Easy Ways to Cook More If You’re a Busy Millennial

In response to my post on why many millennials don’t cook anymore, of course I had to share some tips and tricks for my peers who want to incorporate more homemade meals into their life!

1. Make a meal plan…

Sit down on Saturday or Sunday and write out what you want to cook for breakfast/lunch/dinner for the week. Only choose delicious meals that you will look forward to cooking, so you will get excited about sticking to your meal plan! I write out our dinners on a little chalkboard in the kitchen and look forward to all of the yummy-ness that will come out of my kitchen. Check out my meal planning success tips for some more ideas.

2. …and grocery shop for the entire week…

It sucks when you want to cook dinner, but you only have half of the ingredients available in your pantry and a extra grocery trip after work is just not going to happen. By doing all of your grocery shopping at the beginning of the week, you have all of your ingredients ready to go. And no one wants to waste food, so you have to cook! 🙂

3. …then do some meal prep on Sunday

A huge barrier towards cooking is that people often say they don’t have time to cook. Spending 1-2 hours in the kitchen on Sunday can cut cook time in half on weekdays. I bring my laptop into the kitchen and watch a TV show while doing all of the annoying cooking tasks that can be done ahead of time for my meal plan - chopping vegetables, roasting vegetables, hard boiling eggs, cleaning/marinating meats, making a bunch of grains.

4. Determine when it is easiest for you to swap homemade for store bought

If you never cook, you may want to try starting with homemade for just one meal a day. If you work til 8pm at night and dinner is always ordered to your workplace, maybe it’s easier to move towards cooking your breakfasts throughout the week and save $$ from grabbing Starbucks every day. If you always find yourself reaching for super processed cookies in the team room because you don’t bring your own snacks, maybe try making a big batch of hummus and portioning out veggies and crackers throughout the week. Let’s go for the low-hanging fruit before we try and overhaul your lifestyle!

5. Cook things you want to eat

It might sound crazy, but if you are cooking things that don’t actually appeal to your appetite, then you won’t enjoy cooking. Sometimes this happens if you choose a restrictive diet that doesn’t allow you to enjoy a variety of foods, and it kind of ruins the pleasure of cooking

6. Find a routine…

There’s a reason why your mom came up with things like “taco tuesday” and “pork chop wednesday” is because it took the planning/guessing work about what to cook for dinner. There are still plenty of options within each of those dinners, but if you get 5-6 delicious and healthy meals under your belt, just keep ’em on repeat! Some of the regulars in my routine include this Baked Chicken in Veggie Couscous, roasted fish like this one or this one, and I always have the ingredients on hand for my favorite salad.

7. …but try one new recipe a week!

Trying one new recipe a week keeps things fun and entertaining for your tastebuds. Maybe do it on a Saturday night and invite some friends over to help! A few weeks ago I tried Paleomg’s 5-Ingredient Spaghetti Pie for the first time - delicious! You never know, the experimental recipe may become one of your regulars!

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