Time-Saving Kitchen Hacks

Ever since the start of the pandemic, more and more people have begun turning to home cooking. With the strict lockdown and social distancing rules, it isn’t difficult to see why. CTV News reports that in the last two weeks of March, the volume of orders for food manufacturers rose by up to 500%. This is the case, even though restaurants and cafés have been closing since COVID-19 arrived.

If you're one of the millions of Canadians who have spent more time in their kitchen these past few months than they have in years, then you might be wondering if there's any way to make cooking and kitchen prep easier. Here are five tips that can help:

1. Plan your meals

Meal planning is a guaranteed means of saving time. If you don’t know where to begin, The Kitchn points out that you can boil it down into three simple steps: choosing recipes, shopping, then prepping. Planning all your meals for the week means less time wondering what you should make and more time getting work done. Plus, you’ll only have to make one or two grocery trips per week.

2. Make a grocery list

In line with the last tip, write down all the things you need to buy before going to the supermarket. That way, you aren’t bumbling through the aisles, trying to remember what ingredients you need to buy or worse — overbuying. Don’t have the time to go grocery shopping? No problem. truLOCAL lets you do all of this from the comfort of your own home! Just pick the ingredients you need, and we’ll send them straight to your doorstep. The best part is that everything you get from us is sourced from local farmers, which makes shopping all the more convenient and sustainable!

3. Get the right equipment

Investing in specific kitchen tools can save you hours’ worth of cooking time. Why waste fifteen minutes peeling a carrot with a knife when you can do the same task in half that time with a peeler? Or, why take hours finely slicing a basketful of ingredients when investing in a mandolin is so much more time-efficient? These humble tools are worth all the time you save when cooking, and more.

4. Use technology to your advantage

Getting the right equipment can help speed things up by a few minutes, but the fancier cooking tools can cut down hours of cooking time. Microwaves are a great example of this, since they can heat food and even cook full meals in minutes. Whip yourself up some scrambled eggs, mug pizzas, or even muffins in less than twenty minutes. Rice cookers are another good choice, since all you need to do is throw in the ingredients, then leave them to cook. Plus, We Know Rice points out that, thanks to technology, today’s rice cookers are so much more than their names suggest. With the push of a button, you can not only cook whatever type of rice or grain you fancy, but also bake bread, steam vegetables, and even heat meat. All this, along with fancy auto-cleaning features, can free up your time. So, keep on the lookout for these kinds of appliances. They’re sure to speed up your time in the kitchen.

5. Understand what you’re cooking

Reading the recipe isn’t enough. You need to understand the entire process. That means knowing the ins and outs of what you’re making, not just the ingredients or the general process. For instance, the ideal temperature of your meat isn’t explicitly stated in whatever recipe you’ve chosen. Let’s say you’re cooking meat that’s just come out of the freezer. You can’t put it on the pan right away. Trish Carnahan recommends either letting it thaw in the fridge or in cold tap water. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an overcooked outside and a raw inside. It’s things like these that you need to be aware of, not just to save time, but to not waste it.

Article by: Alessa Bentley

Posted on April 27th, 2021