4 Simple Ways to Make Cooking at Home Easier

Here are 4 Simple Ways to Make Cooking at Home Easier. They include tips that will help you save precious time and money in your family's food budget.

Cooking at home is probably one of the biggest ways to save money in your food budget no matter what your family size. We tend to be so busy though, that eating at home becomes more and more of a challenge to do. While most of us would ideally like to eat at home most nights of the month, we may think it's not possible because it takes too much time. Ultimately, cooking at home doesn't take too much time at all if you plan out what you will be cooking. Here are 4 Simple Ways to Make Cooking at Home Easier so you can save money starting today!

4 Simple Ways to Make Cooking at Home Easier

Batch-cook ahead of time. Batch-cooking can save you loads of time later in the week. You don't even have to do a lot! I often just batch-cook my proteins and find that it saves me an amazing amount of time. This can be done on a day off with my Instant pot or Slow Cooker with very little involvement from me. Since I know that one of my biggest hurdles to making cooking at home work was the fact that I hate waiting for meat to thaw and cook, I do this every week to give myself no excuses.

Plan simple meals that don't require a lot of work during the busy week. I think we have this idea in our head that dinner means something that is a big production. It doesn't have to be. Dinner really can just be some heated up leftovers or a grilled cheese sandwich with soup. Don't think every dinner needs to be something requiring more than 10 minutes in the kitchen to make. On nights that you know will be particularly busy, plan for these simple meals. Not only will you save yourself the stress, but many times these simple meals are very frugal as well.

Keep your kitchen clean and clutter-free. It seems like this is more of a cleaning tip than a frugal living tip, but it really does work. If your kitchen is not somewhere that makes it easy for you to cook in and has dishes and clutter everywhere, you won't feel like using it. The easiest way to combat this is to simply do dishes every night and make your kitchen counters a clutter free zone. Check out these tips for organizing your kitchen and more.

Try one pot recipes. One-Pot Recipes are one of my favorite ways to make dinner with very little effort. Usually, they are just a matter of tossing everything in and letting it do its' thing with a couple of stirs here and there. At the end of the meal, you only have one pot to wash, too!

Are you looking for ways to save money? Check out these 52 small changes that will help you save more money this year. Don’t forget to Join the Facebook group to keep yourself accountable and discover more ideas for saving money.

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More Tips for Cooking at Home:

How to Make it Easier to Cook at Home

How to Do Weekly Meal Prep with Batch Cooking + Menu Ideas

Slow Cooker Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Using a Slow Cooker

Beginner's Guide to Meal Prepping

10 Kitchen Items That You Should Buy Second Hand

9 Ways to Save Money in the Kitchen