Episode 117 4 Tips for Getting Dinner On the Table Faster
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Getting dinner on the table every day can be a challenge. Use these four tips to help you on the extra-busy nights.
1- Plan Ahead
-If you know what you are making for dinner before you start cooking it will go faster.
-Get your free Weekly Meal Planning Sheet here.
-Think about prep. What can you do ahead of time like thawing meat or chopping veggies to make fixing dinner faster? Write it on your Weekly Meal Planning Sheet.
-Plan your day the night before and make sure you add time for fixing dinner.
2- Observe
-Track how long it really takes you to do kitchen tasks.
-Does it really take 10 minutes rather than 5 to make salads?
-How are your knife skills? Food pros often have really good knife skills and can work faster in the kitchen.
-Add the time it really takes to your cooking time.
3- Do things in the right order
-Consider how long it takes to cook the different elements of dinner.
-Start things like rice and pasta water before working on the rest of the meal.
-Task stack. Cook the meat while you are chopping veggies. For most recipes, you can have one element cooking while you are still prepping other elements.
-Get an apron. It keeps your clothes clean and tells your brain that you are in “cooking mode.”
-Set an alarm on your phone to remind you to start fixing dinner.
4- Try not to multi-task
-If you can, try to focus only on cooking.
-This is not the best time to chat on the phone or help your kids with homework.
You can get a transcript here.
Marie Fiebach is a married mother of four active kids. She helps busy families plan and execute weeknight dinner so they can recapture a little calm in the crazy. You can see her every week on KAKE TV’s Good Morning Kakeland or listen to the Feed Your Family Tonight Podcast.
