How To Put Meals on the Table Fast

Rely on frozen vegetables. Because they’re flash frozen as soon as they’re picked, they’re usually just as fresh, or even fresher, than non-frozen.

Always cook in batches. It’s just as easy to roast two chickens as it is one – or three for that matter.

Do prep work in advance, like boiling a whole bag of rice that can be reheated in portions later in the week, or cooking a big batch of potatoes that can be served scalloped one night and made into home fries on another.

If you have kids, get them involved in prep work, like washing and spinning greens for salad, and setting the table.

Think in threes when you cook, as in how you can get three meals out of one main course. A ham dinner one night might be ham paninis two nights later, and the scraps can be thrown into a hearty bean soup or vegetable-heavy stir-fry that you freeze for another time.