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Home cooked dinner on the table in 30 minutes? The principles in the Busy Cook's Pyramid can make it happen! Combine these familiar techniques to make weekday cooking a breeze.
Imagine knowing you can consistently put a homemade meal on the table in less time than it takes for pizza delivery. It can happen when you use secrets of the Busy Cook's Pyramid.
The levels of the Busy Cook's Pyramid start at the foundation and are in order by the level of impact they have on easing dinner prep.
Level 1: Freezer Cooking
Freezer cooking is the biggest time-saving technique for Busy Cooks, so it is the foundation of the pyramid. Experienced cooks know that dinner in the freezer is like money in the bank, but did you know that you don't have to bulk cook all day to use this principle? You definitely do not!
Two ways to make freezer cooking easy and painless:
1. Triple at least one recipe that freezes well each week. Once a week, find the time to make a triple amount of a recipe that freezes well. It doesn't take that much longer to make a double or triple amount of a dish than a single amount. Freeze two of the three for future use and have one for dinner.
If you add two main dish meals to your freezer each week, you can pull two different, previously made main dish meals from your freezer each week without depleting your stock.
Each weekend, focus on a different major ingredient, rotating through poultry, beef, meatless, seafood, etc. After 4 - 6 weeks of this weekly cooking to stock your freezer-as long as you continue to make one tripled recipe a week for freezing-you will always have a supply of ready-made main dishes on hand. Imagine having 30 - 40 prepared meals in your freezer at any one time. All it takes is about an hour a week!
2. Cook and freeze ingredients in bulk. (This is my preferred method.) Keeping cooked ground beef, cooked chicken, sautéed onions and peppers, prepared dry beans, and other ingredients in your freezer makes dinnertime prep fast and easy. You'll even have fewer dishes to clean!
Each time you prepare a single pound of ground beef, you are taking not only the time to cook the meat but also the thawing and cleanup time. Doing 5-10 pounds at once and freezing the cooked meat saves you 10-15 minutes per pound! If you combine this with buying the ingredient at its best price, you are saving both time and money.
➡️ Learn more on my ground beef dinner ideas post.
Level 2: Planned Leftovers
Planned Leftovers are exactly what they sound like: you plan to have leftovers by intentionally cooking more now to save prep time later. Planned leftovers save you time and money because:
- You are cooking more at one time, eliminating that prep and cleanup time another night.
- You can plan the leftovers based on grocery store sales.
There are a couple of ways to implement planned leftovers:
- Cook a big meal one day and use the leftovers as the basis for one or two additional meals later in the week (such as cooking a roast chicken and planning to use the leftover chopped chicken in a stir fry, salad, or casserole).
- Cook a single ingredient in bulk to stock your freezer and use the cooked ingredients another week (this is where planned leftovers crossover with Freezer Cooking).This is a great way to save money when you find chicken or beef on sale-plan to cook grilled chicken in bulk and eat it for dinner and freeze the extra, or cook 5-10 lbs. of ground beef when it is on sale. You can have tacos or something easy for dinner and freeze the remaining cooked beef for later.
Incorporating planned leftovers can look like this:
- Roast Beef Picante → Beef with Broccoli
- Slow Cooker Sticky Chicken → Chicken Fried Rice or Crunchy Chicken Slaw Salad
- Taco meat → Taco Mac Salad
- Pinto Beans over Cornbread → Burritos Mojados
- Roast turkey → Leftover Turkey Tortellini Casserole
The possibilities are endless, and once you are in the habit of planning this way it becomes second-nature.
➡️ Learn more on my post about what to make with rotisserie chicken (my favorite planned leftover).
Level 3: Quick & Easy Recipes
The mainstay of a busy cook's repertoire is a collection of quick and easy recipes for dishes that practically make themselves.
Quick & easy recipes:
- are easily prepared
- use quick-cooking ingredients
- use minimum equipment
A good practice is to have 4-5 of these recipes in rotation and keep the ingredients on hand at all times, which is an effective way to prevent eating out when you are running late or have an especially busy afternoon.
Level 4: Cooking with Fast Ingredients
There are certain fast ingredients that are a busy cook's best friends and should always be on hand in your cupboard, freezer, or refrigerator for quick meals. If you make sure that your kitchen is stocked with these items at all times, your mealtime prep will be quicker and easier.
These staples have several advantages in common:
- They are basic, but very versatile, so they can be dressed up or down.
- They are popular with young and old alike.
- They generally tend to be inexpensive. Most important, they are quick and easy to prepare.
For me, these ingredients include:
- chicken, beef, and vegetable broth
- rice
- various kinds of pasta
- canned / frozen meat and vegetables (fully cooked)
- several varieties of cheese, but always cheddar, mozzarella, and Swiss (shredded cheese freezes well)
- cream soups
- frozen hash browns
- frozen burritos
- frozen ravioli
- beef kielbasa
Bulk prepared ingredients can bring dinner together faster as well:
- frozen cooked chicken
- frozen cooked ground beef
- frozen sautéed onions & peppers
- frozen pie crusts
- frozen meatballs
- taco seasoning
- chili seasoning
- adobo seasoning
With items like these on hand I can put together a pot of soup or a casserole that will go from pantry/freezer to table in 20-30 minutes.
➡️ Learn more about using what you have in the pantry.
Level 5: Tools & Techniques
The top level of the Busy Cook's Pyramid is the tools and techniques that work for you.
Here are some of my favorite tools:
- Microwave - a must-have for defrosting all those prepared ingredients and meals from the freezer
- Slow Cooker - my favorite and the appliance I use most often
- Pizza Pizzazz - this seems strange and random, but we love this appliance and use it multiple times a day for just about everything
- Grill - good tool for quick meals but also for preparing ingredients in bulk for the freezer like grilled chicken or vegetables
- 8 in 1 Grill Station - this nifty space-saving appliance from Bella is a griddle in addition to making paninis, quesadillas, waffles, omelets, and more
- Instant Pot - most often used for pressure cooking, I find the IP is at its best for recipes that call for sautéing before slow cooking or pressure cooking
- Air Fryer - while air fryers don't necessarily save time, they are a great alternative to turning on the oven or heating up a hot oil fryer
- Immersion Blender - perfect for blending soups right in the pan or making sauces and homemade dressings, immersion blenders are a must have
- Instant Read Thermometer - my Thermopop instant read thermometer has singlehandedly improved the quality of my cooking by removing the guesswork
- Small Tools - I love my garlic press, micro-plane grater, hand juicer, vegetable peeler, and Vidalia Chop Wizard (for way more than just onions!), and they speed up my prep time at every meal
Ultimately, the tools that work for you are the ones you should have handy. Minimizing the number of appliances on your counter and the amount of stuff in your drawers reduces clutter and stress.
Made it all the way to the end? I'm impressed-that's a lot of reading on a long page! Here's a sample meal plan that puts it all together in a way that is easily implemented:
* Adapted from Secrets of a Busy Cook by Lynn Nelson, used by permission
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