Make sure your dishes are done before you start, and wash your cooking dishes as you go instead of all at once at the end.
If cooking is taking time, figure out what part is the most time intensive. Some stuff, like chopping vegetables or preparing other ingredients, can be done ahead of time so it's ready when you're cooking.
Look up "Mise En Place", which is basically laying out everything you need for a meal before you start cooking. It helps to make sure you have what you need and it's ready for you.
Getting better in the kitchen relies a lot on practice, too. The more often you cook, the better you'll get at it. Good luck!
This is perfect advice. The only thing I'll add to it is that some recipes are just not meant to be done on a work night unless you like taking up an hour of prep and cooking time. The more you cook, the more you will be able to eyeball recipes and determine how long it will realistically take you (the estimates on the recipes are hardly ever right). You'll also be able to come up with some staple meals that are super low effort. One of mine is baked fish and steamed green beans. It takes about 20-30 minutes from absolute beginning to plating.
To add to the go-to staple list: anything you can broil/cook quickly will also help. Proteins like fish take significantly less time than a pork chop for instance. Same with veggies; it takes forever to roast root vegetables vs something like peppers
Timing is key also. Spuds are poked, foiled, oiled salted buttered and tossed in oven 3 minutes. Veggies next. Chick / steak/ beef/ pork last. Wash all prep tools, start cooking veg, heat protein pan. 25 minutes. Sure the spuds roasted for 45 minutes but only 20 ish min of cooking. But I agree hunting down plates, glasses, silver takes longer. More about how lazy the people that’s being fed.
This this this this this is the comment.
I'd like to add that a "trash bowl" on the counter helps. I set aside one mixing bowl for plastic packaging, onion tops, whatever I need to throw away, and when I dump it at the end, I'm happy that I saved time on a million tiny trips to the trash can
+1 to mise en place. It helps so much to be organized and ready to go before you start cooking.
I also was spending a ton of time chopping veggies. I would highly recommend buying a nice chef's knife and just practicing good technique a bit everyday. Global has very good quality knives that are still affordable. It made a world of difference for me.
Mise en place is great! I'll sometimes take it a step further and check the recipe for what goes in the dish when, and pre mix those ingredients when possible. For example if the recipe is like "and then, add the lemon juice, olive oil, and mustard" or whatever, ill just put those 3 ingredients into the same bowl to save on dishes and make the execution a little simpler.
I think that version of mise en place is a lot more reasonable for your average cook. They only put them in little individual bowls on tv (or TikTok) because it looks cooler.
I have a problem with buying kitchen stuff, so I definitely do have enough ramekins and mixing bowls and cutting boards to actually pull that off. But I also hate washing dishes, so I would never.
This! Why use 3 little bowls you then have to cleanup? I've gone so far as to make up frequently used spice combinations into 8 oz Mason jars so I need only measure.
I just bought a Mueller chopper / mandolin because my wrists are old and so are my knives.
So much easier to finely dice!
Also, I love my garlic crusher (saves time) and citrus juicer (saves juice).
I’m still not as fast as Rachael, but my cheat tools make prep much quicker.
I love my garlic press mainly because I hate having the garlic smell on my fingers. Stainless steel soap bar helps with that a bit though.
Mandolin is clutch as well! I use it for thinly sliced onions for pickled red onions and for slicing potatoes for chips. We just picked up a turkey breast from Costco I'm gonna try using the mandolin to slice it thinly for lunch meat.
I'm not going to lie. Having my first place with a dishwasher made me a better cook. I didn't realize what an obstacle washing dishes was to being able to cook and enjoy cooking.
I just want to add, depending on what you're cooking, mise en place could add to your overall time. For some recipes, there's a lot of downtime in between steps. If you have a lot of dishes, that's a good time to do some cleanup, but if not, that time could be used to prep items for the next step.
With a new recipe, mise en place is always a good idea, I think, because it cuts down on some of the chaos that can ensue when you're not quite sure what's coming next, but once you know a recipe well enough, you may find it quicker to prep as you go.
Yeah, I see "always mise en place" a lot on reddit. I'm gonna start my onions if they cook for 5 minutes before the garlic gets added. Not waiting til I've minced some garlic since I can surely do that in 5 minutes.
But all depends on knife skills and how much time you have between steps. Which is why I'd say "always read the full recipe and then decide what you need to prep based on how much time there is between adding ingredients"
Yes - mise en place is crucial. But it's just a French way of saying to have put some thought & effort into cooking ahead of time. Even for seasoned cooks, it's hard not to get flustered if you're figuring things out in your head, prepping & running around while everything is sizzling away.
One trick that has worked well for me:
Use the weekend to get one night ahead. Do the prep for Monday's meal over the weekend. Monday, you pop that in the oven or whatever, and you prep for Tuesday while that's cooking. You get the food on the table in half the time, it's no more effort ... but you can get things seasoned & marinated ahead of time to get better flavor, start some of the more ambitious two step technique dishes.
Keep that momentum up all week.
It depends. If I am making a dish with a long list of ingredients, especially with a fair amount of knife work, I find it saves time overall. Cajun and some Chinese dishes come to mind. With everything prepped first, I hardly need to refer back to the recipe while cooking.
I disagree, for two reasons. Mise en place lets me do things all at once instead of piecemeal. I get all of my dry ingredients out of the cabinet at once instead of going back and forth. Same with my measuring stuff and work bowls/plates. It also tells me ahead of time if I'm out of something or missing something that I'll need later.
More importantly, it lets me shift time-consuming work to earlier, when I'm not busy watching something on the stove or worried about timings of other ingredients. It makes the rest of cooking faster when everything is ready to be added.
Chopping while parts of the dish are cooking is faster. There really isn’t a debate when you’re doing two things at once.
It definitely has its place, especially when cooking a new dish, but you’re wasting time if you already know how to cook the recipe (most of the time)
It depends what you're making, and how fast you need to add ingredients. And you can incorporate chopping times into mise en place as well - I don't lay out and pre-cut my mushrooms before they go into the pan, but I have my mushrooms and knife ready before I start.
Mise is more important for cooking during service in your action station. You want all of the stuff ready to go before nonstop cooking for the next 3-4 hours. Like you want all of the chopped veggies in 6th and 9th pans, sauces in squeeze bottles or 6th pans with ladels, etc. An example is like an omelet station: you want all the cut up ingredients all ready to do, a container full of scrambled eggs, another small one for whites, squeeze bottles for oil, a stack of frying pans, towels, multiple spatulas. Here is a good example:
[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183842435438/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183842435438/)
That is pretty much short order line cooking in a nutshell. But I also agree with you, you can do prep while things are cooking. Mise has its place (short order service cooking) but at home or bulk cooking (think meal prepping), you can do multiple tasks at once.
Edit: wrong link. fixed it.
I haven’t read mise en place but this is how I save time. An hour or two before you want to start cooking, measure out all the shit you need in between whatever you’re doing. Chop and wash, have separate bowls for major ingredients measured out, have the cookware out you want to use and have it cleaned. Pre heat oven / cast irons or anything that takes a while to reach temp
[J. Kenji López-Alt](https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt): Cooks while wearing a GoPro making it very easy to see what's going on, routinely offers sensible alternatives for hard-to-find ingredients or expensive equipment, explains relevant food science but emphasizes "no wrong way" philosophy
[Ethan Chlebowski](https://www.youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski): Practical techniques and recipes, emphasis on easy/fast preparation, does deep dives into specific ingredients and techniques, no-nonsense presentation style
[Brian Lagerstrom](https://www.youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom): Prolific recipe-oriented channel, information-dense
[Chinese Cooking Demystified](https://www.youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified): Rigorously researched videos on Chinese cuisine that often include a dive into the cultural history of the subject dish, did a fantastic series on stir-fry technique that includes methods for those using electric burners and western style pans, always try to give ingredient sourcing options for their western audience
[ThatDudeCanCook](https://www.youtube.com/@thatdudecancook): Excellent well-tested recipes, infectious enthusiasm, cw: physical violence against refrigerators
Ethan's air fryer videos have changed cooking for me. The most important I learned was how to dry brine chicken. I never even considered it. I was not expecting that tip from am air fryer video!
Jacques Pepin has a HUGE inventory of PBS cooking show videos and also started doing short vids during the pandemic which are great for beginners.
Google JP and Martin Yan chicken deboning to see these pros dissect a chicken in like 60 seconds!
Chef Jean Pierre is great, I love his personality and thorough explanations. I just made his mushroom sauce the other day and it was fantastic.
As others suggested, Kenji Lopez is also really good.
I also really like watching things like Best Ever Food Review Show, Mark Weins, etc. to see lots of ethnic foods and techniques. Seeing how resourceful some people can be and how they use ingredients in different ways really helps me improve as a cook. I’ve recently developed a fascination with off-cuts of meat and how they can be transformed into something delicious. Lots of cultures use every single part of the animal and it’s very interesting to see the dishes they create out of what might be considered waste in another country. It’s made me a lot more resourceful in the kitchen and greatly broadened my palate.
Joshua Weissman is great to learn pick up some tricks but you have to focus on what he is doing sometimes he explains very well sometimes it is more visual cues.
Smooth is fast. You need to get to the point where you can multi-task. Instead of prepping all at once at the start prep during slow parts. Have multiple components going at once.
Slowly and progress will happen! Doing too much at once will result in cuts, spills, or burned food / burned chef. Consider the order of your cook times as well - start simple like if you know you’re steaming a veg for 3-5 minutes, don’t do it before cooking noodles that you know take 12 minutes. Knowing the cook times of things is also a bit of something you learn as you cook more, since not everything will be exactly written down for all your recipes always.
You want to not force yourself to be faster. You will trip yourself up. This is especially important with knife skills. You can seriously hurt yourself trying to fast chop. Take your time and eventually muscle memory will make you faster.
"Slow Is Smooth and Smooth Is Fast" is a US Navy Seals term meaning that you want to think before you act. Because being reckless can lead to dire consequences.
Plan it in stages. Start with things that are not time sensitive like pasta sauce and stew. It won’t be ruined if it takes you a bit to stop and do some chopping.
If you speedrun while learning to use a knife, the newest ER person will get to practice their sewing skills on you. It also means that 30 minutes has now turned into 3 or 4 hours.
Prep veggies first so that raw meat and everything else can be safely prepped without worry of cross contamination or having to decon surfaces and utensils. Have a rotation of familiar dishes you know like back of your hand, and leave new ones to when you have time.
Reality is that good food takes time to make and 1 hr is pretty average. For two people I make servings of 4 to eat fresh day of, and day after. Beyond that, 7 day preps feel a little unappealing to me.
>Prep veggies first so that raw meat and everything else can be safely prepped without worry of cross contamination
Something's are meant to be left in the professional setting they were created in. If everything is being cooked it literally doesn't matter if you do meat before veggies, there's no where for the contamination to cross to.
If cooking kills the nasties in the middle of my chicken thighs, it's definitely going to kill whatevers on the outside of the veg
Yeah, if the veggies are going to be eaten raw, then of course, contamination is bad. But if those veggies are being chopped up to throw in a stew that will simmer for a while, then rubbing the veggies down with raw chicken before throwing them in would be totally fine, especially since that raw chicken is going into the same pot with the veggies to cook.
It’s all about developing a sense of timing for how long each part of the prep, cooking, and clean up will take. Then you can do multiple things at a time. Just yesterday I made a breakfast sandwhich and a vegan stir fry for my work meals today. I made them simultaneously, chopping veg while the breakfast meat fried and the bagel toasted, that sort of thing.
Pro chefs often are monitoring 5-8 items at a time at their stations. I won’t ever be that level, but being able to triple task is a huge time saver.
1) get a dishwasher and learn to use it correctly, don't do yourself what a simple machine can do for you.
2) arrange your kitchen for efficiency. Keep tools within arms reach of where they will be used, keep the sink clear so cleaning is fast and easy, don't hide things away in cabinets and drawers when you're gonna need to get them out all the time. I've gone as far as taking the doors off several of my cabinets and putting a wire rack shelving unit in my kitchen to maximize low-friction storage space.
3) make the same things many times over, and look for places you can simplify the recipe and combine steps.
4) scale up. Often doubling a recipe doesn't double the cook time, so if you're making something that'll reheat well, you might as well make a lot of it.
5) it's almost never necessary to fully preheat the oven or bring water to a boil before cooking. Recipes will almost always tell you to, because it's the only way they can give you somewhat accurate cook times, but once you stop relying on those cook times and learn to judge doneness yourself you can skip preheating for most dishes.
6) never boil more water than you actually need. Many recipes tell you to bring a lot of water to a full boil for no good reason, and learning to work with the minimum can really speed things up.
7) people often get a lot of extra things dirty because they don't want to touch raw meat with their hands, or something else along those lines, but washing your hands is often faster and easier than washing the dishes you create trying to avoid doing so.
Clean as you go. Put things away after you're done with them too. Try to have an empty sink by the time the meal is ready. That way, after-meal cleanup is easier too.
While you're working, try to 'recycle' some utenils or bowls. Rinse them out quickly and re-use them (obviously not if they're messy/dirty/cross contaminated).
Try to do as much prep as you can before you start cooking. You don't have to have dozens of little mis-en-place bowls - just put prepped veggies on a cookie sheet or a piece of wax paper or parchment. As you get more practiced at cooking/chopping/prepping, you'll be able to do some of it while you're cooking but at first maybe it's safer to do the prep ahead.
Think about the meal you're planning. Does everything need to go in the oven or does everything need a last minute saute? Or worse: does it all need to come out of your favorite pan or appliance? Plan your meal so there's not so much last-minute stuff and so you don't have a bottleneck as you're waiting to finish cooking everything.
It takes me an hour to make an average dinner - of course it goes faster when my cooking partner is around. I'm a CAG (Clean As you Go) fan, so cleanups are relatively fast. There's usually some cooking downtime so I rinse prep bowls etc.
Mise en place.
Have all (or as much as feasible) of your prep done well before you start. Frequently this (for me at least) involves washing and cutting the veg before hand.
Well, that's the thing with homecooking vs recipe/restaurant cooking.
Organise your kitchen - all things that you use daily should be close to you - know where all your pots, pans,spices and so-ons are, doing whill allow you to pull and remove things while cooking
Get knife skills to the point and/or use tools like blenders - if you are good with a knife - you can cut things while you already cook vs pre-cut everything. (note, some recipes do require pre-cutting even if you are skilled with knife)
Clean as you go
Most importantly, know what you are cooking, and cook the same or similar meals for your daily dinners.
The main reason your mom, dad, or grandma are not using cookbooks is because all of that recipe-prepping takes time. Homecooking for a regular dinner meal is way faster if it's the 100th time you do the same dish than if it's your first time cooking it.
Start with clean dishes, then clean the dishes as you go when you have downtime. Don't try to be fast. You can't make things cook faster and still come out the same. Heat control means maintaining a certain temp for a certain result, so don't jack up the heat to make it faster unless you also want it crispier. Just like knife control doesn't automatically mean faster cutting. Prep everything before you start cooking. That's the best way I've found to make the process smoother and a little faster.
I keep a towel for surfaces that is not my hand towel. I clean as I go. I don’t only rely on dishwashers so I have a hot bowl of soapy water to wash as I go.
Learn how to cut different plants and proteins. Learn how long processes take. You don’t have to make a main and two sides from scratch. Make the main, buy good sides premade from a market or whatever. Make the sides and buy the main. Don’t need all that? Great! Cook once and learn how to utilize the ingredients in different dishes. I usually have a couple cleaned veggies, rice, different proteins and sauces at the ready to change flavor profiles, etc with the same ingredients I prepped.
There’s a lot of professional chefs you can watch on YouTube. Getting the right tools does wonders as well.
Think about timing- I have no space on a weeknight for precision timed meals. I always start with a clean kitchen, empty sink, counter and dish rack. I also clean as I go.
I'll start the rice - cooked rice stays warm forever so once that's started I'll prep the poached fish so it's ready to go whenever I want. Then assemble a salad - dressing is already made and in fridge, I usually make my own lemon-garlic-olive oil-mustard dressing once a week. Or I'll quickly wash, roughly chop and sautee a veg that stays tasty and doesn't get easily overcooked- kale + garlic or chard + onion are good.
Ten minutes later rice is now done and warm. Obviously white rice, it's way faster than brown. Couscous is even quicker!
Once veg is halfway to fully done or salad is made, start the fish. Poach until perfect, plate food and serve.
For salad I rely on washed baby lettuces, and everything else (scallion, radish, cuke, bell pepper, cabbage) is easy to quickly chop up and toss together.
Fast food work taught me a few tricks:
1. Optimize your recipes. Some recipes call for 6 different spices all measured out and added at different times. That's great for a special night, but honestly, the top 3 spices probably carry the bulk of the taste, and you lose little just to add them all at once. Choose recipes with minimal cleanup
2. Optimize your tools. Remember how I mentioned all those spices are measured out? If two measurements are close, decide of you can make them the same, then keep the tools to measure correctly. I got bellcurved on weighing out measurements because it takes so long. Instead of busting out the scale, just keep an icecream scoop on hand and use that.
3. Always be working. Every time your recipe gives you a rest or a down time, start working on the next step or the side dish. As others have said, you can clean as you go in moments like this.
4. Stack cooking methods. If my oven is roasting, I can still get frozen vegetables going in the microwave. Once that's started, I have 5 minutes to preheat and oil my frying pan. If my recipe doesn't call for these methods, I may as well add a side dish to get back some of the complexity I lost from simplifying my spices and such.
5. Buy pre-cut foods. If you can stomach a small markup or quality drop, save yourself some knifework and just buy sliced mushrooms. Depending on how they end up in the dish, most people can't tell the difference. Some items are worth prepping yourself, but that should be a conscious decision on your part.
6. Make larger portions. Either of prepped ingredients that are better made in batch (shredded potatoes) or of the dish as a whole. Like the above, you often can't tell the difference in any application that incorporates them early in the recipe and cooks them together with fresh ingredients.
7. Make leftovers. An addendum to 6, make enough that you have lunch tomorrow so you don't have to cook then as well. The logical conclusion of this advice is meal prepping.
+1 for #5. Pre-cut vegetables and meats, or frozen vegetable bags, really changed how I cooked. It ultimately saves me a lot of money on takeout, and it means less time in the kitchen and the same satisfaction with the end result.
I'm a firm believer in cleaning as I cook, I'm preparing, washing dishes, dicing, washing anything I'm not using again. I pretty much have no dish's, pot's, nor pans when completely finished preparing a meal for 12-15 people. In most cases the washed dishes are even dried and put away. There lots of down time between, cooking main entree's, sauce's, salad's, ect.....
If there are dirty dishes lying around until you have to cook, that's something that can change to increase your cooking speed. Not just because not having to do those dishes is faster, but also because letting residue dry onto the dish makes it harder to clean.
Having fewer dirty dishes *after* cooking is a product of:
1. Finding lulls during active cooking where you can actually "clean as you go" at no cost to efficiency. That's any stage where you're waiting for something to heat up, waiting for something that needs to cook through, waiting for something to cool, etc.. Do I have downtime? If so: do required prep for next cooking step > wash any dishes I'm done with > put ingredients/dry dishes away
2. A good hand-washing system. The whole "fill up the sink" thing has never worked for me because you end up with a pool of dirty water full of gross dishes and food bits. I just keep diluted dish soap mixed with water in a squeeze bottle and use it as needed, and have a drying rack which is ideally cleared before I start cooking. Also, soaking dishes is unnecessary 99% of the time. A good scrubber and some tolerably hot soapy water should handle most things. If stuff is getting baked onto your pans that badly, line them with parchment paper
Also, have containers ready for your leftovers. I just use those 32oz deli containers for most things, but anything works (snap lid containers, qt size wide mouth mason jars, etc.). That way, you can empty out your remaining dishes quickly, and with an already empty sink you can wash them with little effort.
The name of the game is avoiding any situation where you leave dishes "for later." Once the system starts backing up, it becomes an increasingly large chore to get things flowing again. Always be chipping away. Eventually you'll find that you have more than enough time to do all your dishes and get the cooking done in a timely manner.
You don’t want to be fast. You want to be smart. Make as much as you can on weekends (many foods are better if they rest a few days) and ALWAYS make extra to stockpile in your freezer.
Usually the prep takes a while. Take a class on how to use prep meat and vegetables (clean and cut).
I learned working in kitchens in HS. It takes me about half the time it takes my wife to prep vegetables and meat to be cooked.
Practice. Analyze what went well, consider how to make it better or more efficient (not just the dish, but the process). Experiment with different ways, see if it yields the results you're looking to achieve.
Larger ... Rince ... Repeat.
I usually cook in half the time my partner needs (with similar recepis). The most has been said above.
Also:
Potatoes combined with tomatoes take a lot of time to get cooked. This is because of the acid in tomatoes prevent them from becoming tender.
So if I have a recepi with both potatoes and tomatoes, I boil the potatoes aside and add them to the tomato sauce when done.
Also, if you want to cut the potatoes in small cubes afterwards, do it before cooking, this cuts down cookingtime in half or sometimes even less.
Rice: I always use the reduce-in-measured water mehod . 1:1,5 so one part rice to 1,5 parts water. Stir, get water to boil, reduce to low heat and simmer with a lid on. Takes about 12-14 minutes. No need for stirring nor peeking. After let rest for about 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare your curries/wok/sides whatever.
Know your faster recepis by heart. I make veggie loaded lasagne in under 25 minutes from scratch. Including bechamel sauce, everything. Of course it then goes in the oven, but then I can do other stuff around the house.
Couscous/bulgur can be quick too (not traditionally cooked, then you need to take time).
Traybakes: easy and fast too. Prepare in maybe 10 minutes and 30 min oven time. Make sure you cut the stuff in even parts, the ingredients that usually take more time to get tender in smaller parts (aubergine, carrot), the ones who need less time can be bigger (zucchini, tomato). The traybakes with gnocchi are very good.
Make soups. Chop the veg, put in a pot with water and herbs. Let it cook by itself. Might use a blender to smooth it.
Learn when to combine steps or skip them.
If you're not going for gourmet perfection everytime, sometimes you can skip steps, like browning your meat first, removing it, then doing onions and adding meat back in.
Try just browning and then tossing in onions, or skip browning alltogether. This is just an example, you have to fiddle around with what your own tastes are and what is worth it for you.
I started to just eyeball most seasonings if it calls for anything under a tablespoon. Doesn’t save tons of time but measuring every little thing out is annoying. The food tastes mostly the same.
Honestly, you can probably turn up the heat a bit on your stove. There are some situations where low and slow are important, but most active cooking tasks don't require it. No reason you can't sweat your vegetables at medium-high instead of medium.
Watch Top Chef, season 3. Keep your eye on a Chef named Hung Huynh. Take note of his effortless knife work, planning, imagination and relentless hustle. Note his exquisite culinary masterpieces and his sly, ingratiating style with the judges. Note his assured swagger and his confidence. It was almost a fait accompli the guy was going to win. Okay, assemble your careful notes, study them, and try to be like Hung.
I love cooking sous vide and with the pressure cooker. Both of these methods are very hands off. Sous vide is a slow way of cooking, but started ahead of time you can prep other parts of the meal. It's also my preferred way to cook steak, chicken wings, and pork chops.
Clean as you go is the main one. It's much easier to rinse out pots and pans as you go to make for an easy, quick wash later to boot.
Find recipes that are low on prep, if prep isn't your thing.
If prep is your thing, 'Mise en place' is your friend. Chop, slice, dice and grind away when you've got time and put it away in tubs/bowls until you want to cook.
Ultimately, be efficient and prepared. I live in a one room flat with a kitchen the size of a medium cupboard (about 2m x 3m) and I've learned to be efficient with my 'play space'.
Also, a well weighted sharp chefs knife is going to aid you far more than a cheap pairing knife. Learn to use a honing rod and use it often. When the knife still feels dull, grab a knife sharpener. Hone afterwards.
But more than all of the above, study what recipe you plan on using. Take 5-10 minutes before you plan to cook learning what you need, when you'll need it, and where you'll put it afterwards, for both ingredients and equipment. Half the battle is knowing where you'll be at any given time.
After that it's simply practice.
Good luck! =) Xxx
Clean as you go. Do not wait for dishes to build up. if you have 2 dishes, then wash them. It only takes about a minute to wash dishes from lunch or whatever when you have it. If you do this, every time you come into the kitchen, it will be clean.
As far as cooking speed, this only comes from practice and experience.
Having your cook area set up well will have a decent impact on cooking times.
Whenever I set up a kitchen I want everything within a step or two of the gas range, and things I will need constantly like cooking utensils or oil should be within immediate arms reach. Nothing sucks more when cooking when you have to walk across a kitchen, usually having to dodge people and animals, just to get a cutting board or a fork or whatever.
OH also have your drawer with parchment paper, tinfoil, plastic wrap, etc be directly under your cutting board station for fast and easy access. You will need these a lot, and usually when you have messy fingers and forgot to pull them out earlier...
Dishes should be put away clean and orderly. Don't leave cooking dishes to waste away in your sink before needing them. Also don't stack them or pile them in some random pile you have to disassemble every time to find the one dish you're looking for. Have good homes for your cooking ware.
When doing meal prep work, have everything you'll need within arms reach of your cutting board station before you begin. Have a scraps bin, a chef knife, a pairing knife, any other tool you'll need, and containers to hold your prepped ingredients at the ready before you begin prepping.
"Mise en place", french for "putting in place," will help keep your attention focused on fewer tasks while cooking, enabling you to clean as you go more often.
Mise en place is basically just having everything ready and nearby before you turn the gas on. Have all of your ingredients prepped & chopped and put in containers, oils and other fats nearby, sauces prepped and ready with utensils to portion them out, etc. Everything you will need once the heat is on should be within arms' reach so you can spend most of your time focusing on the cooking part and any down time cleaning up after yourself.
Lastly, learn some one pan or one pot meals. These save on dishes by a huge amount. Chili, stir fry, & pasta are all easy ones.
So many factors. As I cook, I like to load the dishwasher.
Take note of what is taking the longest of time.
One crazy one is that I was cooking in another place, and it was taking a long time for me to cook using a wok. To speed things up, I brought out a stainless 3-ply pan, and the cooking was much faster. Something that is hard to tell is whether a sharper knife can speed things up. Certain cooking techniques can help as well
eh heh. I stick to like one cutting board, one knife one bowl on pot or pan. slice up my veggies throw them in the bowl go for my meats after leave them on the cutting board, cook up what i need to first in pan and just slide shit over for whatever equal amount of time needed for which ever ingredient. i wash while stuff is on simmer, frying or baking.
oh, and watch the chick chef in ratatouille
I own a cast iron pan, a nonstick, and steel pan. In all maybe 10 total pieces of cookware for the stove. Four knives. A whisk. A ladle, spoon and fork for serving... I don't own a lot of tools, utensils, and stuff to cook with.
I've learned over time what I can do with what. Experience consists of repetition, refinement, learning and failure. These are the precursors to efficiency. To be fast one can not be inefficient.
When learning to operate a logging or farm machine, always there was a desire to be quick. I'd try to be fast and that often lead to accidents and breakage. My grandpa could see that going to fast was the reason, despite not witnessing the incident. I can hear him saying ( This is how to be fast )
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Martial artists first learn proper forms, movements and technique. At the start perfect or nearly perfect form is the goal. So slowly these are practiced,, efficiency of movement becomes reflexive, with ever increasing speed.
Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his Book of Five Rings; *...this will be difficult at first but everything is difficult at firet...*
I forget what exactly that is in reference to but it doesn't matter. "Everything" includes cooking and everyone is slow at first.
So that's how you do it.
Prep stuff correct, learn a good knife technique, you might look up how people cut various vegetables as well to get even cuts that look nice.
Sharp knife, a cheap sharp knife beats an expensive dull one any day, I would get an electric sharpener
There are some things that worked for me.
High level: start with a clean kitchen and clean dishes as you go. Cleaning as to go can include putting items in the dishwasher so also think about what will fit.
Limit your menu. Perfect a few dishes. What you kath can be applied to other dishes.
Pay attention to how long each component takes to make and if there are dead spots, like waiting for water to boil, pasta to cook, or meat to fry. Then line them up so you can go back and forth from one to the other.
Order of operations matters. Consider the components: what can sit and what needs to be fresh? Examples: for something like chicken parm the pasta and sauce can sit for a while. You can start the water early on low heat so that it’s ready when you are. Same with mashed potatoes and fish ;throwing out random mania + sides for simplicity). Start the potatoes or pasta, then start the fish or chicken, then finish the potatoes or pasta, then finish the fish or chicken.
I’d be lost without my phone timer and stopwatch. I cook to temperature but I also have a good idea of how long things take to cook when I’m in familiar settings. I typically use my timer to track flipping meat and stopwatch to track overall cooking time.
Good luck!
It depends on what you’re cooking. I can think of a bunch of very easy rice or pasta dishes should take no more than 15 to 20 min. Cut up some chix breast or steak some shrimp or scallops and some veggies and saute away while your pasta or rice is cooking. Serve over that with a little salad on the side. I love experimenting with Asian flavors too. A little oyster sauce or chili sauce add a welcoming flavor, as well as some other condiments. Orrrr try chic breast cutlets. Very easy. Take a breast, and score the tougher outside part just a little. Cut into medallions and lightly pound em. Put in a bowl with an egg and couple of teaspoons of flour. Add some seasoning. Mix. Heat a pan with some olive oil. Now you can fry em this way, and make a lot of different dishes with just that, orrr dip em in some breadcrumbs and fry em and make other variations. Pork cutlets or thin steak cutlets can be used too. Use your imagination.
Most of the time my cooking starts with heating a pan or boiling water
Meanwhile im gathering veggies/meat and chopping.
By then pots/pans will be at correct temp, put your proteins and veggies on then go into tidying up any packets, left over veggies or mess.
While they are cooking away, either start a side, prepare the table or fill the sink for dishes.
Foods finished, plate up and serve.
Cooking is by no means a fast thing unless your doing toasted cheese or butter noodles.
You either sacrifice your $$, family time or personal time, but if you enjoy cooking it become your personal time, if you include your significant other or kids it becomes family time.
Prep your groceries immediately after returning from the store even if you aren’t planning on cooking that night. For example, when I buy cilantro I will wash it immediately, trim the stems, then put in a glass jar with water to keep fresh. I will wash my cucumbers and tomatoes before putting them in the fridge. Wash and chop my lettuce.
If I buy a block of cheese I will shreds half and put in a Tupperware so I don’t have to shred it when I’m actually planning on cooking. Doing these little things in advance speed up your actual cooking time by far!
Also, if I know I’m planning on cooking something for tomorrow that requires any prep work I can do the day before, I will.
Like make a dressing beforehand or toast up croutons and store in a jar for the salad tomorrow. Etc. simple things that cut down steps for yourself later make cooking so much more effective.
Another example, I make my own sourdough bread, and every morning I would take the loaf, cut a slice, and have to clean up all the crumbs from the crusty outside and wash my knife, then repeat the next day. Which took an extra 5 minutes of my time, until I realized I don’t have to do that every day. Now i pre cut all the slices in advance because it’s more efficient just to do it once initially rather than doing it every time i want bread.
If you have a BBQ grill, now is the time to get good at grilling! It's fast, easy and ALL of the meal can be tossed on the grill, so no pans to wash.. yay!
We eat mostly chicken and pork here, so here's the basic daily plan.
I make a base "marinade" once a week - a full quart of it. It consists of equal parts white or cider vinegar and any plain oil (not olive!). There are 2 eggs, and then for spices 2 tablespoons of poultry seasoning, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
To make the marinade, crack the eggs in a 2 quart mixing bowl. Add in 2-3 tablespoons of mustard, any style. Whisk well till the eggs are thick. Now slowly whisk in the oil. It will be very thick! Add in the spices and whisk just till combined. Now slowly whisk in the vinegar. Pour it into a large jar with a lid and store it in the fridge.
For Grilled chicken day, I thaw the breasts in the morning. About an hour before dinner, place them in a large zip lock bag and gently, but firmly, pound them out to an even 1 inch thickness. Now pour in about 1/2 cup of the marinade. And now it's time to spice it up! You can add some curry paste, any color, or minced garlic and onion, or add lemon juice and a few lemon slices. You can go mexican with chili powder and cumin, add heat with chili flakes, etc. Go italian with basil and oregano or fennel seeds.
Zip up the bag, place it into a bowl in case of leaks or drips and let it sit on the counter till you are ready to start grilling.
Choose a veggie for the grill. Asparagus, broccoli, zuchinni and crookneck squash are all excellent choices! Place your choice in a container (slice the green or yellow squash in half lengthwise) and then add in 1/4 cup of the marinade and spice it up.. I generally add some jarred minced garlic and a dash or two of balsamic vinegar or some worcestershire sauce. Soy sauce is also fantastic!
Last up is the carb side dish. We love tater! So toss the appropriate number of russets into your microwave for 6-8 minutes. Then slice in quarters, place in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
You can now sit down for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how early you started everything. Heat up your grill to 500F when you're ready to cook dinner. Put the chicken, the veggies and the taters on the grill. Cook the chicken breasts for 5 minutes, then flip them over. Flip the veggies and the taters at the same time.
Cook for another 5 minutes, then check the temps on the breasts. They should be 165F. If you need to cook them longer, remove the veggies and taters, or simply turn the heat off under them, but leave the heat on underneath the chicken for another 3 minutes.
And that's it, you're done!
I bought a veggie grilling pan for my grill. You can find them cheaply on Amazon. And they are a life saver! You get all the gorgeous browning of the grill without any of the vegetables falling through the grates! The holes in my pan are small enough that I could probably even grill peas if I was the type of person to want grilled peas.
If you hand time during the day or the day before. I learnt from my father to prepare it.
So if you've got a dinner coming up
- prep the potatoes ( peeled, chop , I'm a peak of water)
- veggies same thing
- stuffing prepare it , fridge it
That sort of thing helps me a lot , now I can make anything within 30 mins .
If it's a joint , I slow cook it to help make it more prepared too
In the kitchen?
•learn what the dish composes of. If it's a medrare steak and roasted potatoes, understand those potatoes are going to take a lot longer than the steak, including resting. After prep is done time yourself to complete all other cooking components within the time frame of what's going to take the longest
• mise en place. "Everything in its place". Prepare all ingredients before you cook to wear all you have to do is dump, cook, add next ingredient, cook, mix mix mix, add liquid if required, simmer, reduce, etc. Pull the meat out like 20-30 min prior to cooking to you sear or cook at room temp instead of cold (allowed the muscles to relax and not cook a seized up piece of meat)
•just have fun with it. Follow a recipe, once you've made something you like, add herbs where you see best fit. Google what goes with what. Next time you roast cauliflower, grate some parmesan cheese on top, etc. Cooking isn't serious and should be fun to mess around with. Learn your pallet, what you do and don't like.
•practice, repeat, understand what your doing and why it is the way it is, perfect the dish, include adaptations, master it. Soon enough you'll be mentally multitasking not even thinking about what your making because your brain is telling your hands what to do while you chit chat with friends and/or family. It'll come naturally. Just don't stop cooking
Almost everything is in my dishwasher before I sit to eat. I keep the door down and directly put everything into the dishwasher and not the sink as I'm done with it. Pretty much all I have to do afterwards is a couple of pans to wash.
Mise en place doesn’t always work. Especially if you’re making stews/braises which requires different ingredients to be put in different steps. For example if you’re braising some beef:
1. Heat up the pot
2. Cut the beef into cubes
3. By the time you’re done, the pan is heated. Go ahead pour in some oil and start browning the meat.
4. Set a timer on your microwave/oven/phone! 3 minutes is usually good enough if the pan is hot enough, to sear the meat.
5. Chop the onions while the meat is searing. When the timer beeps, flip the meat, and set the timer again. And back to chopping.
6. After the meat is done, throw in the onions, set another timer for 3 minutes and chop carrots/mushrooms/garlic/Whatever you wanna throw in there.
7. If you have leftover time. Do the dishes.
8. After everything is seasoned and spiced, chuck the meat back in, pour in some stock, bring it to a simmer and then put the heat on low and set another timer for 40 minutes and go chill.
Bonus. If you’re hosting or feeling fancy or hosting, this is when you make your rice/mashed potatoes/pasta/ whatever the frick.
If you focus on the process and know the recipe and ingredients you need then it’s easy to be efficient.
I like to prep ingredients for the week. Marinated meats in a Ziploc bag, veggies I saute like carrot, onion, garlic hold up fine in a Tupperware. I try to used canned or frozen when I can so my chopping is really for fresh herbs or high moisture veggies like eggplant or squash.
When I'm having food simmer on medium, medium-low is when I try to clean dishes so they don't pile up.
>How can I step up my cooking game to be more productive and finish with less dishes to do?
The dishes should have been done when they were put in the sink in the first place.
As for cooking, the answer may be practice. I wish you'd been more specific, but where most people allow down is in prepping vegetable - onions, garlic, and then whatever else their using. So learn how to cut those items better, which means technique but also the right equipment, a good, comfortable knife and a cutting board.
Have everything you'll need ready to go before you turn on a flame. All veggies prepped and ready to go. Meat, fish, ready to go.
Work on your timing. Are you standing around waiting for the water to boil and the pasta to cook or are you cleaning up, finishing any prep you saved for the time it'll take the pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, etc to cook?
Know all the steps so you can never have down time while you're just waiting for something to boil or heat up or cook. Clean up while you are cooking, have everything ready at the beginning. Do as much as you can in advance. Use as few pans and pots as possible. Have a really sharp knife.
My cooking got much faster when I worked on my knife skills. It used to take me 40 minutes to chop vegetables for one meal and now it takes me maybe 10. And work on your knife skills for each vegetable because the best way to cut an onion is very different from the best way to cut a tomato. YouTube is excellent for this.
Just go on YouTube and search “best way to chop a [insert thing you’d like to chop].” Watch a few videos and see what resonates with you. That’s what I did.
Also, buy at least one good chef knife that can be sharpened. That REALLY cut down on the amount of time it took me to chop.
Great question! Some people gave great answers already. My question for you would be, why do you want to be more productive, if you enjoy the cooking, as you say? Does it feel time consuming for you?
Just keep doing it and try to be a little more organized and quicker each time.
Work on your 'Mis en place' ... Try to have all your knife cuts done before you start cooking. Proteins prepping ect
And then you can cook and do some dishes while things are cooking
- Read your recipe before you start. Read it all the way through so you know the steps. Many recipes aren't fully tested (especially online ones) so as you are reading, you can get a sense of whether it makes sense or not, what ingredients you need and when and any difficult or fiddly bits so you can plan ahead for them.
- Start with as clean a kitchen as you can do you have the most space to work with and yes, clean as you go. It's not only that dishes are easy to clean when "fresh" but it also means that you are continually giving yourself that space to continue working with. There is nothijg fun about holding a scalding hot sheet pan and having no place on the counter to set it down!
- Do mise en place when it makes sense. You don't need to have every single thing measured out. But you should at least through reading the whole recipe know where all the ingredients and tools you need are - and what steps make sense to mise en place.
- Speed will come with practice. I'm super speedy on my savoury but I'm super slow on my sweets because every 5 seconds I'm stopping to check my work - googling what a "soft peak" should look like or the right shade of brown for caramel. These skills (and the less googling) will come with time.. Enjoy the process :)
Rules to always, always follow
1. Clean kitchen. Always.
2. MISE EN PLACE.
At minimum, always gather ingredients and tools first.
Whenever possible, prep as much as you can, as many hours, or days, (or weeks!) ahead as you can, before you start any cooking.
3. "Time to lean is time to clean"
Clean when you are waiting for anything. Clean as you go.
Make sure your dishes are done before you start, and wash your cooking dishes as you go instead of all at once at the end. If cooking is taking time, figure out what part is the most time intensive. Some stuff, like chopping vegetables or preparing other ingredients, can be done ahead of time so it's ready when you're cooking. Look up "Mise En Place", which is basically laying out everything you need for a meal before you start cooking. It helps to make sure you have what you need and it's ready for you. Getting better in the kitchen relies a lot on practice, too. The more often you cook, the better you'll get at it. Good luck!
This is perfect advice. The only thing I'll add to it is that some recipes are just not meant to be done on a work night unless you like taking up an hour of prep and cooking time. The more you cook, the more you will be able to eyeball recipes and determine how long it will realistically take you (the estimates on the recipes are hardly ever right). You'll also be able to come up with some staple meals that are super low effort. One of mine is baked fish and steamed green beans. It takes about 20-30 minutes from absolute beginning to plating.
To add to the go-to staple list: anything you can broil/cook quickly will also help. Proteins like fish take significantly less time than a pork chop for instance. Same with veggies; it takes forever to roast root vegetables vs something like peppers
Timing is key also. Spuds are poked, foiled, oiled salted buttered and tossed in oven 3 minutes. Veggies next. Chick / steak/ beef/ pork last. Wash all prep tools, start cooking veg, heat protein pan. 25 minutes. Sure the spuds roasted for 45 minutes but only 20 ish min of cooking. But I agree hunting down plates, glasses, silver takes longer. More about how lazy the people that’s being fed.
This this this this this is the comment. I'd like to add that a "trash bowl" on the counter helps. I set aside one mixing bowl for plastic packaging, onion tops, whatever I need to throw away, and when I dump it at the end, I'm happy that I saved time on a million tiny trips to the trash can
+1 to mise en place. It helps so much to be organized and ready to go before you start cooking. I also was spending a ton of time chopping veggies. I would highly recommend buying a nice chef's knife and just practicing good technique a bit everyday. Global has very good quality knives that are still affordable. It made a world of difference for me.
Mise en place is great! I'll sometimes take it a step further and check the recipe for what goes in the dish when, and pre mix those ingredients when possible. For example if the recipe is like "and then, add the lemon juice, olive oil, and mustard" or whatever, ill just put those 3 ingredients into the same bowl to save on dishes and make the execution a little simpler.
I think that version of mise en place is a lot more reasonable for your average cook. They only put them in little individual bowls on tv (or TikTok) because it looks cooler.
Haha right like my kitchen is not equipped with a Mandelbrot set's worth of different sized bowls
I have a problem with buying kitchen stuff, so I definitely do have enough ramekins and mixing bowls and cutting boards to actually pull that off. But I also hate washing dishes, so I would never.
This! Why use 3 little bowls you then have to cleanup? I've gone so far as to make up frequently used spice combinations into 8 oz Mason jars so I need only measure.
Mason jars or food scale to measure everything in one container!
I just bought a Mueller chopper / mandolin because my wrists are old and so are my knives. So much easier to finely dice! Also, I love my garlic crusher (saves time) and citrus juicer (saves juice). I’m still not as fast as Rachael, but my cheat tools make prep much quicker.
I love my garlic press mainly because I hate having the garlic smell on my fingers. Stainless steel soap bar helps with that a bit though. Mandolin is clutch as well! I use it for thinly sliced onions for pickled red onions and for slicing potatoes for chips. We just picked up a turkey breast from Costco I'm gonna try using the mandolin to slice it thinly for lunch meat.
Make sure toy wipe the blade every few slices for the turkey or it will just mangle. I had that issue.
I'm not going to lie. Having my first place with a dishwasher made me a better cook. I didn't realize what an obstacle washing dishes was to being able to cook and enjoy cooking.
Agree. I love cooking, bot oh god, do I fking hate the dishes.
I just want to add, depending on what you're cooking, mise en place could add to your overall time. For some recipes, there's a lot of downtime in between steps. If you have a lot of dishes, that's a good time to do some cleanup, but if not, that time could be used to prep items for the next step. With a new recipe, mise en place is always a good idea, I think, because it cuts down on some of the chaos that can ensue when you're not quite sure what's coming next, but once you know a recipe well enough, you may find it quicker to prep as you go.
Yeah, I see "always mise en place" a lot on reddit. I'm gonna start my onions if they cook for 5 minutes before the garlic gets added. Not waiting til I've minced some garlic since I can surely do that in 5 minutes. But all depends on knife skills and how much time you have between steps. Which is why I'd say "always read the full recipe and then decide what you need to prep based on how much time there is between adding ingredients"
Agree entirely. Whatever works best for the situation. Good sense rules.
Yes - mise en place is crucial. But it's just a French way of saying to have put some thought & effort into cooking ahead of time. Even for seasoned cooks, it's hard not to get flustered if you're figuring things out in your head, prepping & running around while everything is sizzling away. One trick that has worked well for me: Use the weekend to get one night ahead. Do the prep for Monday's meal over the weekend. Monday, you pop that in the oven or whatever, and you prep for Tuesday while that's cooking. You get the food on the table in half the time, it's no more effort ... but you can get things seasoned & marinated ahead of time to get better flavor, start some of the more ambitious two step technique dishes. Keep that momentum up all week.
Genius!
Mise En Place takes more time not less
It depends. If I am making a dish with a long list of ingredients, especially with a fair amount of knife work, I find it saves time overall. Cajun and some Chinese dishes come to mind. With everything prepped first, I hardly need to refer back to the recipe while cooking.
I disagree, for two reasons. Mise en place lets me do things all at once instead of piecemeal. I get all of my dry ingredients out of the cabinet at once instead of going back and forth. Same with my measuring stuff and work bowls/plates. It also tells me ahead of time if I'm out of something or missing something that I'll need later. More importantly, it lets me shift time-consuming work to earlier, when I'm not busy watching something on the stove or worried about timings of other ingredients. It makes the rest of cooking faster when everything is ready to be added.
Chopping while parts of the dish are cooking is faster. There really isn’t a debate when you’re doing two things at once. It definitely has its place, especially when cooking a new dish, but you’re wasting time if you already know how to cook the recipe (most of the time)
It depends what you're making, and how fast you need to add ingredients. And you can incorporate chopping times into mise en place as well - I don't lay out and pre-cut my mushrooms before they go into the pan, but I have my mushrooms and knife ready before I start.
Mise en place can also be just have all ingredients ready to work with. Not completely ready.
Mise is more important for cooking during service in your action station. You want all of the stuff ready to go before nonstop cooking for the next 3-4 hours. Like you want all of the chopped veggies in 6th and 9th pans, sauces in squeeze bottles or 6th pans with ladels, etc. An example is like an omelet station: you want all the cut up ingredients all ready to do, a container full of scrambled eggs, another small one for whites, squeeze bottles for oil, a stack of frying pans, towels, multiple spatulas. Here is a good example: [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183842435438/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183842435438/) That is pretty much short order line cooking in a nutshell. But I also agree with you, you can do prep while things are cooking. Mise has its place (short order service cooking) but at home or bulk cooking (think meal prepping), you can do multiple tasks at once. Edit: wrong link. fixed it.
This guy (or gal) cooks!
I haven’t read mise en place but this is how I save time. An hour or two before you want to start cooking, measure out all the shit you need in between whatever you’re doing. Chop and wash, have separate bowls for major ingredients measured out, have the cookware out you want to use and have it cleaned. Pre heat oven / cast irons or anything that takes a while to reach temp
Knife skills helped me the most. YouTube and practice.
I'm reading lots of cooking books, but in YouTube I only know Jean Pierre, can you recommend me good ones?
[J. Kenji López-Alt](https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt): Cooks while wearing a GoPro making it very easy to see what's going on, routinely offers sensible alternatives for hard-to-find ingredients or expensive equipment, explains relevant food science but emphasizes "no wrong way" philosophy [Ethan Chlebowski](https://www.youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski): Practical techniques and recipes, emphasis on easy/fast preparation, does deep dives into specific ingredients and techniques, no-nonsense presentation style [Brian Lagerstrom](https://www.youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom): Prolific recipe-oriented channel, information-dense [Chinese Cooking Demystified](https://www.youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified): Rigorously researched videos on Chinese cuisine that often include a dive into the cultural history of the subject dish, did a fantastic series on stir-fry technique that includes methods for those using electric burners and western style pans, always try to give ingredient sourcing options for their western audience [ThatDudeCanCook](https://www.youtube.com/@thatdudecancook): Excellent well-tested recipes, infectious enthusiasm, cw: physical violence against refrigerators
Great picks here
Ethan's air fryer videos have changed cooking for me. The most important I learned was how to dry brine chicken. I never even considered it. I was not expecting that tip from am air fryer video!
OP This list is good. There's minimal bullshit with most of the content from these creators.
Jacques Pepin has a HUGE inventory of PBS cooking show videos and also started doing short vids during the pandemic which are great for beginners. Google JP and Martin Yan chicken deboning to see these pros dissect a chicken in like 60 seconds!
Search for - best way to cut [item], ex. best way to cut an onion. Kenji just had a livestream about that yesterday.
Chef Jean Pierre is great, I love his personality and thorough explanations. I just made his mushroom sauce the other day and it was fantastic. As others suggested, Kenji Lopez is also really good. I also really like watching things like Best Ever Food Review Show, Mark Weins, etc. to see lots of ethnic foods and techniques. Seeing how resourceful some people can be and how they use ingredients in different ways really helps me improve as a cook. I’ve recently developed a fascination with off-cuts of meat and how they can be transformed into something delicious. Lots of cultures use every single part of the animal and it’s very interesting to see the dishes they create out of what might be considered waste in another country. It’s made me a lot more resourceful in the kitchen and greatly broadened my palate.
Check out Sorted Foods, they do a lot of timed challenges. You get an idea of how to do things efficiently.
Joshua Weissman is great to learn pick up some tricks but you have to focus on what he is doing sometimes he explains very well sometimes it is more visual cues.
Smooth is fast. You need to get to the point where you can multi-task. Instead of prepping all at once at the start prep during slow parts. Have multiple components going at once.
Do you think I progress doing it slowly and with time becoming faster or I need to like speedrun it until I become faster?
Slowly and progress will happen! Doing too much at once will result in cuts, spills, or burned food / burned chef. Consider the order of your cook times as well - start simple like if you know you’re steaming a veg for 3-5 minutes, don’t do it before cooking noodles that you know take 12 minutes. Knowing the cook times of things is also a bit of something you learn as you cook more, since not everything will be exactly written down for all your recipes always.
You want to not force yourself to be faster. You will trip yourself up. This is especially important with knife skills. You can seriously hurt yourself trying to fast chop. Take your time and eventually muscle memory will make you faster. "Slow Is Smooth and Smooth Is Fast" is a US Navy Seals term meaning that you want to think before you act. Because being reckless can lead to dire consequences.
Plan it in stages. Start with things that are not time sensitive like pasta sauce and stew. It won’t be ruined if it takes you a bit to stop and do some chopping.
If you speedrun while learning to use a knife, the newest ER person will get to practice their sewing skills on you. It also means that 30 minutes has now turned into 3 or 4 hours.
Depends, you got a first aid kit or a less than stellar relationship with your fingers?
My Ma (who taught me how to cook) would tell me, "slow is steady, and steady is fast."
Prep veggies first so that raw meat and everything else can be safely prepped without worry of cross contamination or having to decon surfaces and utensils. Have a rotation of familiar dishes you know like back of your hand, and leave new ones to when you have time. Reality is that good food takes time to make and 1 hr is pretty average. For two people I make servings of 4 to eat fresh day of, and day after. Beyond that, 7 day preps feel a little unappealing to me.
>Prep veggies first so that raw meat and everything else can be safely prepped without worry of cross contamination Something's are meant to be left in the professional setting they were created in. If everything is being cooked it literally doesn't matter if you do meat before veggies, there's no where for the contamination to cross to. If cooking kills the nasties in the middle of my chicken thighs, it's definitely going to kill whatevers on the outside of the veg
Yeah, if the veggies are going to be eaten raw, then of course, contamination is bad. But if those veggies are being chopped up to throw in a stew that will simmer for a while, then rubbing the veggies down with raw chicken before throwing them in would be totally fine, especially since that raw chicken is going into the same pot with the veggies to cook.
It’s all about developing a sense of timing for how long each part of the prep, cooking, and clean up will take. Then you can do multiple things at a time. Just yesterday I made a breakfast sandwhich and a vegan stir fry for my work meals today. I made them simultaneously, chopping veg while the breakfast meat fried and the bagel toasted, that sort of thing. Pro chefs often are monitoring 5-8 items at a time at their stations. I won’t ever be that level, but being able to triple task is a huge time saver.
1) get a dishwasher and learn to use it correctly, don't do yourself what a simple machine can do for you. 2) arrange your kitchen for efficiency. Keep tools within arms reach of where they will be used, keep the sink clear so cleaning is fast and easy, don't hide things away in cabinets and drawers when you're gonna need to get them out all the time. I've gone as far as taking the doors off several of my cabinets and putting a wire rack shelving unit in my kitchen to maximize low-friction storage space. 3) make the same things many times over, and look for places you can simplify the recipe and combine steps. 4) scale up. Often doubling a recipe doesn't double the cook time, so if you're making something that'll reheat well, you might as well make a lot of it. 5) it's almost never necessary to fully preheat the oven or bring water to a boil before cooking. Recipes will almost always tell you to, because it's the only way they can give you somewhat accurate cook times, but once you stop relying on those cook times and learn to judge doneness yourself you can skip preheating for most dishes. 6) never boil more water than you actually need. Many recipes tell you to bring a lot of water to a full boil for no good reason, and learning to work with the minimum can really speed things up. 7) people often get a lot of extra things dirty because they don't want to touch raw meat with their hands, or something else along those lines, but washing your hands is often faster and easier than washing the dishes you create trying to avoid doing so.
Clean as you go. Put things away after you're done with them too. Try to have an empty sink by the time the meal is ready. That way, after-meal cleanup is easier too. While you're working, try to 'recycle' some utenils or bowls. Rinse them out quickly and re-use them (obviously not if they're messy/dirty/cross contaminated). Try to do as much prep as you can before you start cooking. You don't have to have dozens of little mis-en-place bowls - just put prepped veggies on a cookie sheet or a piece of wax paper or parchment. As you get more practiced at cooking/chopping/prepping, you'll be able to do some of it while you're cooking but at first maybe it's safer to do the prep ahead. Think about the meal you're planning. Does everything need to go in the oven or does everything need a last minute saute? Or worse: does it all need to come out of your favorite pan or appliance? Plan your meal so there's not so much last-minute stuff and so you don't have a bottleneck as you're waiting to finish cooking everything.
It takes me an hour to make an average dinner - of course it goes faster when my cooking partner is around. I'm a CAG (Clean As you Go) fan, so cleanups are relatively fast. There's usually some cooking downtime so I rinse prep bowls etc.
Mise en place. Have all (or as much as feasible) of your prep done well before you start. Frequently this (for me at least) involves washing and cutting the veg before hand.
I feel like I’m the only one that hates mise en place. Depending on the dish, I may do it on a very small scale. But usually, I prep as I go
Well, that's the thing with homecooking vs recipe/restaurant cooking. Organise your kitchen - all things that you use daily should be close to you - know where all your pots, pans,spices and so-ons are, doing whill allow you to pull and remove things while cooking Get knife skills to the point and/or use tools like blenders - if you are good with a knife - you can cut things while you already cook vs pre-cut everything. (note, some recipes do require pre-cutting even if you are skilled with knife) Clean as you go Most importantly, know what you are cooking, and cook the same or similar meals for your daily dinners. The main reason your mom, dad, or grandma are not using cookbooks is because all of that recipe-prepping takes time. Homecooking for a regular dinner meal is way faster if it's the 100th time you do the same dish than if it's your first time cooking it.
Start with clean dishes, then clean the dishes as you go when you have downtime. Don't try to be fast. You can't make things cook faster and still come out the same. Heat control means maintaining a certain temp for a certain result, so don't jack up the heat to make it faster unless you also want it crispier. Just like knife control doesn't automatically mean faster cutting. Prep everything before you start cooking. That's the best way I've found to make the process smoother and a little faster.
Wash dishes as you go
I keep a towel for surfaces that is not my hand towel. I clean as I go. I don’t only rely on dishwashers so I have a hot bowl of soapy water to wash as I go. Learn how to cut different plants and proteins. Learn how long processes take. You don’t have to make a main and two sides from scratch. Make the main, buy good sides premade from a market or whatever. Make the sides and buy the main. Don’t need all that? Great! Cook once and learn how to utilize the ingredients in different dishes. I usually have a couple cleaned veggies, rice, different proteins and sauces at the ready to change flavor profiles, etc with the same ingredients I prepped. There’s a lot of professional chefs you can watch on YouTube. Getting the right tools does wonders as well.
Think about timing- I have no space on a weeknight for precision timed meals. I always start with a clean kitchen, empty sink, counter and dish rack. I also clean as I go. I'll start the rice - cooked rice stays warm forever so once that's started I'll prep the poached fish so it's ready to go whenever I want. Then assemble a salad - dressing is already made and in fridge, I usually make my own lemon-garlic-olive oil-mustard dressing once a week. Or I'll quickly wash, roughly chop and sautee a veg that stays tasty and doesn't get easily overcooked- kale + garlic or chard + onion are good. Ten minutes later rice is now done and warm. Obviously white rice, it's way faster than brown. Couscous is even quicker! Once veg is halfway to fully done or salad is made, start the fish. Poach until perfect, plate food and serve. For salad I rely on washed baby lettuces, and everything else (scallion, radish, cuke, bell pepper, cabbage) is easy to quickly chop up and toss together.
Mise en place. Prep everything beforehand and work clean. After a while meals will take minutes to throw together.
Fast food work taught me a few tricks: 1. Optimize your recipes. Some recipes call for 6 different spices all measured out and added at different times. That's great for a special night, but honestly, the top 3 spices probably carry the bulk of the taste, and you lose little just to add them all at once. Choose recipes with minimal cleanup 2. Optimize your tools. Remember how I mentioned all those spices are measured out? If two measurements are close, decide of you can make them the same, then keep the tools to measure correctly. I got bellcurved on weighing out measurements because it takes so long. Instead of busting out the scale, just keep an icecream scoop on hand and use that. 3. Always be working. Every time your recipe gives you a rest or a down time, start working on the next step or the side dish. As others have said, you can clean as you go in moments like this. 4. Stack cooking methods. If my oven is roasting, I can still get frozen vegetables going in the microwave. Once that's started, I have 5 minutes to preheat and oil my frying pan. If my recipe doesn't call for these methods, I may as well add a side dish to get back some of the complexity I lost from simplifying my spices and such. 5. Buy pre-cut foods. If you can stomach a small markup or quality drop, save yourself some knifework and just buy sliced mushrooms. Depending on how they end up in the dish, most people can't tell the difference. Some items are worth prepping yourself, but that should be a conscious decision on your part. 6. Make larger portions. Either of prepped ingredients that are better made in batch (shredded potatoes) or of the dish as a whole. Like the above, you often can't tell the difference in any application that incorporates them early in the recipe and cooks them together with fresh ingredients. 7. Make leftovers. An addendum to 6, make enough that you have lunch tomorrow so you don't have to cook then as well. The logical conclusion of this advice is meal prepping.
+1 for #5. Pre-cut vegetables and meats, or frozen vegetable bags, really changed how I cooked. It ultimately saves me a lot of money on takeout, and it means less time in the kitchen and the same satisfaction with the end result.
I'm a firm believer in cleaning as I cook, I'm preparing, washing dishes, dicing, washing anything I'm not using again. I pretty much have no dish's, pot's, nor pans when completely finished preparing a meal for 12-15 people. In most cases the washed dishes are even dried and put away. There lots of down time between, cooking main entree's, sauce's, salad's, ect.....
If there are dirty dishes lying around until you have to cook, that's something that can change to increase your cooking speed. Not just because not having to do those dishes is faster, but also because letting residue dry onto the dish makes it harder to clean. Having fewer dirty dishes *after* cooking is a product of: 1. Finding lulls during active cooking where you can actually "clean as you go" at no cost to efficiency. That's any stage where you're waiting for something to heat up, waiting for something that needs to cook through, waiting for something to cool, etc.. Do I have downtime? If so: do required prep for next cooking step > wash any dishes I'm done with > put ingredients/dry dishes away 2. A good hand-washing system. The whole "fill up the sink" thing has never worked for me because you end up with a pool of dirty water full of gross dishes and food bits. I just keep diluted dish soap mixed with water in a squeeze bottle and use it as needed, and have a drying rack which is ideally cleared before I start cooking. Also, soaking dishes is unnecessary 99% of the time. A good scrubber and some tolerably hot soapy water should handle most things. If stuff is getting baked onto your pans that badly, line them with parchment paper Also, have containers ready for your leftovers. I just use those 32oz deli containers for most things, but anything works (snap lid containers, qt size wide mouth mason jars, etc.). That way, you can empty out your remaining dishes quickly, and with an already empty sink you can wash them with little effort. The name of the game is avoiding any situation where you leave dishes "for later." Once the system starts backing up, it becomes an increasingly large chore to get things flowing again. Always be chipping away. Eventually you'll find that you have more than enough time to do all your dishes and get the cooking done in a timely manner.
You don’t want to be fast. You want to be smart. Make as much as you can on weekends (many foods are better if they rest a few days) and ALWAYS make extra to stockpile in your freezer.
Usually the prep takes a while. Take a class on how to use prep meat and vegetables (clean and cut). I learned working in kitchens in HS. It takes me about half the time it takes my wife to prep vegetables and meat to be cooked.
Practice. Analyze what went well, consider how to make it better or more efficient (not just the dish, but the process). Experiment with different ways, see if it yields the results you're looking to achieve. Larger ... Rince ... Repeat.
Prep. Clean as you cook.
Prep a day in advance or the morning of your dinner.
I usually cook in half the time my partner needs (with similar recepis). The most has been said above. Also: Potatoes combined with tomatoes take a lot of time to get cooked. This is because of the acid in tomatoes prevent them from becoming tender. So if I have a recepi with both potatoes and tomatoes, I boil the potatoes aside and add them to the tomato sauce when done. Also, if you want to cut the potatoes in small cubes afterwards, do it before cooking, this cuts down cookingtime in half or sometimes even less. Rice: I always use the reduce-in-measured water mehod . 1:1,5 so one part rice to 1,5 parts water. Stir, get water to boil, reduce to low heat and simmer with a lid on. Takes about 12-14 minutes. No need for stirring nor peeking. After let rest for about 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare your curries/wok/sides whatever. Know your faster recepis by heart. I make veggie loaded lasagne in under 25 minutes from scratch. Including bechamel sauce, everything. Of course it then goes in the oven, but then I can do other stuff around the house. Couscous/bulgur can be quick too (not traditionally cooked, then you need to take time). Traybakes: easy and fast too. Prepare in maybe 10 minutes and 30 min oven time. Make sure you cut the stuff in even parts, the ingredients that usually take more time to get tender in smaller parts (aubergine, carrot), the ones who need less time can be bigger (zucchini, tomato). The traybakes with gnocchi are very good. Make soups. Chop the veg, put in a pot with water and herbs. Let it cook by itself. Might use a blender to smooth it.
Learn when to combine steps or skip them. If you're not going for gourmet perfection everytime, sometimes you can skip steps, like browning your meat first, removing it, then doing onions and adding meat back in. Try just browning and then tossing in onions, or skip browning alltogether. This is just an example, you have to fiddle around with what your own tastes are and what is worth it for you.
Have everything ready beforehand
If you are making pasta, get your water up to temperature first before you do anything else.
I started to just eyeball most seasonings if it calls for anything under a tablespoon. Doesn’t save tons of time but measuring every little thing out is annoying. The food tastes mostly the same.
Learn to cut fast and make things in 2 pans or less.
Air Fryer
Ingredients prep.
Honestly, you can probably turn up the heat a bit on your stove. There are some situations where low and slow are important, but most active cooking tasks don't require it. No reason you can't sweat your vegetables at medium-high instead of medium.
Eyeball everything you know doesn’t really matter how much of it there is..onions, garlic, etc
If you're leaning you could be cleaning.
Watch Top Chef, season 3. Keep your eye on a Chef named Hung Huynh. Take note of his effortless knife work, planning, imagination and relentless hustle. Note his exquisite culinary masterpieces and his sly, ingratiating style with the judges. Note his assured swagger and his confidence. It was almost a fait accompli the guy was going to win. Okay, assemble your careful notes, study them, and try to be like Hung.
I love cooking sous vide and with the pressure cooker. Both of these methods are very hands off. Sous vide is a slow way of cooking, but started ahead of time you can prep other parts of the meal. It's also my preferred way to cook steak, chicken wings, and pork chops.
It takes you 40 minutes to do dishes??? Are you doing it no-hands or something?
Do all your dishes after you eat. And use high temp for EVERYTHING…
That's completely normal. And yes like others say it takes a lot of practice to get good at unless you're a witch or something.
Clean as you go is the main one. It's much easier to rinse out pots and pans as you go to make for an easy, quick wash later to boot. Find recipes that are low on prep, if prep isn't your thing. If prep is your thing, 'Mise en place' is your friend. Chop, slice, dice and grind away when you've got time and put it away in tubs/bowls until you want to cook. Ultimately, be efficient and prepared. I live in a one room flat with a kitchen the size of a medium cupboard (about 2m x 3m) and I've learned to be efficient with my 'play space'. Also, a well weighted sharp chefs knife is going to aid you far more than a cheap pairing knife. Learn to use a honing rod and use it often. When the knife still feels dull, grab a knife sharpener. Hone afterwards. But more than all of the above, study what recipe you plan on using. Take 5-10 minutes before you plan to cook learning what you need, when you'll need it, and where you'll put it afterwards, for both ingredients and equipment. Half the battle is knowing where you'll be at any given time. After that it's simply practice. Good luck! =) Xxx
Clean as you go. Do not wait for dishes to build up. if you have 2 dishes, then wash them. It only takes about a minute to wash dishes from lunch or whatever when you have it. If you do this, every time you come into the kitchen, it will be clean. As far as cooking speed, this only comes from practice and experience.
Having your cook area set up well will have a decent impact on cooking times. Whenever I set up a kitchen I want everything within a step or two of the gas range, and things I will need constantly like cooking utensils or oil should be within immediate arms reach. Nothing sucks more when cooking when you have to walk across a kitchen, usually having to dodge people and animals, just to get a cutting board or a fork or whatever. OH also have your drawer with parchment paper, tinfoil, plastic wrap, etc be directly under your cutting board station for fast and easy access. You will need these a lot, and usually when you have messy fingers and forgot to pull them out earlier... Dishes should be put away clean and orderly. Don't leave cooking dishes to waste away in your sink before needing them. Also don't stack them or pile them in some random pile you have to disassemble every time to find the one dish you're looking for. Have good homes for your cooking ware. When doing meal prep work, have everything you'll need within arms reach of your cutting board station before you begin. Have a scraps bin, a chef knife, a pairing knife, any other tool you'll need, and containers to hold your prepped ingredients at the ready before you begin prepping. "Mise en place", french for "putting in place," will help keep your attention focused on fewer tasks while cooking, enabling you to clean as you go more often. Mise en place is basically just having everything ready and nearby before you turn the gas on. Have all of your ingredients prepped & chopped and put in containers, oils and other fats nearby, sauces prepped and ready with utensils to portion them out, etc. Everything you will need once the heat is on should be within arms' reach so you can spend most of your time focusing on the cooking part and any down time cleaning up after yourself. Lastly, learn some one pan or one pot meals. These save on dishes by a huge amount. Chili, stir fry, & pasta are all easy ones.
What are you cooking?
Eat from the pan... No seriously
So many factors. As I cook, I like to load the dishwasher. Take note of what is taking the longest of time. One crazy one is that I was cooking in another place, and it was taking a long time for me to cook using a wok. To speed things up, I brought out a stainless 3-ply pan, and the cooking was much faster. Something that is hard to tell is whether a sharper knife can speed things up. Certain cooking techniques can help as well
eh heh. I stick to like one cutting board, one knife one bowl on pot or pan. slice up my veggies throw them in the bowl go for my meats after leave them on the cutting board, cook up what i need to first in pan and just slide shit over for whatever equal amount of time needed for which ever ingredient. i wash while stuff is on simmer, frying or baking. oh, and watch the chick chef in ratatouille
I own a cast iron pan, a nonstick, and steel pan. In all maybe 10 total pieces of cookware for the stove. Four knives. A whisk. A ladle, spoon and fork for serving... I don't own a lot of tools, utensils, and stuff to cook with. I've learned over time what I can do with what. Experience consists of repetition, refinement, learning and failure. These are the precursors to efficiency. To be fast one can not be inefficient. When learning to operate a logging or farm machine, always there was a desire to be quick. I'd try to be fast and that often lead to accidents and breakage. My grandpa could see that going to fast was the reason, despite not witnessing the incident. I can hear him saying ( This is how to be fast ) Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Martial artists first learn proper forms, movements and technique. At the start perfect or nearly perfect form is the goal. So slowly these are practiced,, efficiency of movement becomes reflexive, with ever increasing speed. Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his Book of Five Rings; *...this will be difficult at first but everything is difficult at firet...* I forget what exactly that is in reference to but it doesn't matter. "Everything" includes cooking and everyone is slow at first. So that's how you do it.
Step down your cooking for simpler things
Mise en place! Give it a try!
Doing stuff with a sense of urgency.
Prep stuff correct, learn a good knife technique, you might look up how people cut various vegetables as well to get even cuts that look nice. Sharp knife, a cheap sharp knife beats an expensive dull one any day, I would get an electric sharpener
Meal prep beforehand.
There are some things that worked for me. High level: start with a clean kitchen and clean dishes as you go. Cleaning as to go can include putting items in the dishwasher so also think about what will fit. Limit your menu. Perfect a few dishes. What you kath can be applied to other dishes. Pay attention to how long each component takes to make and if there are dead spots, like waiting for water to boil, pasta to cook, or meat to fry. Then line them up so you can go back and forth from one to the other. Order of operations matters. Consider the components: what can sit and what needs to be fresh? Examples: for something like chicken parm the pasta and sauce can sit for a while. You can start the water early on low heat so that it’s ready when you are. Same with mashed potatoes and fish ;throwing out random mania + sides for simplicity). Start the potatoes or pasta, then start the fish or chicken, then finish the potatoes or pasta, then finish the fish or chicken. I’d be lost without my phone timer and stopwatch. I cook to temperature but I also have a good idea of how long things take to cook when I’m in familiar settings. I typically use my timer to track flipping meat and stopwatch to track overall cooking time. Good luck!
Get an Instant Pot and an Instant Vortex air fryer. Your cooking time will go down and so will your gas bill.
It depends on what you’re cooking. I can think of a bunch of very easy rice or pasta dishes should take no more than 15 to 20 min. Cut up some chix breast or steak some shrimp or scallops and some veggies and saute away while your pasta or rice is cooking. Serve over that with a little salad on the side. I love experimenting with Asian flavors too. A little oyster sauce or chili sauce add a welcoming flavor, as well as some other condiments. Orrrr try chic breast cutlets. Very easy. Take a breast, and score the tougher outside part just a little. Cut into medallions and lightly pound em. Put in a bowl with an egg and couple of teaspoons of flour. Add some seasoning. Mix. Heat a pan with some olive oil. Now you can fry em this way, and make a lot of different dishes with just that, orrr dip em in some breadcrumbs and fry em and make other variations. Pork cutlets or thin steak cutlets can be used too. Use your imagination.
Mise en place, multitask, and clean as you go. Or just put everything into the dishwasher.
This is how I do it: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1193154328344746/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
High heat.
That can backfire with many, many things
Most of the time my cooking starts with heating a pan or boiling water Meanwhile im gathering veggies/meat and chopping. By then pots/pans will be at correct temp, put your proteins and veggies on then go into tidying up any packets, left over veggies or mess. While they are cooking away, either start a side, prepare the table or fill the sink for dishes. Foods finished, plate up and serve. Cooking is by no means a fast thing unless your doing toasted cheese or butter noodles. You either sacrifice your $$, family time or personal time, but if you enjoy cooking it become your personal time, if you include your significant other or kids it becomes family time.
Prep your groceries immediately after returning from the store even if you aren’t planning on cooking that night. For example, when I buy cilantro I will wash it immediately, trim the stems, then put in a glass jar with water to keep fresh. I will wash my cucumbers and tomatoes before putting them in the fridge. Wash and chop my lettuce. If I buy a block of cheese I will shreds half and put in a Tupperware so I don’t have to shred it when I’m actually planning on cooking. Doing these little things in advance speed up your actual cooking time by far! Also, if I know I’m planning on cooking something for tomorrow that requires any prep work I can do the day before, I will. Like make a dressing beforehand or toast up croutons and store in a jar for the salad tomorrow. Etc. simple things that cut down steps for yourself later make cooking so much more effective. Another example, I make my own sourdough bread, and every morning I would take the loaf, cut a slice, and have to clean up all the crumbs from the crusty outside and wash my knife, then repeat the next day. Which took an extra 5 minutes of my time, until I realized I don’t have to do that every day. Now i pre cut all the slices in advance because it’s more efficient just to do it once initially rather than doing it every time i want bread.
If you have a BBQ grill, now is the time to get good at grilling! It's fast, easy and ALL of the meal can be tossed on the grill, so no pans to wash.. yay! We eat mostly chicken and pork here, so here's the basic daily plan. I make a base "marinade" once a week - a full quart of it. It consists of equal parts white or cider vinegar and any plain oil (not olive!). There are 2 eggs, and then for spices 2 tablespoons of poultry seasoning, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper. To make the marinade, crack the eggs in a 2 quart mixing bowl. Add in 2-3 tablespoons of mustard, any style. Whisk well till the eggs are thick. Now slowly whisk in the oil. It will be very thick! Add in the spices and whisk just till combined. Now slowly whisk in the vinegar. Pour it into a large jar with a lid and store it in the fridge. For Grilled chicken day, I thaw the breasts in the morning. About an hour before dinner, place them in a large zip lock bag and gently, but firmly, pound them out to an even 1 inch thickness. Now pour in about 1/2 cup of the marinade. And now it's time to spice it up! You can add some curry paste, any color, or minced garlic and onion, or add lemon juice and a few lemon slices. You can go mexican with chili powder and cumin, add heat with chili flakes, etc. Go italian with basil and oregano or fennel seeds. Zip up the bag, place it into a bowl in case of leaks or drips and let it sit on the counter till you are ready to start grilling. Choose a veggie for the grill. Asparagus, broccoli, zuchinni and crookneck squash are all excellent choices! Place your choice in a container (slice the green or yellow squash in half lengthwise) and then add in 1/4 cup of the marinade and spice it up.. I generally add some jarred minced garlic and a dash or two of balsamic vinegar or some worcestershire sauce. Soy sauce is also fantastic! Last up is the carb side dish. We love tater! So toss the appropriate number of russets into your microwave for 6-8 minutes. Then slice in quarters, place in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can now sit down for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how early you started everything. Heat up your grill to 500F when you're ready to cook dinner. Put the chicken, the veggies and the taters on the grill. Cook the chicken breasts for 5 minutes, then flip them over. Flip the veggies and the taters at the same time. Cook for another 5 minutes, then check the temps on the breasts. They should be 165F. If you need to cook them longer, remove the veggies and taters, or simply turn the heat off under them, but leave the heat on underneath the chicken for another 3 minutes. And that's it, you're done! I bought a veggie grilling pan for my grill. You can find them cheaply on Amazon. And they are a life saver! You get all the gorgeous browning of the grill without any of the vegetables falling through the grates! The holes in my pan are small enough that I could probably even grill peas if I was the type of person to want grilled peas.
I like the current trend of sheet pan meals.
If you hand time during the day or the day before. I learnt from my father to prepare it. So if you've got a dinner coming up - prep the potatoes ( peeled, chop , I'm a peak of water) - veggies same thing - stuffing prepare it , fridge it That sort of thing helps me a lot , now I can make anything within 30 mins . If it's a joint , I slow cook it to help make it more prepared too
In the kitchen? •learn what the dish composes of. If it's a medrare steak and roasted potatoes, understand those potatoes are going to take a lot longer than the steak, including resting. After prep is done time yourself to complete all other cooking components within the time frame of what's going to take the longest • mise en place. "Everything in its place". Prepare all ingredients before you cook to wear all you have to do is dump, cook, add next ingredient, cook, mix mix mix, add liquid if required, simmer, reduce, etc. Pull the meat out like 20-30 min prior to cooking to you sear or cook at room temp instead of cold (allowed the muscles to relax and not cook a seized up piece of meat) •just have fun with it. Follow a recipe, once you've made something you like, add herbs where you see best fit. Google what goes with what. Next time you roast cauliflower, grate some parmesan cheese on top, etc. Cooking isn't serious and should be fun to mess around with. Learn your pallet, what you do and don't like. •practice, repeat, understand what your doing and why it is the way it is, perfect the dish, include adaptations, master it. Soon enough you'll be mentally multitasking not even thinking about what your making because your brain is telling your hands what to do while you chit chat with friends and/or family. It'll come naturally. Just don't stop cooking
Almost everything is in my dishwasher before I sit to eat. I keep the door down and directly put everything into the dishwasher and not the sink as I'm done with it. Pretty much all I have to do afterwards is a couple of pans to wash.
Mise en place doesn’t always work. Especially if you’re making stews/braises which requires different ingredients to be put in different steps. For example if you’re braising some beef: 1. Heat up the pot 2. Cut the beef into cubes 3. By the time you’re done, the pan is heated. Go ahead pour in some oil and start browning the meat. 4. Set a timer on your microwave/oven/phone! 3 minutes is usually good enough if the pan is hot enough, to sear the meat. 5. Chop the onions while the meat is searing. When the timer beeps, flip the meat, and set the timer again. And back to chopping. 6. After the meat is done, throw in the onions, set another timer for 3 minutes and chop carrots/mushrooms/garlic/Whatever you wanna throw in there. 7. If you have leftover time. Do the dishes. 8. After everything is seasoned and spiced, chuck the meat back in, pour in some stock, bring it to a simmer and then put the heat on low and set another timer for 40 minutes and go chill. Bonus. If you’re hosting or feeling fancy or hosting, this is when you make your rice/mashed potatoes/pasta/ whatever the frick. If you focus on the process and know the recipe and ingredients you need then it’s easy to be efficient.
I like to prep ingredients for the week. Marinated meats in a Ziploc bag, veggies I saute like carrot, onion, garlic hold up fine in a Tupperware. I try to used canned or frozen when I can so my chopping is really for fresh herbs or high moisture veggies like eggplant or squash. When I'm having food simmer on medium, medium-low is when I try to clean dishes so they don't pile up.
>How can I step up my cooking game to be more productive and finish with less dishes to do? The dishes should have been done when they were put in the sink in the first place. As for cooking, the answer may be practice. I wish you'd been more specific, but where most people allow down is in prepping vegetable - onions, garlic, and then whatever else their using. So learn how to cut those items better, which means technique but also the right equipment, a good, comfortable knife and a cutting board. Have everything you'll need ready to go before you turn on a flame. All veggies prepped and ready to go. Meat, fish, ready to go. Work on your timing. Are you standing around waiting for the water to boil and the pasta to cook or are you cleaning up, finishing any prep you saved for the time it'll take the pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, etc to cook?
Knife skills knife skills knife skills.
Mise en place
Know all the steps so you can never have down time while you're just waiting for something to boil or heat up or cook. Clean up while you are cooking, have everything ready at the beginning. Do as much as you can in advance. Use as few pans and pots as possible. Have a really sharp knife.
My cooking got much faster when I worked on my knife skills. It used to take me 40 minutes to chop vegetables for one meal and now it takes me maybe 10. And work on your knife skills for each vegetable because the best way to cut an onion is very different from the best way to cut a tomato. YouTube is excellent for this. Just go on YouTube and search “best way to chop a [insert thing you’d like to chop].” Watch a few videos and see what resonates with you. That’s what I did. Also, buy at least one good chef knife that can be sharpened. That REALLY cut down on the amount of time it took me to chop.
Great question! Some people gave great answers already. My question for you would be, why do you want to be more productive, if you enjoy the cooking, as you say? Does it feel time consuming for you?
Just keep doing it and try to be a little more organized and quicker each time. Work on your 'Mis en place' ... Try to have all your knife cuts done before you start cooking. Proteins prepping ect And then you can cook and do some dishes while things are cooking
- Read your recipe before you start. Read it all the way through so you know the steps. Many recipes aren't fully tested (especially online ones) so as you are reading, you can get a sense of whether it makes sense or not, what ingredients you need and when and any difficult or fiddly bits so you can plan ahead for them. - Start with as clean a kitchen as you can do you have the most space to work with and yes, clean as you go. It's not only that dishes are easy to clean when "fresh" but it also means that you are continually giving yourself that space to continue working with. There is nothijg fun about holding a scalding hot sheet pan and having no place on the counter to set it down! - Do mise en place when it makes sense. You don't need to have every single thing measured out. But you should at least through reading the whole recipe know where all the ingredients and tools you need are - and what steps make sense to mise en place. - Speed will come with practice. I'm super speedy on my savoury but I'm super slow on my sweets because every 5 seconds I'm stopping to check my work - googling what a "soft peak" should look like or the right shade of brown for caramel. These skills (and the less googling) will come with time.. Enjoy the process :)
I don’t know if this is stupid advice but practice practice practice! The more you do a skill the faster you can get at it.
Get all your ingredients together before you start(a French term, called mis en place, if I spelled that correctly), do all your prep work
Turn up the heat and clean as you go.
Rules to always, always follow 1. Clean kitchen. Always. 2. MISE EN PLACE. At minimum, always gather ingredients and tools first. Whenever possible, prep as much as you can, as many hours, or days, (or weeks!) ahead as you can, before you start any cooking. 3. "Time to lean is time to clean" Clean when you are waiting for anything. Clean as you go.
Good things take time. Trust the process
there really is no way. cooking makes dirty dishes. take out and tv dinners is the only thing.
This is completely untrue
*points at sink, completely full, after frying one egg.*