Six Restaurant Hacks to Make Your Home Kitchen More Efficient
Cooking can be an exercise in controlled chaos, and that controlled chaos can be scary. This is why so many people are reluctant to cook in their own kitchen (if they even have the energy to try)—there’s even a diagnosable fear called mageirocophobia , which describes the fear of cooking.
It’s easy to see why: kitchens are a mess , the equipment in them (even a basic kitchen ) can seem complicated if no one has ever taught you how to use it, and even the simplest recipes can be ruined. The end result is a kitchen that feels like a war zone, and every meal is an uphill climb with time, missing ingredients, and blaring fire alarms.
You can reduce this chaos by borrowing some techniques from professional kitchens. You don’t have to be able to handle a knife like a chef or know what a mother sauce is, but there are a few simple lessons you can learn from the way restaurants run their kitchens and apply them to your humble culinary spot.
Practice mise-en-scène
This is probably the most useful concept that you can borrow from a professional kitchen and use in yours. Mise en Place is a French term that translates to “put in place,” and in the kitchen it means having everything prepared and within reach. This means that all the ingredients need to be measured, cut and properly prepared (i.e. defrosted), and then arranged in the order you will need them, but so that everything is at hand.
Practicing mise-en-place has a lot of benefits: you’ll know if you’re missing something you’ll need before you even start cooking, and preparing everything correctly reduces anxiety because if something goes wrong during the prep stage, you can just restart your computer and do it all over again without worrying about ruining all the food. And of course, during the actual cooking, if you have everything on hand, organized and ready to go, cooking will become a lot less stressful.
Use deli containers
If you’ve watched Bear (or any TV show or movie set in a professional kitchen), you’ve probably noticed the deli containers that everyone uses—both for ingredients and drink. There’s a reason these plastic buckets are so popular: they’re perfect for storing food. They’re lightweight, stackable, leak-proof, use the same cap for each size (so you don’t go crazy trying to find the missing cap), and are easy to label. They’re also so cheap that you won’t care if you lose a few here and there (you can buy a pack of 36 for $22 ). If you need a similar storage solution but a little more durable, you can use soup containers , which look the same but are more durable.
Use these containers to store prepared ingredients while cooking and store leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer. Even if they’re clear, label each one so you know what’s in it and when you saved it; this will help you avoid wasting food because you lost track of how long it was there.
Use the FIFO system
If you cook a lot, you buy a lot of food and essentials. The commercial kitchen concept you need to steal is FIFO: First In, First Out .
It’s a simple concept: Organize your food items by expiration date. Things that are about to go bad are placed in the front to get them used to it, and fresher ones are placed in the back. This minimizes waste since you won’t let things expire just because they were hidden in the back, and you won’t have multiple open and half-used instances of an ingredient. As an added bonus, organizing your pantry using the FIFO method means you’ll have a better understanding of how often things go bad before you use them, which can be useful for calibrating your shopping lists and budget.
This should also apply to all deli containers: whether they contain leftovers or unused ingredients, date them carefully and store them FIFO to avoid wasting anything extra.
Take some squeeze bottles
The humble bottle is great for more than just ketchup and mustard: it’s one of the best things you can take from a professional kitchen into your home. Squeeze bottles have three main advantages:
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They make bulk purchasing easier. If you use a lot of oil when cooking, you’re probably buying huge tubs of it and making a huge mess when you use it. Refilling the bottle periodically keeps the bottle clean and makes storing ingredients easier since the bottles are the same size.
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They allow for greater accuracy. Spraying ingredients onto a pan or dish is an easy way to organize things throughout the kitchen. Squeeze bottles offer more control—instead of pouring and hoping you don’t splash, overflow, or get poor aim, you can use the exact number of squirts to get the coverage you need.
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They may contain bespoke items. If you use certain dressings repeatedly, loading up a bottle with homemade mayonnaise or salad dressing means you can use it any time the recipe or your mood calls for it.
Using squeeze bottles is much nicer than lugging a 64-ounce container of olive oil to a pot on the stove.
Buy in bulk and save the extra
If you cook a lot, you know that there are bases that go into a wide range of recipes—like broth, sauces, or diced vegetables like onions or peppers. Instead of making them every time you cook, the next time you make the same recipe, make more of them. Then divide the leftovers into deli containers or freezer bags, label them, date them, and throw them in the freezer. Next time you’ll need a cup of diced onion, here it is, ready to go.
Clean on the go
If you’ve ever cooked for a large group of people (or worked your way through a complex and ambitious recipe), you know that feeling of doom when you look at the destruction you’ve caused in your kitchen. The microwave is flooded with sauce, the stove looks like a weird buffet of various foods, the counters are covered in mysterious powders, and the sink is so full of dirty dishes that for a moment you consider setting the house on fire and starting a new life.
That’s why one of the best ideas you can borrow from a commercial kitchen is ” clean on the go .” It’s a simple concept: Clean up spills and other debris immediately and put everything away as soon as you’re done using it: Food and spices go in the refrigerator or pantry, and used dishes, cookware, or empty containers go in the dishwasher, if necessary. you have one. It only takes a few seconds, and cleaning as you go not only reduces the work of cleaning up after dinner, but also provides a healthier cooking environment since there’s no sticky film on every surface in your kitchen. .