With Daniel having a full time job now, with full time hours, it leaves weeknights as more of a time crunch. So I needed to find ways to cut the time in half when I got home. At first, I tried to use my slow cooker as much as I could, but I finally realized that pressuring myself to make a meal in the croc pot every weekday was unrealistic for my current skill level. So, I tried to use that same general concept, and just tweak it a little bit.

There are a few of these concepts I thought of where I don’t know how much time its really going to save, but I feel like it is worth a shot.

1: Night Before Prep

My first idea was to prep the chicken I was making the night before. That would mean when I get home I could immediately start preheating the oven, and working on prepping the side dishes, which in the case of the night I made this chicken dinner, we did mashed potatoes and green beans, with a gravy made from the pan juices. The bones from this meal would also go on to assist us for making the next diner.

2. Slow cooker broth

My next idea was using a slow cooker to create the broth for the egg drop soup I was making that night. I did a little research, and considering I have a decent amount of veggie scraps, plus chicken bones, I should have just enough to make a small batch of broth, which would then be strained after work and used to make egg drop soup. It also helps use up the bones your trying to save. Epically in my case where I cant really save a lot of bones since I already have a small freezer, so making smaller batches of broth, just makes more since in my case.

3. Think Ahead

Even if you don’t know what’s for dinner for the week, at least think about what’s for dinner the next day. I struggle at meal planning, because many times things change in our family so fast, so at most I think 2-3 days ahead because for our dynamic, it just makes the most since. Deciding to do chicken one night, helped me make the decision to make Egg drop soup with homemade chicken broth the day after, and also helped me brainstorm and look into weather or not making broth in the crockpot was even a feasible idea in the first place.

4. Make Extra

So lets say your making chicken broth. And you may only need a cup, but your going to end up with like 6! Well think of something to use with it, like soup! The same principal applies when it comes to working in the kitchen. Make some things in bulk, and in many instances you can find a way to use it again later on in the week.

5. Give time for a break

So for us, Friday is payday. So most of the time that’s when I schedule my break. Being a teacher, Friday marks the end of a long grueling week, so typically if we get take out, we will do it on Friday. Sometimes its just a cheap little ceasers pizza, other times we might all go out. Sometimes we just find a middle ground and pick it up and take it home. We use this chance to just spend some time together as a family. It also gives me a chance to clean up my kitchen a bit, since by now, the dishes have started to pile up by now, being that during the weekday, I’ll be lucky if I get 1-2 loads in my dishwasher (which, due to space limitations is a very small one).

If we don’t do take out on Fridays, we will have leftovers, to get rid of anything extra before it goes bad. What to do you on weeknights to save yourself a bit of time in the kitchen?