The Best Ways to Organize Your Kitchen to Save Time Cooking
One way to save time in the kitchen is to ensure that you’ve properly set up your kitchen to enable you to cook quickly. The best way to do this is to organize zones in your kitchen just like a professional kitchen does. Any type of cooking you do regularly needs its own zone to make it easy and with less mess.
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Set up Zones or Stations
For example, if you’re a coffee drinker, it’s not unusual to have a special coffee area in your kitchen or dining room. You may have the coffee maker set up, water nearby, your condiments, and additives right there too. That makes it easy to prepare, and since it’s always there, it’s always ready.
Do the same thing for anything you prepare regularly. For example, if you often bake, you need a baking zone. That’s where you will prepare anything you bake, which means the pans, the bowls, the oven, and the ingredients need to be as close as possible to that zone to make it easier and faster to get it out to use it.
Store Like with Like
In your fridge, you need to figure out where to put things according to how they need to be saved. For example, meat should be with your meat, and produce should be with your produce. It should be organized to the point that you can tell anyone right where to get the ingredient you need.
When you do this regularly, it’ll become a good habit. You’ll stop having to search for things and even waste food due to not being able to find the item. If your baking supplies are all together with baking supplies, you won’t have to turn the kitchen upside down to find that heart-shaped cookie cutter you want so desperately.
Don’t Forget Chopping
When you want to save money, you really need to have an area that makes it easy to wash, prepare, and, yes, chop your produce. When you think of that, you realize you’ll need easy trash or composing access, a sink with water to wash everything, and a place to set the ingredients once they’ve been prepared.
Think about the direction you’ll be taking the things as you chop. You’ll be going toward the fridge, and toward the stove, and toward the freezer. Because of that, you should set up your chopping station to lead away from the sink and toward the equipment you’ll be using to finish the product after you chop.
Remember also to have a spot for seasoning your meals. It’s much easier if your spices and herbs are in dishes that enable you to grab a pinch here and there instead of having to dig in the back of the cabinet for the right spice. That means that someplace in your chopping station, you should have easy access to the flavors you plan to incorporate into the meal.
