How to Enjoy Healthy Meals when You Hate to Cook

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1Choosing the Right Foods

2Using Versatile Recipes

3Equipping Your Kitchen

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The best way to eat healthy is to buy whole foods and cook at home, which can make it difficult to enjoy healthy meals if you hate to cook. But you can make things a little easier on yourself by identifying the reasons you dislike cooking. Look at the foods you eat, the recipes you use, and the tools available in your kitchen. A few tweaks to the things that are causing cooking to be less a joy and more of a chore can make the process work better for you.

Steps

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Choosing the Right Foods

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   Set your menu for a week in advance. Sitting down and creating a menu for an entire week allows you to shop more efficiently and avoid being paralyzed by indecision when mealtime comes. It also ensures your meals are balanced and healthy.

   • You may want to include options for some meals in which cooking and prep time is minimal. For example, if you typically have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, you might also give yourself the option of having a bagel or a smoothie to change things up.
   • Remember to have basic staples available. Eggs are a quick, healthy, and versatile option you should keep on-hand. Milk or a milk substitute and your favorite condiments are other items you should always have stocked.
   • Assuming you work during the day, typically most of your cooking will occur for your evening meal. As you plan, think about the leftovers and how you can incorporate them into a healthy lunch the next day. For example, leftover salad can be stuffed into a pita.
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   Plan your shopping trips around your meals. Once you've set your menu for the week, go to your kitchen and figure out what you need that you don't have. Add basics that you regularly consume, and you have an efficient list that ensures you won't have to run out to the store every other day.

   • Knowing what you need also enables you to shop around for the best deals and the best quality ingredients. For example, you may want to go to a local farmer's market for fresh produce, then to a regular grocery store for everything else.
   • The other benefit of doing this is that if you go to the grocery store less often, you'll typically spend less money. This is especially true if you're the type of person who always comes home with a half-dozen items that you didn't really need, but that looked good or were on sale.
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   Keep your pantry well-stocked. Unless you're sensitive to gluten, grains are part of a healthy diet. These can be bought in bulk to save you time and money, and are found as staple ingredients in many different dishes.

   • Brown or wild rice, whole wheat pastas, and oats are more healthy than white pastas and breads that have been refined.
   • Make sure you have all the herbs and spices that you use on a regular basis as well. For example, if you like to eat Italian food and pasta dishes regularly, you probably want to stock up on garlic, oregano, and other Italian seasonings.
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   Pick fruits and vegetables that are in season. There's nothing wrong with frozen fruits and vegetables — provided they don't have a lot of added sugar and preservatives; however, they still won't taste as good as fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally.

   • This is particularly important if you find you don't like certain foods, but you've only ever had them frozen or canned. Prepackaged foods are grown on industrial farms that may grow crops year-round, then processed in a factory. The entire process causes them to lose much of their flavor.
   • Experiment with fresh foods, even things you've never liked before or had any interest in eating — you might find yourself pleasantly surprised. You won't hate cooking as much if you're smelling something that you know you love to eat.
   • There are many vegetables that will stay fresh for days in the refrigerator, such as cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, and beets.
   • Buy organic fruits and vegetables whenever you can. They’re better for you than foods that are genetically modified.
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Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Using Versatile Recipes

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   Start with ingredients you like. It may seem obvious, but if you're cooking something you don't particularly enjoy eating, it stands to reason that you won't enjoy the act of preparing it. Just because you're eating healthy doesn't mean you have to dislike your food.

   • For example, you may dislike eating "rabbit food" — raw vegetables, such as in a salad. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also no reason you wouldn't like those same vegetables if they were cooked. Cooked vegetables are just as healthy as raw vegetables, and they often taste much sweeter. Try tossing carrots or broccoli with a little olive oil and roasting them in a hot oven for about 15 minutes.
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   Make simple one-pot meals. If you already dislike cooking, the last thing you want to do is juggle a main course and two or three separate sides. Casseroles and stir fry can be healthy and well-balanced without requiring complicated logistics.

   • Soups and stews also are inexpensive and easy things to make that require minimal time in the kitchen. These recipes also are versatile, in that you can often substitute ingredients that you like or add ingredients for variety.
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   Limit your choices. If you've accumulated dozens of cookbooks or bookmarked hundreds of websites in an attempt to find healthy meals to prepare, you may be overwhelmed. Rather than trying to read everything, choose 10 to 15 recipes you like and isolate them.

   • Each week, look through those few recipes and pick two or three, rather than going through every recipe or cookbook you own before every dinner.
   • Occasionally, go back through and find a few recipes to substitute, especially if you feel like you're getting tired of a particular thing.
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   Use recipes that are relatively hands-off. Especially if you're tired at the end of a busy day, the last thing you want to do is slave over a hot stove for hours. Beat this issue by keeping one or two recipes around that require minimal effort.

   • Look for one-pot dinners and full meals that can be prepared and cooked in 20 minutes or less. With these recipes, you can cook something healthy yourself in less time than it would take to microwave a prepared meal or wait for takeout.
   • If you've planned your menu for the whole week in advance, take the ebbs and flows of your week into account as you choose your meals. For example, if you know that you have a big meeting on Tuesday and are probably going to be exhausted afterward, plan a quick meal for that evening that is relatively hands-off and requires minimal preparation — or that uses ingredients you already prepped for the meal the night before.
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   Look for recipes with fewer than five ingredients. If you're just starting out and you hate to cook, there's no need to suffer through a complicated recipe with a dozen ingredients that requires hours of prep time.

   • When you're choosing recipes, try to find overlap. That way you can prep foods at once and then you'll have the preparation done for the next meal in advance. For example, if you found a nice broccoli casserole, you might do a beef and broccoli stir-fry the next day.
   • Simple recipes can be just as delicious and impressive as complicated and temperamental ones, and there's a lot less room for error.
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   Learn a handful of easy recipes. To enjoy anything, you have to be relatively adept at it. If you use a few recipes repeatedly until you can create the dish without having to dig out the instructions, you'll feel more comfortable experimenting and start having fun in the kitchen.

   • After you've done something several times, you've identified the spots that give you trouble and you'll start to intuitively know what to do each step of the way.
   • Quick, simple recipes also can serve as back-ups if you have a planned menu for the week, but for whatever reason aren't interested in the meal you had planned for a particular night.
   • Having a recipe memorized also builds your confidence to try new things, such as more complicated recipes or those that require more preparation time.
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   Take a cooking class. Sometimes people say they hate to cook simply because they've never really tried to cook before, and they don't know how or are afraid they'll mess something up. If you have limited experience in the kitchen, a cooking class can help you get better acquainted.

   • There are some basic skills involved in cooking that you need to learn before you can perform adequately. If you don't know how to use basic kitchen tools, or you're extraordinarily slow, this can impact whether you like to cook.
   • Check with your local community center or public library and find out if there are any cooking classes in your area. If there's a community college near you, they may offer cooking classes as well.
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Equipping Your Kitchen

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   Take an inventory. If you hate to cook, chances are you don't have very many cooking utensils in your kitchen. Those you do have, you may have never used or understand how to use them effectively.

   • For example, a good chef's knife will cut down on prep time by enabling you to slice and chop fruits and vegetables quicker and more efficiently.
   • You may want to rearrange the items in your kitchen so that utensils and pots and pans are more convenient. If you have to dig through disorganized cabinets to find what you need, you probably will be less interested in the entire cooking experience.
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   Buy gadgets for convenience. Sometimes, hatred of cooking is tied to a dislike of a particular preparation skill, or a particular cooking process. For labor-intensive activities such as chopping and slicing, you can buy gadgets that will do all or most of the work for you.

   • For example, you can buy salad chopping tongs that will chop up your salad ingredients as you toss them — saving you time and effort by allowing you to do two things at the same time.
   • If you've ever been flummoxed by a recipe that called only for one egg yolk, you might consider buying a yolk extractor that can take care of that task for you with ease.
   • Look for gadgets that are directly related to foods you like to eat on a regular basis, or that can be used in a variety of different recipes for multiple meals. No gadget is worth your money if it's just going to sit in the back of a cabinet gathering dust.
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   Keep containers for advance prep. There are many foods that you can prep — or even cook — in advance and save for later. This can help you enjoy healthy meals when you hate to cook, because you'll be cooking less often.

   • Choose individual-serving sized containers, or containers with dividers so you can separate the main course from the sides. You may want to get a whole set so you have enough containers to hold at least a week's worth of meals.
   • For example, you can make large quantities of pasta, casseroles, or stir fries and freeze the leftovers to eat earlier. After the initial investment in the containers, your meals will end up being cheaper than buying frozen dinners — and just as convenient.
   • If you have the time, carve out a couple of hours to cook several different meals at once. Divide them into individual servings and freeze them so you have them throughout the week. Make sure you label each container with its contents and the date you cooked it so you don't keep anything too long.
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   Invest in a slow-cooker. Especially during the colder months, stews are a healthy and filling meal option that take minimal prep time and work. Simply add the ingredients to the slow-cooker and turn it on.

   • If you prep your ingredients the night before, then add them to the slow-cooker in the morning, you also minimize the length of time you're in the kitchen. When you get home from work, your dinner will be ready and waiting for you.
   • The other good thing about slow-cookers for people who hate to cook is that they usually make large batches, which means you'll have plenty of leftovers for other days.
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   Consider not cooking. You can have the cleanest, best-equipped kitchen in the world and still not feel like cooking for whatever reason. On those occasions, it can be best to remember that you can enjoy healthy meals without doing any cooking at all.

   • While some foods must be cooked to be eaten, there are plenty of foods that can be eaten raw and will provide the same health benefits as they would if they were cooked. Some foods are even more nutritious eaten raw.
   • Include around 20 – 30 grams of protein, some fruits and vegetables, and a good source of healthy carbs, such as whole grains or rice.
   • For example, you might have a sandwich on whole-grain bread with turkey or chicken sliced in the grocery store deli. Add to this a colorful salad and a piece of fruit and you have a healthy meal without having to cook at all.
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