When it comes to preparing a meal during the week, most of us find we have little or no time. Making the most of our time in the kitchen with some Meal Hacks is essential for those with a Busy Lifestyle.

As with most things, planning is key. One of the most important tips for saving time in the kitchen is to plan ahead.

By doing things like creating a meal plan for the week you can help save time simply by knowing what you need in advance and saving the last minute scramble to figure something out.

Cook once, eat seven meals

One popular idea for creating time in the kitchen is to cook only once a week.

That doesn’t mean that you order takeout for the other six days, it means that you cook one day every week and make meals you only need to reheat on the rest of the days.

Cooking once a week solves several problems. You only have to heat your oven one time, chop up all of your meat and vegetables once and clean up once it is a huge time saver. Mind you, cooking time will be a lot longer than a simple one meal cook but it would be a tremendous timesaver throughout the rest of the week.

Don’t let yourself get too complicated. When you’re looking to save time, you are want to keep it short, sweet, and tasty. Don’t go looking for recipes that Martha Stewart would approve for a dinner party. It’s best to start off with a few easy recipes, using a few simple ingredients, and get to know them.

You can expand your repertoire later.

Keep your freezer full. As you go along you’ll find that sometimes you will need more food some days than others. Not having enough freezer-prepped food means that you’ll have to cook again.

There are a number of things that you can keep in the freezer for a long period of time like cooked meats and soups. Both can be stored for a few months if necessary, so make them in big batches.

Many people swear by their slow cooker. I have begun to swear by the Instant Pot. With the slow cooker, you can toss a whole bunch of frozen stuff in at the beginning of the day, turn it on, go to work, and then you’ll know that at the end of the day when you come home you will have a hot tasty meal.

With the Instant Pot you can use it as a slow cooker, or if you realize that at the last minute you have absolutely nothing In the freezer ready to be heated up, you can grab a whole bunch of frozen stuff pop it in the Instant Pot and use your pressure cooker feature in order to cook it up in 30-45 minutes. Without having to hover over it.

Frozen isn't all bad

Frozen produce is also a good friend of people on the go.

With fresh fruits and vegetables you have to worry about their counter life, but with the frozen variety, you get just as many if not more antioxidants and nutrients as their fresh counterparts without the worry of them going bad.

Don’t forget that it isn’t a sin to eat the same meal twice in a week. While this might not appeal to all cooks, there are also other ways of mixing things up. It is easy to make a batch of hamburger meat with onions and seasonings, and then just add different ingredients later at meal time. Add noodles one day with some tomato sauce, and a brown sauce the next with potatoes and vegetables. Doing this allows you to use the same meat dish but creates different flavored meals.

With a little planning, you could enjoy a savory meal every night of the week.
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