One of the biggest misconceptions about cooking from scratch is that you’re constantly in the kitchen. People imagine you’re baking bread every day, making yoghurt from scratch, complicated meals that take ages and spending your weekends meal prepping for hours.
Honestly? If that were true, I wouldn’t do it.
I have a family, a business and a garden to look after. I love cooking, but I also love having time to enjoy my family and actually live my life. The reality is that I don’t spend all day in the kitchen and I’m going to show you how I do it in this blog post…
“I don’t cook from scratch every day. I simply built a system that makes homemade food the easiest option.”
Stop Starting From Scratch Every Day
The biggest mindset shift for me was realising that cooking from scratch doesn’t actually mean starting from scratch every single meal.
Instead of thinking about individual recipes, I started thinking about systems which I’ll explain below. Every small habit I added reduced the amount of work I’d need to do later.
Now, instead of asking “What do I need to make tonight?”, most of the work has already been done.
Stock Ingredients, Not Products
Years ago my pantry looked like everyone else’s. I had bottles, jars, and packets for my meals that week or some weeks I had hardly anything and ended up at the store several times!
Now I keep a simple pantry full of ingredients instead.
Things like:
- Soy sauce
- Vinegars
- Olive oil
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Herbs
- Spices
- Canned & preserved tomatoes
- Honey
- Oats
- Flours
- Baking needs
- Rice
- Dried pasta
Those few ingredients become almost every sauce we use.
If we’re having stir-fry, I simply whisk the sauce together while I’m chopping the vegetables. It honestly takes an extra minute or two compared to opening a packet with additives in it and it tastes so much better.
Having a pantry stocked like this at all times means we’ve always got everything we need so we never get caught out and when things run low I simply replace them at bulk food stores like Bin Inn, and I shop local as much as possible.
Batch the Things That Matter
I don’t spend entire weekends meal prepping.
Every few weeks I’ll notice we’re running low on a few staples, so I’ll dedicate a couple of hours to topping everything back up.
That might include:
- Baking bread
- Making burger/hotdog buns
- Rolling tortillas
- Making yoghurt or kefir
- Making sauerkraut, kombucha, or ginger beer
- Making a fresh batch of Milo
- Restocking spice mixes
- Restocking freezer meals
- Making quick sauces or concentrates
Once those basics are ready again, everyday cooking becomes incredibly easy.
Some Homemade Foods Take Less Than Five Minutes
This is probably the biggest surprise for most people.
Some of the things we make regularly are actually quicker than driving to the supermarket.
For example:
- Homemade Milo – under 5 minutes
- Mayonnaise – around 2 minutes
- Salad dressing – about 1 minute
- Stir-fry sauce – 2 minutes while dinner cooks
- Taco seasoning – less than a minute
- Burger sauce – a couple of minutes
They’re tiny jobs that replace dozens of supermarket purchases over a year.
Build Rhythms Instead of Schedules
People often ask how I keep up with sourdough. The truth is I don’t have a strict schedule, instead I have a rhythm. I feed my starter before bed. Mix the dough the following morning. Leave it to ferment on the bench for half the day then it’s into the fridge overnight and bake it the next morning. Most of that time isn’t active work. The dough is simply doing its thing while I get on with mine.
Same goes for from scratch dinners. I already have my proteins in the freezer so I get one out in the morning, let it defrost. I have my carbohydrates in the cupboard in the form of pasta, rice, potatoes, and root veggies, I have tortillas, pitas, and pizza bases in the freezer and fresh produce and sauce ingredients on hand. All I have to do in the evenings is prep and cook and dinner is served in 15-30 mins depending on the recipe.
Let the Seasons Decide
The garden has taught me not to fight the seasons. Instead of expecting everything to be available all year, we simply eat what’s growing. When tomatoes are everywhere, we eat tomatoes. When pumpkins are ready, pumpkin finds its way into plenty of meals. When herbs are thriving, they’re in almost everything. Rather than making life harder, seasonal eating has actually made meal planning much simpler.
Also, we only grow what we eat. There’s no point in growing things that you’re not going to use so it’s best to keep it simple and put your time and energy into what you’ll actually use.
And of course, there’s nothing wrong with going to your local produce store, farmers market, or using a veggie box subscription like Eden’s Box which we have here in Auckland NZ to top up your veggies or purchase things you don’t grow.
Keep Your Freezer Working for You
My freezer is probably one of the hardest-working parts of our kitchen.
Whenever I make extra, I freeze it. I also buy a mystery meat box every few weeks from Paddock To Pantry here in NZ which goes straight in the freezer so we always have quality meat at a cheaper price ready to go.
Here’s what I freeze:
- Bread & Sourdough
- Pizza dough & pizzas
- Passata
- Pizza sauce
- Bone broth
- Garden produce
- Burger buns
- Wraps & tortillas
- English muffins
- Steaks, meatballs, patties etc
Future me is always grateful because homemade convenience food is already waiting whenever life gets busy.
Build One Habit at a Time
This is probably the most important advice I can give. Don’t try to become a from-scratch household overnight because we certainly didn’t. We started with one thing, then another, and then another. Over about a year those small habits connected together until they became our normal.
I first started with kombucha and kefir. Then I began making my own sourdough and yoghurt. Once I nailed sourdough that blew up into bagels, English muffins, pizza bases, pitas, tortillas, all the breads, you name it! Then I noticed I had no desire to purchase store bought breads anymore as mine tasted better and cost a fraction of the price. That’s when I started doing the same with spice mixes, stir-fry sauces, Milo (chocolate malt drink), tomato sauce, bbq sauce, mayo, etc. Then I no longer needed to purchase those and so on…
It Isn’t About Being Perfect
We still buy things and we still enjoy takeaway occasionally. There are busy weeks where convenience wins, and that’s completely okay.
The goal has never been perfection. It’s been creating a home that feels calmer, wastes less, eats better quality food and works with our family instead of creating more work.
That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned through all of this. Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to mean spending more time in the kitchen. It means building simple systems that quietly make everyday life easier.
If building a from scratch kitchen is something you want to start doing, send me your email here and receive my FREE From Scratch Checklist to help get you started.
