I genuinely want to stop ordering takeout so much, but by the time I’m done with work, the thought of cooking feels overwhelming. I’ve tried meal prepping and even simple recipes, but the motivation just isn’t there
How do you get yourself to consistently cook at home when you’re mentally exhausted after work?
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I cook a bunch of meals on one day and freeze them so the rest of the week I only have to worry about pulling something out and reheating . If I feel up for it, sometimes I’ll still cook something and the frozen meal lasts a long time, I just restock the frozen inventory once a week so I can be lazy the rest if I want to.
get a crock pot or instant pot. plan out what you wanna make in them and just throw the ingredients in the night before or the morning of. you can make a lot of satisfying meals in them and it’s pretty foolproof.
Cook a big meal over the weekend that will give you leftovers for a few days. Crockpot meals during the work week. Freeze things that are easy to whip up if you need something fast.
The key is making very simple meals and letting technology help you.
Pick recipes with fewer ingredients and steps. When possible, let technology handle a few of those steps.
Select your meal before you go to work so you don’t have to expend mental energy on decision making. Having a weekly routine (Taco Tuesday, for example) also helps because you can do some recipes on auto-pilot to give your brain a rest.
Even if you do semi-homemade, it’ll possibly save a bit compared to takeout.
Use that bored time at work to dream of what you fancy eating, and make sure it’s tasty, potentially even expensive ingredients, but with at least one major part that is quick to make. Then make lots of portions of whichever parts of it will freeze well. So I often have something like a good steak or chop that I will cook fresh, but serve with something that works well defrosted and heated but takes a while to make, like culcannon or mushroom vol-au-vents or a dijonaise sauce or whatever. Plus to make yourself a bit healthier with more energy during the week add in something fresh and green that you can steam whilst the meat is cooking and resting.
Habit for me. I’ve got a routine set up work home cook doesn’t have to be anything big could be an omelette but the habit itself needed to be made first then the bigger cooking meals came afterwards
Hunger.
Hunger and the need save money.
A lot of people will say meal prep, but personally I hate doing that. I just try lots of recipes until I find ones that I actually want to eat and are really easy to do. Also, find shortcuts. Pre chopped frozen veg for example, or locked pickled minced garlic (I can’t stand chopping garlic, and presses are impossible to clean).
ChatGPT is AMAZING for this. You can ask it anything, for example if you like a recipe but you find there’s one particular element of it you don’t like doing, or you don’t have a particular ingredient, it will come up with alternatives. Write down the changes as your own recipes. I’ve even got it to come up with a few recipes from scratch, which I’ve then tweaked.
I spend about 90 minutes every couple days (4-5) making fresh food and divide it into portions.
So I can eat fresh and fast without spending a long time buying, cooking and washing the dishes.👌🏼😉👍🏼
A cheap rice cooker and a crockpot will prove themselves a million times over. I get a family pack of chicken. I wash it well and season it put it in the crockpot and cook it all at once then freeze meal sized portions. I fry up onions and garlic, and put it in serving sizes in the freezer. I season and cook ground beef to divide up also. I always have boxes of noodles and rice on hand and it’s surprising how many different meals you can cook with just a few staples like this.
Leftovers. Stews, soups, dips, tacos, etc
With any of those exhausting chores, I’ve found it helps to watch the clock and time how long it actually takes to do them. It always takes less time than I think it would. I can often put together a good dinner in twenty minutes. When I consider that DoorDash would take longer than that and cost a whole lot more, it’s much easier to get up and do it.
If you don’t have the energy to prep vegetables in advance (just cleaning and cutting them, then storing in the fridge), I recommend bagged frozen veggies that you can just throw in a pan or the microwave. Get a rotisserie chicken or frozen cutlets or something so it’s far less prep and you can just throw it on the stove. Par-cooked rice (like minute rice or the refrigerated bags from Trader Joe’s), frozen potatoes, pasta that you just need to boil. Keep staples like oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup, hot sauce. That way you can even just throw it all on a sheet pan and set the oven timer.
For a few days a week at least, plan slow cooker meals.
Throw meat on for the day, come home and have whatever you cooked with a cup of microwave minute rice. Portioned and 1 minute cook.
Or throw it in a bun with bagged salad on the side.
Or, microwave a potato and a box of corn.
Stock up on boxes of soup stock
Microwave rice
Microwave veggies in the box
Fresh buns
Meal prepping is the only way! A lot of people do it wrong or make it too complicated. If you don’t have an instant pot, I highly recommend investing in one. I bought a handful of reusable bags and I always have chili, a bag of marinated meat (chicken, pork, chuck roast), some sort of soup. Pop a bag out of the freezer, dump into the instant pot, pressure cook for 20 minutes. Dinner is done. One pot to clean.
I’m going to start meal prepping again.
Some basic protein – say some salmon.
Pop it in the oven for 35 mins on 180
5 mins before it’s done, make a quick salad.
If you’re feeling adventurous, get loads of jacket potatoes and on Sunday, pop em in the oven at 180 for 1hour 20 minsish and then you’ve got your carbs sorted for every day of that week.
Chicken breast, chuck it in the oven when you get in. 50 mins – cook 4 in one go, then you’ve got tomorrow’s lunch. Have it with a potato and salad.
You’ll begin varying the salads before you know it.
Sometimes do the same with a steak.
It’s super quick and healthy and tastes great.
Recently I’ve bought some pho stock cubes as I love Vietnamese. I can now knock up a fairly authentic tastic pho soup in about 10 mins.
Rice noodles take 4 mins to cook.
So many quick dishes available – this is how I time save.
I meal plan on Thursday and shop Saturday morning. Depending on my
Menu I will do some meal prep right away – cutting veggies etc. I have an instant pot and slow cooker and often put everything together on Saturday and pop it into the freezer or fridge so all I have to do it throw it in and turn it on. Every other week I do something big batch and freeze for emergency dinners.
Start with simple meals, grocery shop with recipes in mind so you have what you need and have a snack when you leave work so you’re not starving when to get home
Knowing that one family meal in take away equals a week worth of home cooked meals….
You make cooking not exhausting. Meal prepping (to whatever extent you want, this doesn’t have to mean 7 pre-packed meals that are exactly the same), you learn how to make quick food. You buy gadgets if it’ll help you. The more you do it, the easier it will become.
Meal prepping can be preparing something like rice, beans, couscous or some other ‘base’ that you can add many different things to, pre-cooking meat, pre-chopping vegetables, making smoothies or other healthy snacks, etc. There’s nothing wrong with buying frozen, micro-waved steamed vegetables.
slowcooker is your friend.
airfryer can be useful to.
as well as EASY recipies that can be done in an oven
Crock pot/Instapot … Do a busget
Planning ahead. I make a meal plan for 3-4 days, shop, and cook enough so there will be leftovers for at least 2-4 days.
There’s a lot of ways, and depending on my mood and schedule I alternate between different options:
immediately after shopping, make sure every ingredient is easy to use. For example, if you have berries have them washed and ready to eat. Got three recipes this week that need onions? Chop them all at once in a food processor, portion and refrigerate/freeze so that they are ready to go after work. Ready in seconds and you have way less dishes. Salad? Washed and ready for just seasoning etc. seasoning? Ideally you mixed a jar at the weekend and that’s ready too. Your mid week meals will be ready much faster when all the ingredients are ready to use
meal prepping your dishes ahead of the week. If I have no plans on Sunday I like preparing various meal ahead of time that I can then just reheat in minutes
partial meal prepping: marinate your meat or fish, have some side salads ready to go. Maybe make a big batch of porridge or soup so a component of your dinner is ready to go. Actually searing a chicken breast in a pan while boiling pasta is faster than you think.
swap around the order for your food: some dishes simply taste best when they are fresh, and in many cultures it’s common to have a full cooked and warm meal with meat or protein for breakfast. You could cook in the morning, take the leftovers to lunch and in the evening when you’re tired and have no motivation you could simply have some granola, protein shake or yoghurt.
Ultimately, maybe think about what’s most important to you, and also what you hate the most. That could look completely different from person to person: special dietary needs/allergies? Maybe cooking from scratch can’t be avoided but maybe get a hand by having your groceries delivered? Meal planning too cumbersome but you actually love cooking? Get an AI to do the planning. Short on time because you have a demanding job? Maybe spend a bit more and get boxes like hello fresh. Is it mostly about the money? Wash your lettuce at home, only takes a minute. Physically too tired? Then just get that pre-cooked and sliced chicken breast to add to your salad bowl.
Basically, find what your biggest dread is, eliminate that. Play around with approaches and see where you can streamline your process so that when you’re left with only tasks that you’re ok with doing, it feels much less cumbersome.
Finally, plan some meal’s you really love and look forward to eating. Knowing I’ll make something just the way I like it best, maybe with my grandmothers special ingredient that nobody can come close to anyway, is a good motivation to step into the kitchen.
I plan out 6 dinners to make and buy all the ingredients on Sundays. I make sure to choose meals I want to both eat and cook- meaning they sound appealing and won’t be overwhelming amount of work to make them. I’m cooking for a family so me being like “eh takeout” is EXPENSIVE times 4 so it doesn’t happen that often.
Planning a meal legit includes having frozen pizza and a bag salad sometimes too.
Give yourself the grace to know you physically cannot do everything “required” by society. Some things will fall by the wayside, and that’s okay.
You get to set your own priorities as an adult. You can cook, but have groceries delivered. You can eat take out salads. You can sacrifice an entire Sunday to meal prep. You can spend your money on Doordash.
It is YOUR time and YOUR money and you get to choose how to spend it.
If you don’t want to cook, or have priorities higher than home cooking, you will find a way to feed yourself, and it’s okay if that way does not include 3 home-cooked options at every meal.
Sit down with yourself every six months or so and think about what is important to YOU, and then take steps to make that happen.
And if anyone tries to judge you for your choices, just shrug and say, “I have other priorities.”
Lots of people meal prep. But I honestly roast a whole chicken on a Sunday, and use it throughout the week.
Then make easy vegetarian dishes for like 4 days a week. Chickpea and cauliflower curry is easy, carrot and lentil soup, chicken salads or wraps.
Hunger and lack of money is a pretty good motivator 👍🏻
I recently got a crock pot and it’s a blessing. Just toss ingredients in there in the morning and by the time you come home dinner is ready.
2 Rotisserie chickens. We eat the dark meat of both night one with a salad or sheet pan potatoes and veg, then pre-cut up the 4 breasts for chicken Caesar salad or sandwiches the next day. The two carcasses go into a pot with the drippings from the bag for a pot of homemade soup. I get 3 or 4 days off of this, throwing in veggies and noodles and concentrated chicken broth and sometimes a can of tomatoes or beans into the soup as well. And the extra potatoes and sheet pan veggies are good fried up with eggs for supper as well.
You don’t need to cook the typical salad
I don’t eat out, so if I want to eat, I cook. It’s as simple as that.
For me what works is meal kits. There is far less waste and everything I need is in one bag. I only get 3 a
week so can do whatever on the other days. I also make fewer trips to the grocery store during the week.
Do a weeks worth of cooking when you have a day off, I don’t know when your day off is, so let’s say the weekend as an example, plan in advance what you’re having for the week, shop for ingredients, cook it on the day off, pack it in the fridge or freeze it in the freezer and recook it in the microwave for easier meal night.
I plan out the week and try to keep meals simple
An air fryer and acceptance of made ar home fast food.
what do you like to eat?
after a long day, I come home, boil water, throw in sauce, noodles, egg. boil for 3 minutes. pour in a bowl that has spices, choice of veg, choice of meat.
My girl and I used to order out everyday for like a year and a half because of this. We decided to do Hello Fresh again (we did this in the past) to not have to go through the hassle of “what do you want to eat tonight?”. We pick our meals, order, and they arrive. They have all ingredients for one meal in its own bag, so you just pull that food out after work, prep it per instructions, and cook. You’ll need the super basic ingredients like salt, pepper, butter, and water. Food comes out pretty decent too.
I hate having food in the fridge, and not having the mental capacity/creativity to put something together. Sometimes I’m missing ingredients too.
Cost wise, this was cheaper than ordering takeout all the time.
I’m single & lazy + far(!) from an ambitious cook. I fail seeing “hassle” in tossing a fist full of noodles 0.5l water and a bag of instant noodle dish into my rice cooker.
If I don’t want to cook and it isn’t summer, I might have bread and cheese or a bag of crisps as alternatives to cooking but, as much as I like them, they ‘ll get lame at some point, so I’l rather cook.
Meal prep. Even if it isn’t doing all of it. When I borders shop I bring everything in then wash/chop/store veggies/fruits. I’ll divide our ingredients for meals. Just make it super easy to put together during the week.