3 Simple Cooking Hacks for the Busy Person
Improving your health is a daunting process. Starting a new diet, exercise routine, and lifestyle all while keeping up with work, family, and friends is a tall order.
Cooking healthy meals might be the most time consuming aspect of a healthy lifestyle, especially for busy people who are struggling to balance it all already.
Maybe you are learning to cook in a whole new way, or maybe even just cooking at all for the first time in awhile. Whatever the case may be, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do it all perfectly.
When we start a new hobby, we don’t expect to be experts right away, but when it comes to our health, anything less than perfect feels unacceptable. That’s the all or nothing thinking we’ve talked about on the blog before.
So what’s the solution? Simplify!
Follow along to learn three ways you can make feeding yourself nutritious, satisfying meals easier and faster.
The problem with meal prepping
Meal prepping is popular in the fitness community, and it does have its benefits. By preparing your meals ahead of time, you save time throughout the week. You can also better monitor your nutrition by eating the same thing everyday.
But that doesn’t really tell the whole story. What you gain in convenience during the week you sacrifice in one big heroic effort in the kitchen followed by the monotony of eating the same thing everyday.
Further, as the week goes on, the food you’ve prepped becomes less and less fresh, so not only are you eating the same thing on Thursday as you were on Monday, but it’s actually a worse version of the meal you are already sick of. That’s not motivating, is it?
The actual prep is time and labor intense
Let’s talk about what actually goes into meal prep— time.
To prep food for an entire week, you basically need to dedicate several hours to prepping 7-21 meals and snacks. That means a whole lot of chopping, portioning, and a huge stack of dishes.
While this process might work for some people, I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone who is already struggling to get into the kitchen to dedicate that much time every week to food prep.
The process is intense enough if you’re feeding one person, but what about the person who is also cooking for their partner or their kids? The quantity of food, time, and effort just keeps going up.
We get bored by repetition
The second issue with meal prepping is that humans crave variety which not only keeps life interesting but it also helps us to stay on track with our goals.
Eating the same thing everyday may work for those who feel too busy to make daily decisions about their meals, but for a lot of us, this sort of repetition doesn’t satisfy what we are really craving.
One day I wake up wanting Chinese style stir fry and the next I might be craving Mexican food. By not satisfying these cravings as they come, we are really engaging in a form of deprivation which in the long term can lead to bingeing on what you really wanted.
How to take the pressure off
Whether you are just starting to cook healthy meals at home or you just need some inspiration to try something new, take away the pressure to cook every last thing from scratch.
You can still create healthy, easy meals without treating your kitchen like a commercial chicken, steamed veggie, and rice factory. You can also still make daily meals without spending hours in the kitchen after work.
Make cooking enjoyable and simple by taking shortcuts that sacrifice time and energy but not flavor or nutrition! There are plenty of small things you can do in the kitchen that will make your life so much easier and let you get back to all of the other things on your to-do list.
3 ways you can make healthy eating easier
1. Easy Ingredient prep
I know I just wrote about how much I hate meal prep, but I want to make it clear that I am not entirely against the concept of preparing things ahead of time. We can borrow certain elements to make our lives easier without having to spend a full day in the kitchen.
Pre-cook proteins: You might not want to prep the whole meal, but you could just prep one versatile protein to use throughout the week. Season and throw a package of chicken breast on a sheet pan and bake it for 20-30 minutes at 400ºF. You can serve it in on its own or chop it up into salad, stir fry, pasta, tacos, or anything else you can think of!
Prewash produce: You don’t have to prep your veggies entirely but you could save yourself a step by washing all of your produce as soon as you get it home from the grocery store. Soak it all in a big bowl and pat it dry before putting it right back into your fridge. Go a step further by cutting up things like fruit so that they are easier to reach for when you are ready for them.
Just cook more: Instead of prepping all of your meals at once, just double or triple the recipe when you’re making dinner and enjoy the leftovers for longer! It won’t take much longer to prep and cook the extra ingredients and you will have meals ready to heat and go for the next few days.
2. Convenience foods
Stop stressing about cooking everything fresh or from scratch. You are putting too much pressure on yourself and the difference in nutrition is minuscule and definitely not worth the extra effort.
Bagged salad kits: Here’s the thing, you could buy all the ingredients to make a salad from scratch, but if you’re anything like me you will get a bunch of produce and then lose all motivation once you get home. Is it better to risk your produce going bad in the fridge or to use a convenience item that will actually get you to eat your greens? We love a bagged salad kit at my house. They’re quick, easy, healthy, and tasty!
Frozen veggies: We as a society have been fooled by the campaign against frozen fruits and veggies. Diet culture has led us to believe that they are less nutritious than fresh produce, and I am here to squash this lie. Frozen veggies and fruit are just as nutritious, because they are picked when they are at their most ripe and flash frozen. They are versatile and easy to use and TelehealthNP approved.
Rotisserie chicken: Don’t feel like cooking your protein at all? Rotisserie chicken is one of my all time favorite cooking hacks. You can eat it as is or make a shredded chicken salad for your lunches. You can add it into stir fry, tacos, pasta, pizza, salad, soup. The list goes on!
3. Make meals easier
The hardest part about cooking is the clean up. What if I told you there was a way to save time in the kitchen and cut back on the amount of dishes you have to do? Let me introduce you to a few ways you can make cooking and cleaning a breeze.
Meal services: Meal services have become super popular, and for good reason! Services like HelloFresh, Blue Apron, or Home Chef have made cooking way easier by providing meal kits that include everything you need pre-portioned. These are a great option, especially for people who are newer to cooking because there is such a great variety of recipes.
Sheet pan meals: I love sheet pan meals because they are easy and save me from having to clean all of the pots and pans that are required to cook your main and side dishes. To make them, you. just throw everything onto a pan, add seasoning, and cook. There are a ton of different ways to customize these meals. Take a look at some of them here.
One pot meals: This is the same concept as the sheet pan meal only this time, we are using a pot! You can make different types of of saucier recipes or soups and stews using only one pan. Let Martha Stewart get you inspired with some recipe ideas here.
Happy snacking!
The main thing that I hope you take away from this post is that you don’t have to sacrifice a ton of time and energy in the kitchen to eat well and stay on track. It’s okay to take short cuts if they are going to help you make better choices and be consistent overall.
The most important part is that you are consistent and are choosing methods of cooking and eating that help you to stay on track. Feeling inspired? Share your favorite cooking hacks in the comments and maybe we’ll all learn something new!
