With our lives getting busier all the time it usually seems easier to either go out to eat or pick up takeout food on the way home. Eating out a lot can cost considerably more than cooking at home. If you have ingredients for meals you usually eat on hand and have a plan cooking at home can be fast and easy, without having to live on just Ramen noodles and chicken nuggets.
Some meals that can be made in 10 minutes or so are:
- Hamburgers
- Sloppy Joes
- Soup and sandwiches
- Spaghetti
- Stir fry
- Tacos
- Grilled chicken breast
Breakfast for dinner – many times people don’t have time to cook big meals in the morning for breakfast. Making some of these items in the evening can be a nice change.
One of the ways of cooking without having to cook every day is freezer cooking. The basis of the idea is to make an additional meal such as lasagna when you are making one and putting the extras in the freezer to cook on a future day. Another way of doing this is by freezing leftovers in individual portions to use in the future.
Another way of cooking without spending a lot of time in the kitchen is by using your slow cooker or crockpot. You can put the ingredients in the crockpot either the evening before or in the morning. Let it cook all day while you are either at work or doing errands. You will return to most of your meal being cooked.
In some cases you will need to make a salad or side dish, but your main course will be ready. There are many cookbooks and websites with cookbooks with crockpot recipes. It can be as simple as putting chicken or a roast in the crockpot with some seasonings. In some cases you can put vegetables such as carrots and potatoes in with the meat and you will have your vegetables cooked when you get home too.
With a little planning and preparation you can have quick and easy meals instead of spending so much on dining out. Some people argue that it costs just as much to cook at home as dining out, but in most cases it is cheaper to cook at home. In some calculations on this, they consider the cost of each individual ingredient, but in many cases the ingredients purchased can be used for more than one meal.