Lack of time. It’s the knife that twists in every mom’s back. Whether our day is overflowing with business obligations, family care responsibilities or volunteering our talents where needed most, by the time it comes to planning or making dinner, our energy is predictably spent. 

Right about the time our families get hangry we are ready to call it quits.

Cue the time saving dinner prep hacks.

I’ll let you in on a balaboosta’s secret. Not everything needs to be made from scratch every exhausting night. Using these time saving, energy preserving cooking hacks will not make you a bad mom or a terrible cook. Nor will they turn you into Martha Stewart or Ina Garten. They will, however, allow you to enjoy your time in the kitchen without resenting your family- preserving your smile for when you’ll share it with your family at meal time.

Easy Meal Prep Steps

Not all meal prep needs to be done in conjunction with an elaborate weekly meal plan. There are two basic elements to meal prepping. The first is chopping extra vegetables and other ingredients for meals and placing them, uncooked, in containers for use at another time. The second is actually preparing or cooking some or all aspects of a meal and then refrigerating, storing or freezing it for use at a future time. Here are some simple examples of meal prepping you can do to shave time off of your nightly dinner routine.

Prep what you can when you are putting away your groceries.

Make a big salad that you can use throughout the week in different ways- Think of it as a salad base for lemon chicken with garlic and herbs or as the filling for your protein on a Taco Tuesday night! If you know you will be cooking with onions during the week, why not dice, slice or chop a few extra while you have the time and store them in a container in the fridge. They’ll be all prepped and ready to use when you are in a time crunch later in the week. Same goes for broccoli and cauliflower.

Be flexible with your dinner plans

It’s easy to throw together a delicious meal in a pinch if you have a well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer. Business meeting running late, or your children’s sport’s event going into overtime? There go your plans to make a lasagna for dinner.

Don’t be deterred and thrown off kilter. Just loosen up on your definitions and you’ll be good to go.

You got pastas, tomato sauce and cheese already on hand. Break apart your lasagna sheets or use a different pasta from your pantry, cook the pasta and toss with your cheeses and sauce. Deconstructed lasagna for dinner in minutes.

Make an extra batch of what you are cooking.

Double your batch of your grains, legumes or proteins when you cook them. You can use the extra as leftovers, repurpose them as part of a different meal later in the week or freeze them for when time is not on your side. 

Here’s an example of batch cooking-make twice as much rice as you need for your meal. Save the extra rice for a second night and repurpose it to make fried rice. I’ll let you in on a little secret-fried rice is always best when made with day-old rice and with batch cooking, you’re already partly done with cooking your next meal. Add protein to your fried rice (think roasted shrimp, leftover roast chicken – shredded or diced- and dinner is almost done with minimal cooking!

Make your spice blends in advance

Are you a Taco Tuesday type of planner? Instead of searching for your individual jars of spices and seasoning, why not blend a few of your favorite combinations in bulk? I’m not talking gallons of taco or Greek seasonings, just a spice jar or two. This way you can grab what you need to season a dish in one quick easy step. 

Of course you can also buy spice blends. Just don’t buy one of those super large containers. Dried spice blends lose their punch over time. If yours is on the shelf too long, you’ll know why your food is zagging when it should be zinging!

How to defrost in a pinch

We’ve all been there- so proud of ourselves for knowing what we’ll be making for dinner and it isn’t even 6 pm yet! Then BAM! Somewhere around 4:30 you realize you forgot to defrost the chicken the night before! Oh the best laid plans… Fear not, there is a quick fix to getting your small cuts of meats, chicken, fish and pork on your dinner table on time. Sorry, this method will not get you off the hook if you forgot to defrost large birds or roasts. 

Here’s what you need to do. Remove your frozen product from its packaging and place it in a sealable plastic bag. Submerge the bag in a bowl of COLD water. Change the water every 30 minutes. Your food should be defrosted in approximately one hour. 

If you have more than 1lb of frozen food, divide it into separate bags of approximately 1 pound each and submerge them in seperate bowls of water. 

If you have several cuts of meat frozen together, pull apart as soon as possible during thawing, place in separate bags and submerge in water in separate bowls to complete the thawing process.

Try utilizing these 5 time saving meal prep hacks to remove the stress from your last minute dinner time scramble. Less blood, sweat and tears, more fun and yum, are the best ingredients for a merry family meal. Now, let’s get cooking.

What dinner prep hacks do you like to use when trying to save some time in the kitchen?  Please share them in the comments below. We’d love to learn your secrets.