Being a mom is not an easy task. Whether you are working or a stay at home mom, there never seems to be an end to your list of things that need to be accomplished. One of the most time-consuming things for me is making meals, especially at dinner time when everyone in the family is present.
Sometimes, I can get away with just having a salad or sandwich for lunch when it’s just me and my daughter at home. But when my husband is home from work, and all the family is together, everyone will want a full meal.
If you’re finding it hard to cope with the demands of dinnertime preparations, check out the tips below on how you can simplify it.
Prepare meals ahead of time
Here’s a tip. Use the weekends (or any other day that works for you) to prepare several meals ahead of time and just freeze until the night that you will eat it. This way, for the rest of the week, you will not have to stress about preparing dinner for everybody and simplify dinnertime without a problem. Check out Once A Month Meals for recipe ideas.
Weekends are a great time because you can have someone else, such as your husband, older kids or even grandparents watch your kids for you, then you can use the time to make several dishes at once. Or, you can also ask your family members to help you out. Delegate some of the tasks and get the cooking done faster.
Do sheet pan dishes or use crockpot
If you don’t have time to prepare make-ahead meals, then it’s time to research on the sheet pan or crockpot recipes. If you don’t have it already, this can be a great time to invest in a crockpot.
If using a crockpot, all you have to do is dump the ingredients together and hours later, you will have a delicious meal to serve. If you don’t have a crockpot, you can prepare one-pan or one-pot dishes. That not only makes dinner preparation simpler, but clean-up is easier as well when you have only one pan or pot to clean to clean.
Make bigger batches
If your family has a favorite dish that you prepare often, try to make it in bigger batches then just freeze the extra. That way, when you have days when you don’t feel well enough or just don’t have any time to do the dinner preparations, you can just bring it out and pop it in the oven for your family to enjoy.
Buy in bulk and make sure to never run out of the staples
Some would say that a weekly grocery trip can be stressful. You can try and do your shopping monthly instead. Not does shopping monthly save you time and money but it also saves your sanity and keeps you covered in case of unannounced visits, emergencies or illness.
Shopping in bulk will help you to have staple ingredients always available and you can make a variety of dishes from those ingredients. If you planned out your menu before the shopping trip, you’ll know that you have enough food for the whole month.
Give yourself a rest some days and order in
For days when there is nothing in the freezer to reheat and you don’t have the energy to cook, why not opt for a meal delivery service? Well, you can go in two ways here – healthy or fast food.
For healthy meals that will not put a dent in your budget, you can check out this freshly.com review and see the dishes that you can be delivered straight to your doorstep. Or you can also go the usual route – pizza, hamburgers, Chinese food, whatever your family prefers.
