8 Benefits of Cooking at Home Plus How to Get Started Today
As easy as it is to swing through the drive-thru or pop in to a sit down restaurant for a hot meal after a long day, cooking at home and enjoying a meal around the dinner table with family or friends is often hard to beat.
Maybe you’ve heard that cooking at home will save you more money, or that it leads to better food choices. Both of these are true! According to Forbes, eating out is up to five times more expensive than eating at home. And when it comes to food choices, restaurants are known to load up on the salt, sugar, and fat to keep your tastebuds (but not always your waistline) happy.
If you have any interest — big or small — in cooking and enjoying more meals at home, today’s blog post will be a great resource for you. Keep reading to learn about 8 benefits of cooking at home, some simple tips to get started today, and an extra nudge for those who feel like they just don’t have the time to cook at home.
Let’s dive in.
8 Benefits of Cooking at Home
Saves money. As previously stated, on average, it’s roughly 5 times more expensive to eat out (or order takeout/delivery) than it is to cook at home. Even if you spend just an extra $100 a week on eating out, that’s $5,200 a year that could’ve gone to something more meaningful. When you cook at home, you get to budget and choose where you want to best allocate your money for your family/household.
Saves time. While eating out may seem more time efficient, it may actually eat up more of your time…consider the wait times for either sit down, or delivery meals. Have you ever called for takeout only to hear them say “it will be 50 minutes”, to which you realize it would actually be quicker for you to cook something at home? You can cook a satisfying, delicious meal at home in under 20 minutes, easy!
Improves health outcomes for the whole family. Studies show that when families eat together, both kids and the family as a whole tend to be healthier. Regular meals at home are linked to lower risk of obesity, improved performance at school, and less substance abuse. Cooking at home offers the opportunity to teach healthy eating habits to kids, start conversations about food quality and production, foster positive social and communication skills, and help them grow into healthy, confident adults.
Improve diet quality, use healthier ingredients, and have control over them. When cooking at home, you get to control how food is prepared, what foods and ingredients are used, and the quality of the ingredients and foods consumed. Want something baked rather than fried? Cooked in olive oil instead of canola oil? Double the serving of veggies? You got it! Eating at home generally results in improved diet quality and food choices, which translates to improved overall health — think more energy, less aches and pains, improved sleep, and less cravings.
Better mindfulness of what you consume. If you’re wanting to become more mindful of what you eat, improve your eating habits or food choices, or if you just want to learn more about the food you’re putting in your body, cooking at home offers an incredible learning opportunity that you might otherwise miss out on if eating out. Not only that, cooking at home also equips you with the knowledge and hands-on skills needed to feel confident in feeding both you and your family well. Don’t feel skilled or knowledgable in the kitchen? That’s okay! We all start somewhere, and each of us can always learn more about our food choices and hone our kitchen skills…it’s a journey!
Helps with portion control. Oversized portions of items like processed meats, refined carbs, sugar-sweetened beverages, and other highly processed foods are the norm in most restaurant establishments. This can make eating healthfully and reaching your goals feel difficult or impossible. Not to mention the way it tests your willpower! Eating and cooking at home allows you to be in control of portion sizes and the amount of food served. Want a bigger serving of veggies? Easy! Don’t care for the bread roll? Leave it off, no problem. To further help with portion control at home, leave serving dishes in the kitchen (and off the dining room table), fill half your plate with veggies, focus on eating your meal slowly, put your fork down between bites, and engage in conversation around the table.
Breeds connection and brings family together. Taking the time to cook meals together as a family can form or strengthen a feeling of togetherness, belonging, and bonding. Cooking and eating together offers a powerful way to ward off loneliness and connect with other family members in a meaningful way. Find a way to get the whole family involved in shopping, prepping, cooking, and then enjoying, meals at home — consider having each member of the family request a meal or recipe they love, then make it.
Leads to feelings of empowerment and improves self-esteem. There’s something about being able to cook and prepare a full meal for yourself and your family that feels empowering. Cooking allows for the opportunity to accomplish something meaningful, provide for others, express creativity (we all have some creativity in us!), strengthen problem solving skills, practice patience, and relieve stress. Don’t feel comfortable in the kitchen? Start small — even little “wins” can build your confidence and self-esteem!
Not sure where to get started when it comes to cooking at home? Pick up some helpful tips from the following list to identify some simple ways to get started.
Make a family cookbook of recipes and meals you love! Keep it visible in the kitchen for quick inspiration.
Search cookbooks, Pinterest, or recipe blogs for meal ideas. Bookmark them, print them out, or keep a running list for easy reference. Too many choices? Limit it to just 1-2 sources of recipe inspiration.
Keep it simple. Eating “healthy” meals at home doesn’t have to require multi-step recipes with a long list of fancy ingredients. Choose a protein, a carbohydrate, a fat, and 2-3 colorful veggies. Steam veggies, bake up a few potatoes at once, roast a pan of chicken, or cook up a pot of quinoa.
Have a stocked pantry and freezer. Part of the secret to success is to have your pantry and freezer stocked up with essentials. Some ideas include whole wheat pasta, marinara sauce, quinoa, canned salmon, dried beans or lentils, olive oil, nut butters, and a variety of frozen veggies in the freezer.
Do some planning for the week. Take some time before the week begins to look at your schedule and plan what meals you would like to cook and eat at home. Then, grocery shop for the ingredients you’ll need for the week.
Start small. If cooking for every meal of the week feels too daunting, start with just one meal. Want to make that meal work twice for you? Cook it once, but make enough to have leftovers!
Cut corners if needed. Don’t overlook items like frozen or pre-cut veggies and fruit, healthier sauces or dressing, precooked packaged grains, or broth/stock. Sometimes these may be more expensive than starting from scratch but will require less time to prepare, which can make cooking at home feel more feasible. Weigh the trade offs and decide what is most important to you.
“Don’t have time” for cooking at home? Give a few of these tips a try and see if you might just have more time than you think:
Have groceries delivered. This will take away a large chunk of time having to walk around the grocery store and wait in line.
Trade off cooking, cleaning, and shopping duties. Cooking is a team effort. If one person does more of the cooking, the other person can step in to do most of the cleaning.
Prep ahead. Taking a chunk of time once or twice a week to do most of the prep work (washing, cutting, marinading) for your upcoming meals can decrease hands-on time when it comes time to cook in the evening. Even just 30-60 minutes of some up front prep work can ease the burden of cooking a weeknight meal at the end of a busy day.
Change your mindset. Consider how you think about the act of cooking. Do you feel like you “have” to? That makes it feel more like a chore. Try telling yourself you “get to” cook…it’s an opportunity, not an obligation. Think of cooking as an opportunity to care for yourself and your loved ones. And remember, it doesn’t have to be fancy!
Utilize the slow cooker. The slow cooker is a great resource for those short on time as you can usually throw all the ingredients in at once without having to do much prep or hands-on work. Slow cooker meals are a great way to cook once and eat multiple times…another way to save time.
Cook once, freeze for later. Double or triple a recipe when you make it, then freeze half to enjoy on a weeknight in the future when you have a tight schedule or no motivation to cook.
If cooking at home has felt like a daunting task for you in the past, we hope this post was a helpful resource to equip you with some tips, tricks, and encouraging benefits that get you cooking at home more consistently, and more enjoyably.