and you’ll have a simple and easy meal. Or you can make big batches of full meals, like soups and stews, and freeze the leftovers. Either way, making food in batches doesn’t take much added time and can be a lifesaver during a busy week.
After you bring home your produce products from the store, you should get in the habit of washing and preparing them right away. While this may take a few added minutes at the time, it can help save time later on in the week. If you wash, peel, and chop as necessary all at once, you won’t have to worry about these tasks when it comes time to look later on. Doing this can also help encourage you to buy a wider variety of produce since you won’t have to handle them as often. This can increase your family’s intake of important nutrients, like iodine, which the WHO shows 72% of the global population is deficient in.
And last but not least, you should always utilize kitchen tools to help you spend less time preparing food and cooking. For example, investing in some nice kitchen knives can make chopping vegetables less of a hassle. And using a slow cooker is something you should definitely try. All you have to do is throw the ingredients in, turn it on, and in a few hours dinner will be ready. Utilizing the gadgets we have access to today is a simple way to make your life easier in the kitchen.
If you’ve been finding yourself dreading making dinner after a long day, you’re not alone. But by taking advantage of a few of these tips can make it so dinner is one less thing you have to worry about during a busy week.
