With the busy lives that we all lead, who has time to cook?  I know I don’t.  I am always looking for ways to save that time.  I do know, however, that I do not want to be driving through the drive thru or stopping for pizza night after night.  My waistline and my wallet won’t allow it.   So how to you save time in the kitchen to make more time for your family?

Here are cooking hacks that will save you time in the kitchen and throughout the rest of your days.

• Use the slow cooker.  I can preach all day long about what a time saver this is.  Stick your ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning and when you walk through the door at the end of the day, your dinner is ready.
• Meal plan.  Believe it or not, taking the time to create a meal plan for your household will save a significant amount of time in the long run.  You will no longer be standing in front of the fridge trying to figure out what to cook.  You won’t have to run to the store last minute.  Just be sure to meal plan around what you already have on hand and you will be ready for the week.
• Meal prep.  I like to do my meal prep on Sundays when everything is going slowly anyway.  If you are not familiar with meal prep, you simply get everything ready to be cooked.  You can cook it all in that day or you can place in freezer bags and have it separated and ready to cook on the day of.  I prefer cooking chicken breasts in a large batch and freezing in cubes for meals throughout the week.  This saves at least an hour on those days that you are planning to cook chicken, which I do a lot so this is my favorite hack.
• Keep a clean kitchen.  Making sure your kitchen stays clean is a huge time saver.  Having to wash last night’s dinner dishes before you can cook tonight is just an unnecessary waste of time.

What are your favorite time saving tips for cooking?