How to Be a Faster Home Cook
If there's one thing every cook wants in their kitchen, it's more time. A few extra precious minutes to set the table, to pack the kids' lunches for tomorrow, to do the dishes, and, most importantly, to enjoy gathering around the table and dining together with friends and family.
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The first step to maximizing efficiency and speed in the kitchen is to think like a restaurant chef. Weekly - or even monthly - menu planning will allow for smart shopping and can eliminate the need to run back and forth to the grocery store every other day. Gathering all the necessary ingredients together before starting to cook (what's known as "mise en place") and reading a recipe in its entirety before turning on the oven are other must-dos that will help home cooks get organized and work faster. And one-pot dishes like paella, beef stew, and bouillabaisse can also be lifesavers for those without a dishwasher.
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Even better, a bounty of quick tips and tools can shave minutes off time spent prepping and chopping. Here are great tricks that will save you precious time in the kitchen - letting you enjoy the things you really want to be doing instead of all that dicing and slicing.
Invest in a Mini-Chopper
Sure, it's cheating, but a mini-chopper is really your best friend in the kitchen. You can pulse nuts quickly, whip up salad dressings, and dice vegetables effortlessly. An added bonus? You won't become teary-eyed from mincing onions anymore. The ingredients may not be quite as uniform in size as they would be if you had chopped them by hand, but wouldn't you rather save 10 minutes of time for, you know, enjoying that glass of wine you deserve for making dinner?
Leave the Lid On
When boiling water for pasta or for blanching broccoli, don't forget to leave the lid on top of the pot while bringing the water to a boil. It prevents heat from escaping and boils quicker than it would with the top off, yet so many of us forget to do this!
Chop Herbs with Scissors
To chop parsley, cilantro, or other herbs quickly, place the leaves in a glass and snip using scissors. You'll have finely minced herbs in no time and no dirtied cutting board! Or, just cut a bunch of chives directly into the pan or onto your finished dish for garnish.
Make Ice - But Not Out of Water
Rather than spending countless minutes squeezing lemons and measuring out the juice, fill up an ice cube tray with extra lemon juice after you've used part of the fruit. Whenever a recipe calls for lemon juice, simply unmold a cube and throw it into the dish. A standard ice cube tray holds about one and a half tablespoons of liquid per cube, and this trick also works for tomato paste, chicken or beef stock, and minced herbs.
Get a Hand Blender
Hand blenders (also known as stick blenders) are great time-saving tools in the kitchen because they allow you to purée directly in the pot you cook in. This means no more sloppy transferring of soups to the food processor and back to the pot. The cleanup is also much easier.
Line Baking Trays with Aluminum Foil
Say goodbye to scrubbing and scouring dirty baking dishes. Simply line them with aluminum foil before using (use two layers if there's a lot of sauce in the recipe), then recycle the foil and pop the pan back in the cupboard when cool. A similar time-saving trick also works for messy countertops - line the kitchen workspace with plastic wrap before cooking, then scoop up any dripping messes easily.
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- Lauren Shockey, The Daily Meal
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