My old roommate and best friend was often amazed that I was able to put together a meal in minutes, if necessary. I'd love to say it's just because I'm that resourceful, but the reality is that it's not that hard to come up with a quick meal. It does however, take some planning. I thought I'd offer some of my time-saving tips that make weekday meal preparation a breeze!
1. Plan your meals for the week and shop accordingly. That way, there's no hemming and hawing over what to make for dinner every night, which is time-saving in and of itself. If you know what you're going to make, shop for all those ingredients over the weekend, so there are no last-minute trips to the grocery store!
2. Have a well-stocked pantry (see previous post on how to do this). Even if you haven't planned your meals, having a pantry full of goodies practically guarantees that you can make a meal without having to go to the grocery store in preparation.
3. Chop basic herbs, vegetables and spices and freeze or refrigerate them. This goes for onion, tomato, garlic, and ginger. You can even buy minced garlic or ginger paste so that you don't have to cut them at all. You can also chop your vegetables the night before for the next night's dinner and refrigerate
4. Take shortcuts when you need to. This includes buying canned beans instead of dried, or pre-cook your beans and legumes in the slow cooker so all you need to do when you get home is season.
5. Buy frozen vegetables. Many frozen veggies are just as good, and sometimes even better, than fresh! They are also often cheaper. My favorite frozen veggies to have around are corn, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, peas, and green beans.
6. Use a crock pot or slow cooker. I've often made meals such as chili or black beans by taking a few minutes to put them in the slow cooker in the morning. When I come home, all I need to do is make minor adjustments with the seasoning, and dinner is done!
7. Keep it simple. Save elaborate meals for the weekend when you have more time for preparation. There are many easy weekday meals such as grilled cheese and soup, quesadillas, chili, and much more. Breakfast foods like eggs can also go a long way for dinner!
I fully concur (as said "old roommate and best friend!")... I feel that I have been fairly well educated by you (and thank God you started this blog to help me keep it up), and have truly followed most, if not all of these tips and they are honestly such huge time-saving (and there by life-saving) tips. I need to chop more veggies ahead of time, though. Point taken.
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