These time saving cooking tips help speed up dinner on hectic nights. A little prep goes a long way toward eating healthier at home! Knowing a few tasks are out of the way can actually make the difference between cooking dinner and eating out. Try combining these tips in when you’re already prepping a dinner – for instance when you need to chop garlic, make frozen garlic cubes. This can really add up in the long run.
Time Saving Cooking Tips
- Make Frozen Garlic & Ginger Cubes
- Prep Veggies for Two Days at a Time
- Double the Recipe & Freeze Half
- Buy Extra Meat, Dry Brine, then Freeze
- Freeze Marinaded Meat
- Meal Plan Strategically so Leftovers Become Soup
- Invest in a Food Processor
More detail on each of these strategies below is outlined below.
1. Make Frozen Garlic and Ginger Cubes
Frozen garlic and ginger cubes have saved me countless hours at this point. Being able to pop a garlic or ginger cube into whatever dish that called for chopped garlic or chopped ginger is SO nice. Next time you go to buy garlic, buy a big bag of pre-peeled garlic and an extra large piece of ginger, then follow the easy steps below.
Garlic cubes
- To make the garlic cubes, wash the pre-peeled garlic and put it on a towel to pat dry.
- Using a food processor, chop the garlic into a small dice.
- Set aside what you need to use for dinner that day. Then put the rest into an ice cube tray using a rubber spatula to press it in.
- Pop into the freezer to let it freeze over night.
- The next day, or when you remember, pop the garlic cubes out of the tray using hot water on the bottom of the tray to loosen it up if needed. Then store in an airtight freezer bag.
- Be sure to label your garlic bag to be able to tell it from ginger cubes.
Ginger cubes
- To make ginger cubes, use a spoon to quickly peel a large piece of ginger. Knives are slower and take more of the usable ginger off. Alternatively if you see fresh ginger, you don’t even have to peel it!
- If you can’t get into the ginger crevices, break it into smaller pieces to finish peeling.
- Put all peeled ginger into the food processor and chop finely.
- Set aside what you need to use for dinner that day. Then put the rest into an ice cube tray using a rubber spatula to press it in.
- Pop into the freezer to let it freeze over night.
- The next day, or when you remember, pop the ginger cubes out of the tray using hot water on the bottom of the tray to loosen it up if needed. Then store in an airtight freezer bag.
- Be sure to label your ginger bag to be able to tell it from garlic cubes.
2. Prep Veggies for Two Days at a Time
When we go to the grocery store we generally buy vegetables for at least two meals. But if you’re anything like me, I usually forget what I was going to make with the rest of the veggies after a few days. A good cure to this and speed up dinner later in the week is to prep the vegetables for two days instead of one.
So if you need onion for both today and tomorrow, just double the onion prep and store half in an airtight container in the fridge. Or when you’re finished prepping for today and you have a few minutes left, go ahead and chop up the remaining vegetables for tomorrow. The exception to is oxidizing produce, such as avocado, potato and eggplant. Once you chop it, just be sure to use it within a few days.
3. Double the Recipe & Freeze Half
Soups, curries, pasta dishes, bread and even meats all do well in the freezer. In fact, the only I avoid freezing are crispy things unless they can be baked back to crispness. Then it is so easy to pull out a dish and reheat it for dinner when you’re tired or short on time!
Once you know you like the dish, double it and freeze half. I love these Pyrex 11-cup glass containers for freezing food, so I can pop it straight into the microwave or oven from the freezer. I’ve had them for about 9 years and haven’t had one break yet!
4. Buy Extra Meat, Dry Brine, then Freeze
Buying meat in bulk can save you money as well as time in the future. Although, it’s best to prep the meat when you first buy it rather than freezing it in one large container otherwise it’ll be hard to separate out later.
Prep Meat for Freezing
- First Dry Brine the meat, which is a fancy way of saying sprinkle on 3g of salt per lb of meat. The salt permeates the meat and help it stay tender, flavorful and juicy.
- Chop into the size you typically use. I like to do some small chunk chicken for soup or large chunk beef for curries. Or just keep it whole and you can chop it later.
- Add to freezer bags or vacuum sealer bags or in 1 to 2 lb quantities.
- Press as much air out as possible from the bag or use a vacuum sealer.
- Label indicating the meat, chop size, if you dry brined it and the date so you know what order to use it in.
5. Freeze Marinades or Marinaded Meat
When marinating meat for a dish, buy extra meat and ingredients so you can double the marinade and freeze half of it. Or you can use an ice cube tray to freeze it in cubes, so it’s easy to pop out, dethaw and marinate your next meal.
Another options is you can make a few marinades the day you buy the meat in bulk and marinade a few options for prep that week. This is a great option if you like grilled or roasted chicken on your salad or along with a vegetable side as it makes it so easy to pull out and cook.
6. Meal Plan Strategically so Leftovers Become Soup
For ingredients that take a while to make, double them and eat them separately the first night and turn them into soup later in the week. For example, if you want to make Chicken Wild Rice Soup or Chicken Noodle Soup, roast the chicken breast the night before for dinner. You can make wild rice or potatoes too as a side the night before and use the leftovers in soup. For potatoes, just make sure it’s cut to the size you want it in the soup, cause it’s hard to cut cleanly once cooked. Roasting butternut squash for one night, then turning into soup the next will give it that yummy roasted flavor in the soup.
7. Invest in a Food Processor
A good food processor can be a workhouse in the kitchen. From chopping onion to greens, it can really save time. I love this small 3.5 cup Kitchen Aid food processor as I use it for garlic, ginger, onion, pepper, tomatoes, marinades, chopped nuts, and so much more. The small size makes it so easy to pull out and clean, so it’s really become my go to food processor. This large Kitchen Aid food processor is a great choice if you need to be able to chop a lot of food all at once, such as greens or hummus.
I hope these time saving cooking tips help you enjoy more family mealtime magic and keep those healthy habits going strong!
