How To Encourage Yourself To Eat At Home More Often

Eating out too often and ordering delivery multiple times per week can be expensive and financially draining. It’s also not all that healthy to constantly consume restaurant food. Having fresh home cooked meals on a regular basis will help you to make better food choices while also spending less and support a healthy lifestyle. Maybe you’re not used to doing this or you’re not a big fan of cooking at home but with some planning and solid incentives, cooking and eating at home should become an easy habit.

Learn to Plan Ahead
As with most things, planning ahead will help you to create a strategy and schedule. Meal planning may not be something you’re used to doing but doing so is definitely worth it as it will set you up for success as it establishes a routine that you will be more likely to stick to. And when you take the time to meal plan, you won’t end up in a situation where you’re standing in front of the refrigerator trying to figure out what to make. Those moments of indecision often lead to simply ordering delivery and that’s not what you want to be doing if your goal is to start eating in and cooking your own food more often.

Try New Foods
Trying new types of foods and cuisines is something you should definitely want to do if you’re looking for reasons to stay in. Exploring different foods and recipes is a terrific way to make sure you're consuming a varied diet and it also breaks up the monotony of always eating the same dishes. There are so many new recipes and ideas you can try out as you expand your repertoire. You just need to be willing to prepare them and seek them out. Buying a recipe book full of new dishes you’ve never tried and never prepared before is a good place to start.

Get Creative and Improve Your Skills
Finding new foods is important and the same can be said for finding new ways of cooking as well. If you’re someone who doesn’t really know much beyond how to use the microwave or boil water, this presents a good opportunity to change that. Utilizing an experimental approach to cooking will keep you engaged while also helping you to improve your cooking skills. Of course your rate of improvement will differ depending on the level of cooking skill you’re currently at.

Make it Quick and Easy
One of the things that people find most difficult about cooking at home and avoiding takeout food is the fact that they lead a busy lifestyle. If you’re someone who’s always busy and you find it tricky to cook food because you get home late or you're just short on time, you should find recipes that you enjoy eating that are also quick and easy to prepare. There’s a whole sub-genre of recipes that fit that description. You just need to do your research and find the ones that work best for you.

Invest in an Outdoor Grill and Learn How to Use It
If you’re really going to make the most of your stay at home meal plans, you should consider investing in the right tools. For meat lovers, a good outdoor grill is a viable option that would probably get a lot of usage. When you have your grill set up and ready to go, you’ll be able to make the most of these traeger recipes too. There are so many great ways to make the most of your grill, so be sure to get one with features that suit your lifestyle and the types of meals you want to make on it.

Keep an Eye on How Much You’re Saving
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on how much money you’re saving when you start to eat at home and cook at home more often. When you can see the financial impact on your bank balance, it provides you with an extra level of motivation that should help you stick on the right path. You can then use that extra cash for other things you’ve been wanting to do.

Cook Enough to Create Leftovers
You should make use of the leftover strategy. By cooking a more food than what you need, you can make sure that you’ve always got some food left over for the following day. This extra meal which can be eaten for lunch or dinner means you don’t have to worry about cooking every night of the week and that’s a big bonus for many people.

There are plenty of ways in which you can encourage yourself to stay in and eat at home throughout the week. There are no excuses for not doing so because you don’t need a huge amount of time or incredible cooking skills to make it work. 

This is a contributed post.

Photo: Vogue Korea