Are busy people truly too busy to cook?
Many people are busy today, juggling work, family, and social obligations. Therefore, cooking is often seen as a dreaded chore. Making it a priority could change that.
The Facts
- Being busy is real, and preparing meals does take time
- Developing a new kitchen routine can speed dinners up
- Meal planning eliminates the daily question of what to make
- Putting a few quick and reliable recipes on rotation simplifies cooking
- Batch-cooking and meal prep techniques lessens dinner-time stress
- Pulling home-cooked ‘ready-meals’ out of the freezer beats take-out
Today time management has become much more complicated than it may have been for previous generations. Long hours at work, holding down more than one job, or being on call around the clock eat up a big chunk of the day, and children’s extra-curricular activities keep family evenings busy.
Eating out, ordering take-out, or picking up a ready-meal at the grocery store provide valid alternatives to home-cooking. This convenience comes at a price, though, both in monetary terms and in terms of our health. We often justify that price on the grounds of being busy, when that’s actually not the entire reason.
If watching movies, doom-scrolling, a trip to pick up takeout , or spending time at the gym fits into the day, then why not cooking? Some may actually not have learned to cook, and ‘winging it’ in the kitchen feels uncomfortable. Others may not have figured out a routine that truly fits.
Making home-cooking non-negotiable for a while might help figure those things out. When something is built into a routine, it happens. When it is left to willpower and good intentions, it does not.
Building new routines around meal planning, shopping, and cooking might actually make life easier. Figuring out a short list of reliable recipes and putting them on rotation might make weeknight dinners more doable.
Habits that make cooking work on a busy schedule:
- Plan once a week, not every night: Spend fifteen minutes once a week choosing five dinners. Write them down, make a shopping list and buy what’s needed. Gone is the daily uncertainty of wondering ‘what’s for dinner?’
- Build a short list of go-to recipes: Mastering ten simple recipes is the foundation for a stress-free 2-week meal rotation.
- Cook double and eat twice: Preparing larger dinner portions takes care of lunch the next day. This habit alone can cut food spending significantly over a month.
- Prep while waiting: Chop vegetables while water boils. Marinate protein in the morning before leaving. Small acts of preparation during idle moments add up.
- Keep the pantry stocked with fast staples: Canned beans, dried pasta, eggs, frozen vegetables, and a few sauces mean a meal can be just thirty minutes away, even when the fridge is nearly empty.
- Protect the time: Treat the time it takes to make dinner as time that is already spoken for, not time that can be given away.
- Learn new cooking techniques: YouTubers like Senpai Kai make learning new techniques easy.