Kitchen Time-Saving Hacks You Need ASAP

I have been digesting a lot of content on YouTube lately, but I don’t mind it with this one specific channel, called SORTEDfood. This lovely group of English lads has made cooking more fun & enjoyable for my husband and me in the kitchen. They have not only taught us some useful tricks for certain recipes but also time-saving hacks you can use in the kitchen to cut your cooking time in half! The video that I learned all of this great information from will be linked down below, along with their YouTube channel. Let’s get cooking!

DISCLAIMER: All of these amazing time-saving hacks have been pulled from SORTEDfood’s video called 10 Genius Hacks To Save Time In The Kitchen.

THE LADS OF SORTEDFOOD

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: BEN, BARRY, JAMIE, JAMES AND MIKE

Read the entire recipe from the start, and group together tasks that can be overlapped

If you think of it, doing the recipe exactly how it says to on the recipe card, is doing a recipe linearly. You can save loads of time by grouping tasks that can be done simultaneously, while you are waiting for another part of your dish to cook. For example, if you can chop up ingredients while boiling something on the stovetop, you just completed two recipe steps in one fallow swoop! Make sure you read the entire recipe start to finish, twice if you have to, so you know what is going to happen & when you need to do it.

Pre-Heat Ovens & Pans!

Do you ever get everything ready for cooking a meal, you are fired up and excited to cook, but the oven isn’t heating up fast enough? The best way to prevent this is to pre-heat your oven if you know you are going to use it BEFORE you do any other step in the recipe. If you know you will be needing a saucepan to cook something in, go ahead and set the pan up on the burner and turn to the desired heat.

ANOTHER HOT TIP! Boiling water in a kettle is quicker than boiling water on the stovetop, so remember this next time you need to bring something in the water to a boil.

Have something for waste sitting in front or beside you

Running back and forth to throw out scrap food during preparation is a time suck. Try your best to have an empty grocery bag or your trash can near you, so you can through the “rubbish” in the bin (I love the way British people speak). It also makes everything accessible at your fingertips, so you don’t have to stress out in an experience that should be enjoyable.

A big pan with a large surface area will cook ingredients faster (i.e. onions)

This should make sense to you, and if it does not let me explain quickly. If you have onions or potatoes that are stacked on top of each other in a small pot, they are going to take longer to cook because the heat is not being distributed evenly. If you have a big pan, it increases the surface area and therefore, the time you spend cooking.

Putting a lid on top of a hot pan will speed up the cooking process with natural steam

Natural steam is a great way to speed up the cooking process naturally, as the dish will steam by itself as it cooks off liquids and ingredients on the hot stovetop. If you increase the cooking time by putting a lid on top of a hot pan, you can eat your food quicker as well. How about that for quick cooking?

If you are not confident with a knife, you can use a grater

Safety will always come first in the kitchen. So if you are not confident with a knife, maybe use a grater instead to grate your ingredients. And make sure to take extra precautions when dealing with sharp objects like mandolins or graters.

A pinch of sugar speeds up onions

If you put a pinch of sugar into your onions as they cook, it should speed up the cooking process. It carmelizes the onions quicker. Thanks, Ben Ebbrel!

Wash as you go!

I always hate doing dishes after I am done cooking, I would much rather relax instead. If you fill up a sink with hot, soapy water, it will make washing dishes and hands much easier. Try it next time you are cooking! You would be surprised how much you like it. My husband said it made the entire rinsing process stress-free.

Boiling water in a hot pan will speed up the cooking process

Putting boiling water in a hot pan creates instant steam, therefore speeding up the cooking process. Very similar to my hack above about putting a lid on your naturally steaming food.

Don’t be afraid to re-use utensils

Did you use a spoon to stir the tomato sauce, but also need it to taste another part of the dish? Re-use the spoon! Don’t double up and waste your time washing dishes. Just use what you have!

Cast iron will take 3x longer to heat up than a regular saucepan

I didn’t know this, as I love cooking with a cast iron pan. But apparently, cast iron takes 3x longer to heat up than a regular saucepan. So maybe opt for a regular saucepan when you want to cook quickly.

Butterfly/bash chicken to cut down on time

Like we have covered a few times so far, a larger surface area equals quicker cooking. As you might know, chicken breasts are naturally thinner on one end, and thicker at the other end. If you butterfly the chicken (slice in half, hamburger style, but not all the way through) or bash it with a rolling pan, it will increase the surface area of the chicken and therefore, cook faster.

Know when to cheat

You know, you might not have to finely dice those onions. Want to know why? Certain ingredients being finely diced will not matter in the result of the dish, so maybe grate those ingredients instead of finely chopping them.

Cleaning pans while they are hot will practically clean themselves

I have done this hack before I watched this video from SORTEDfood. If you rinse off your pan while it is still hot with warm-ish water, it will practically clean itself with the steam (and the fact that the food isn’t cooked on yet).

Here is the SORTEDfood video that I got this great information from! Their YouTube channel can be found here.