Living alone can make you pretty lazy in various ways. Without responsibilities, you are more likely to choose convenience. This is especially noticeable when it comes to cooking. With delivery services, you can be eating with no hassle at all. But that is not good for your wallet nor your health. Cooking your food is a skill you need to learn and is much healthier for you. To get you in the habit, here are some tips that should help make cooking simple.
Meal Planning Is The Way To Go
If there is anything that will encourage you to get cooking, it is meal planning. Most of the time, people don’t cook because they don’t know what to cook. There are so many things they can make or want to make that it can be confusing. To resolve the issue, they often just give up and order something online. But with a meal plan, things are much different. You will know exactly what you are cooking.
The ideal meal plan involves two weeks of meals. This advance plan will allow you to be smart about your grocery shopping. With an idea of what you will be eating, you can then buy all that you need for two weeks. Additionally, a meal plan allows you to prep ahead. You can dedicate an entire day to meal prepping so that you can save time when you want to eat. Just freeze all the extras up and reheat them. You can even organize them in meal packs so you can easily eat them.
Cook A Lot
When you look at recipes, you often notice that the recipes are for two to four people. Instead of doing mental calculations on how to cut down so it will be only for you, you should cook it as is. This will provide you with plenty of extras. You can be kind and give them to a nearby hospice center, but you can also be smart. Simply pack the leftovers in plastic containers and put them in the freezer. All those leftovers will keep you full for a long time.
Balance Your Meals
The great thing about cooking for yourself is that you can personalize your meals. Instead of an unbalanced diet of fast food, each meal is much healthier. But to properly balance your meals, you need to remember some rules. For one, every meal should have three of the food groups at a minimum. The usual mix is carbohydrates, protein, and vegetables. The ratio should be double the number of vegetables to the amount of protein on the plate. Protein sources are usually the meat of some sort while carbohydrates are usually pasta or grains. Your main source of fiber will be from the carbs since you’ll want them to be high-fiber. You can swap out the carbs for sugars if you are already eating high-fiber vegetables.
Make Cooking Fun
Another reason why singles don’t like to cook is that it can be boring. If you want to start cooking more, you should make the idea of cooking fun. Most of the time, people associate cooking with long waits by a hot stove. Make the cooking more enjoyable by only focusing on the easy recipes at first. There are several out there that will only take minutes. Besides short recipes, you can also put on some music or have a glass of wine as you cook. You might even try to be experimental with your recipes to see the potential results.
Don’t Make Things Complex
When it comes to encouraging yourself to cook, you should aim for recipes that are within your skill level or only have common ingredients. Exotic recipes may sound fun, but they can be discouraging when you fail. Focus on what you can make with your current resources and abilities so that you can cook more in the long run.
The sort of recipes you should focus on are things like soups. Soups are often very simple to make. You might need a food processor so you should have one in your kitchen. But that is likely the only special thing you’ll need. Besides the ease of soups, they are also simple to store and you can defrost them with no problem.
Cooking for yourself should be a habit that you develop. It will save you money and keep you healthy if you do it right. Plus, you won’t always be living alone. Knowing how to cook can make the future much easier for you.
