40+ Shameless (But Brilliant) “Lazy” Cooking Hacks That Save Time and Effort in the Kitchen

Sometimes, you just can’t be bothered to make a proper snack. Or maybe you’re rushing to work and don’t have time to cook a nutritious breakfast. Either way, this hack will have you covered!

Simply pour some oats into an almost-empty jar of peanut butter. It’s delicious, healthy, quick, and easy to make, and it’ll ensure that you’re not wasting those last peanut butter drops. If you’ve got some extra time and you’re feeling fancy, you can add fruit or nuts to the jar, as well.

Most tasty dishes require fresh garlic, which can be a total pain to peel and chop. Not to mention that your hands will smell like garlic for the remainder of the day. This hack requires some prep work at the get-go but it’ll save you tons of effort later on.

Get a whole bunch of garlic, peel and chop it, and simply throw it all into an ice tray before popping it into the freezer. That way, the next time you need some garlic, it’ll be ready to go!

In order to have enough chicken for all sorts of dishes, simply buy one large rotisserie chicken. You can then cut off chunks of it and use them for several days — even a week! Want a chicken salad? No problem, you already have the chicken ready to go!

Fancy some chicken soup? No need to cook the chicken chunks, just throw them in with some broth and your favorite soup vegetables! Why prepare separate food each day when you can just get one big, multi-purpose chicken once a week?

If you love the flavor of barbequed food but don’t want to spend hours by the grill, there’s one simple spice that’ll solve that problem. Cooking smoked paprika into your food will give it that rich and heavy flavor reminiscent of a BBQ.

Is it exactly the same thing as a meal that’s been on the grill? Unfortunately, no. Is it an excellent substitute for someone who doesn’t like barbecuing or lacks the space for a big grill at home? Absolutely!

Oftentimes, frozen goods can be shockingly tasty and they’re certainly a lot less time-consuming than making your own pastries from scratch. If you still want your desserts to have a bit of a unique flavor, you can always give them your own personal touch

Add some vanilla extract or chocolate powder to your pastry before putting it in the oven. Really, there’s no limit to what you can do to make a basic pastry your own.

Instant foods, such as instant mashed potatoes, are popular for a reason! There may be a bit of a stigma against them, but, let’s be honest, sometimes you really want mashed potatoes and can’t be bothered to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen for them.

You can always add a secret spice or sauce to your instant food in order to personalize it and make it seem like you prepared it from scratch. Or just let everyone know it’s instant — there’s no shame in that!

There’s no need to spend hours preparing the dough if you want to make pizza. You don’t even have to defrost a big pre-made pizza dough — especially if you’re just one person.

Instead, use a flour tortilla or pita bread, spread marina sauce on it, add a bit of cheese, and whatever toppings you want, and put it in the oven for five minutes. There you go, you now have a personal pizza!

There may have been a time when cooking had to take hours upon hours, but not in this day and age. Nowadays, we have tons of technology to help us out. So, are you using all of your kitchen gadgets to their max?

For example, it’s no longer necessary to stand there pulling apart chicken if you need it shredded. All you have to do is use a mixer and your chicken will be shredded in seconds. To think we once believed that mixers were just for mixing!

Potatoes are extremely versatile and can be used for meals at pretty much any time of the day. Dedicate a bit of time, every now and then, to cut and boil potatoes and then keep them in the fridge.

That way, half the work will already be done when you need to make something quickly. In fact, you can always just throw them onto a pan with some butter or oil and spices for a super quick and easy bite.

Turn your popcorn to the next level and make it into a once-in-a-blue-moon snack by using instant macaroni and cheese packets to season the popcorn. Pop your popcorn in the microwave, as you normally would.

When you put it into a bowl, sprinkle the macaroni and cheese powder on top and then mix it in. Once you do that, you’ll be ready for a proper movie night, Netflix and chill, a quick snack, or all three!

Cleaning a blender can be tricky, as you run the risk of accidentally hurting yourself on the blade. However, there’s a much quicker, easier, and — most importantly — safer way to clean the blender, simply by letting it do its thing.

Fill your blender a little less than halfway with warm water (not too hot), add a touch of dish soap, put the lid on, and run the blender for a few seconds. Pour the dirty water out, rinse the blender, and you’re done!

Peeling garlic can be a serious task that leaves an even more serious odor on your hands, but it doesn’t have to be. Heating the garlic up a bit can save you a lot of time and energy.

Just toss a head of garlic into the microwave for 20 seconds and then the peels will slip off with ease. This method will ensure that you won’t have to deal with juices, messes, or smelly hands — just some ready-to-cut garlic!

Fish can be cooked even while frozen, meaning that you can skip the stage of waiting for it to thaw. This might increase your cooking time but you’ll save more on all the time you would have waited for it to reach room temperature. So it all depends on how urgently you need it ready.

What’s nice about this method is that not only do you not need to decide in advance if you want fish, but, since it’s frozen, the spices and sauces will stick to the outside and the fish won’t get overcooked inside.

Whipping cream by hand can leave you feeling like you’ve just grown an extra bicep. Save that energy for the gym, instead, and shake your whipped cream. Pour heavy whipping cream into a jar, add powdered sugar and vanilla, close the jar tightly, and shake it until it’s nice and fluffy.

Feel free to blast some music and dance around the house while shaking your whipped cream like a maraca — it sounds like a soon-to-be TikTok trend, doesn’t it?

De-seeding pomegranates is often messy, frustrating, and seemingly impossible. Luckily, there’s a trick to getting those pomegranate seeds out efficiently and without any messiness involved.

First, cut the pomegranate in half, and then soak it in some water. Pick out the seeds and let them drop to the bottom of the bowl. The pomegranate membrane and rind will then float to the top. Just drain the seeds and you’re ready to go!

Making a dish like polenta or grits can take quite a bit of time and energy. However, there’s a quick trick to getting these meals ready in half the time: add baking soda. The baking soda will get your food to the right consistency and texture, without all the effort.

Just make sure not to overdo it — you don’t need more than a pinch. For polenta, mix the baking soda with water before adding it in and your dish will end up perfectly creamy.

Certain foods, like casserole or lasagna, take ages to heat up in the oven. However, if you heat them up in the microwave, they’ll lose their original texture.

The solution to this dilemma is to defrost your food in the microwave first, and then finish warming it up in the oven. The microwave will quickly heat the insides of the dish and the oven will heat up the outside, while still maintaining the texture.

Very few things taste as good as some warm apple pie. Unfortunately, very few things require as much time and effort to bake as apple pie does. That being said, there’s a lazy option for this classic dessert.

Cut an apple into small cubes and place it into a cup or bowl. Add butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Then, put it in the microwave until the apples get mushy. Finally, sprinkle crushed graham crackers on top. There you have it — five-minute apple pie!

If a recipe calls for squeezing lemons or lime, you can save yourself some time by using bottled lemon or lime juice. It’s a lot less messy, a lot easier, and won’t leave you trying to fish out the seeds.

We’ll be honest, the flavor won’t be as fresh as it’d be if you squeezed lemons or limes yourself. Therefore, you should really just use this hack for recipes in which the food is being cooked or mixed with a lot of other flavors anyway.

Leftover food doesn’t need to go to waste and you certainly don’t need to prepare a new meal every single day. But, don’t think that means you have to eat the same food every day, either! Instead, recycle your leftovers and use them for a different dish.

For example, leftover mashed potatoes can become tater tots. Leftover rice can be used for a buddha bowl or even rice pudding. Pasta can become a casserole or a pasta salad. You get the idea…

Boxed dessert mixes are often looked down on but no one can deny that they’re a true time-saver and taste just as good as something baked from scratch. You can even add your own touch to these mixes in order to personalize them.

Throw some ground coffee into a chocolate cake mix in order to give it a mocha flavor. Or splash a bit of milk into a brownie mix to make it creamier. Add chocolate chips, coconut flakes, nuts, or whatever you want!

We’ve all been in that dreaded situation in which we’ve spent time and energy baking a cake, just for it to break and ruin the whole aesthetic.

Not all hope has to be lost, though, as you can easily turn the broken cake into a trifle. Just layer in some fruit and whipped cream and… voilà! No one ever has to know that your perfect trifle was once supposed to be a cake.

Believe it or not, any pizza can be made into a deep-dish pizza — without all the effort of making the dish from scratch. Whether or not you live in Chicago, you can still enjoy a deep-dish pizza — even from home!

Buy a pre-made supermarket pizza, let it thaw for roughly 20 minutes, toss it onto an oiled pan, add whatever toppings you want, then bake it for an additional 10 minutes.

If you’ve ever cut your finger on the lid of a can, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Lifting a can’s lid can be a dangerous task if you’re prone to clumsy accidents.

For those who are maybe a bit less agile, we suggest using a strong fridge magnet on top of the lid to lift the lid completely off the can. That way, you won’t end up hurting yourself when trying to reach the can’s contents.

Believe it or not, potato skins actually add a lot of texture and flavor to most spud-centric dishes. Given that mashed potatoes can be quite monotonous, potato skins are a great way to break up the flavor and add a little something extra.

Furthermore, you’ll be saving yourself tons of time by not peeling all the potatoes before boiling them. You’d be surprised how being “lazy” about making potatoes can actually result in a unique and delicious dish. Just make sure to still clean them before use!

We’ve all been guilty of forgetting to put a drink in the fridge and then being stuck with having it at room temperature. Sure, you can try to put it in the freezer for a bit but that never works as quickly as you’d like it to.

However, there’s an easy way to make the freezer work much more efficiently. Wrap the bottle in a wet paper towel and then put it in the freezer. It’ll be nice and cold in just a few minutes!

Pico de gallo, aka salsa fresco, can be used instead of fresh veggies as a huge time-saver. If you have a recipe that calls for onions, peppers, and tomatoes, you can just throw in store-bought pico de gallo instead.

It contains all those ingredients already chopped and ready to go, and it’ll taste exactly the same as fresh veggies when cooked into a dish. If you’re more of a DIY person, you can always make your own every once in a while, and keep it in the fridge.

Trust us when we tell you that it’s entirely possible to make a delicious dish from instant ramen noodles. Yes, we know how that sounds but stay with us here. Add peanut butter and sriracha to instant beef-flavored ramen and your mind will be blown by how simple, yet tasty, it is!

Of course, if you’re not a fan of sriracha or peanut butter, you can add other ingredients instead. The point is that you can create a delicious ramen dish without starting from scratch.

Cooking spaghetti in a skillet, rather than a pot, will reduce the time it takes for it to be ready as the water will boil much faster. Furthermore, the leftover water is the perfect base for making a sauce.

It’ll be concentrated and starchy, so you don’t need to start creating a sauce from zero. When the spaghetti’s finished cooking, put it on a plate and use the same skillet to make the sauce, which you’ve already started with the water.

Separating egg yolks from the whites is no easy task… unless you know the trick to it, that is! All you need is a water bottle in order to easily extract egg yolks. Crack the eggs into a bowl, hold the mouth of the water bottle over the egg yolk, and slowly release your grip.

When you release the squeeze, the bottle will suck up the yolk. You can then deposit the yolk into a separate bowl, as needed.

Despite being absolutely delicious, many people don’t have hollandaise sauce on a regular basis because it’s such a pain to make. This sauce requires endless whisking and perfect timing, in order to come out just right.

However, if you don’t mind cheating a bit, there’s a much easier way to get this sauce. Simply mix the ingredients in a blender and, at the click of a button, it’ll be ready. Feel free to keep this trick a secret so your guests admire your expert “whisking” abilities.

Not everyone loves the taste of anchovies but if you use them sparingly, they can elevate a dish without giving off that fishy flavor.

For example, dissolving one or two anchovies into a bolognese sauce will give it that extra oomph that makes it taste like it’s from a gourmet restaurant. It’s also a wonderful alternative to salt! If you’re cooking for other people, just make sure they’re good with eating fish as they won’t taste the anchovies in the dish.

Who doesn’t love French toast for breakfast in the morning? However, who really wants to spend their whole morning cooking? That’s where French toast in a mug comes in. Rip up pieces of bread and place them in a mug.

Then, create a French toast batter (eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla) and pour it into the mug. Put it in the microwave for one minute. Take it out, pour maple syrup on it, microwave it for another 15 seconds, take it out again, and enjoy your breakfast!

Remember, leftovers never have to go to waste while there’s still no need to eat the same thing every day. Making a quiche or frittata is a great way to utilize any savory foods that may need repurposing.

This whatever-goes type of cooking is also a great way to use up vegetables that are going to go bad soon. Use them in any sort of baked egg dish — it’s pretty much impossible to go wrong with those.

Cooking bacon can make you feel like you need to wear a full-body shield. Frying this delicious food will leave grease splatters all over your kitchen — and all over you.

In order to avoid the mess but still enjoy a bacon-filled breakfast, bake your bacon in the oven rather than frying it. Line a baking pan with tin foil (you can also use a cooking sheet), put the bacon on it, and pop it into the oven. There you have it!

Peeling eggs can be pretty frustrating and time-consuming — if you don’t know the trick to it, that is. In order to peel hard-boiled eggs quickly and painlessly, put them in a jar of cold water.

Then put the lid on (make sure it’s screwed on tight), and shake the jar. When you go to take the eggs out, the shell will come right off! This trick should cut down your egg salad prepping by half!

Peeling onions isn’t really anyone’s favorite task. It’s difficult to do, it stinks up your hands, and most people get teary-eyed from it. A simple solution is to soak the onions in hot water for a few minutes before starting to peel them.

This trick will make peeling the pesky vegetable much easier and help a bit with the crying (sadly, it won’t completely eliminate the tears). Another trick to help with tears when cutting onions is to put the onions in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before cutting them.

We all want people to be impressed with our amazing cake-decorating skills. That being said, not all of us have those abilities handy. Luckily, you can fake it by placing cookies into the cake, making it look like you’ve drawn the design on with frosting yourself.

If your conscious can handle cheating even further, you can buy several different-sized cakes and pile them on top of each other. That way, it’ll look like you’ve baked a huge three-tiered cake!

A true first-world food problem is reaching for a handful of popcorn only to discover that you’ve eaten a mouthful of bitter kernels. Apparently, the bag that microwavable popcorn comes in is designed to prevent that very instance — but no one uses them properly!

The bag is meant to be opened just a small bit, at first, so that you can shake the kernels out into a bowl. Once they’re all gone, you can open the popcorn bag all the way and enjoy without fear of a bad bite.

Everyone loves taco Tuesday — except for when all of the contents of our taco fall out of the tortilla and onto our hands, that is. In order to keep your taco whole, place the tortilla in a microwave-safe cup.

Then, fill the tortilla with whatever you want in your taco. Microwave it, and only take the taco out of the cup when it’s ready to eat. That’s how you get an (almost) mess-free taco.

Most people use butter on their grilled cheese. While delicious, it’s pretty easy to burn if you’re not careful or willing to keep a close eye on it. An alternative, and equally tasty, option is to use mayo instead.

It’s a lot less likely to burn and needs less attention when being grilled. Bonus points for the fact using mayo saves you the time of needing to soften the butter so you can spread it.

When it comes to onion and garlic, powders are just as good as the fresh stuff. We admit that, at first, they’re a bit less flavorful. However, that can easily be fixed by simply mixing the spices with a touch of water.

Anyway, you won’t really notice if the recipe in question calls for the onions or garlic to be cooked into something. Powders will save you the time you would’ve spent peeling and chopping, and they’ll also save you a whole lot of mess.

Certain ingredients can make any basic dish seem fancy. For example, sun-dried tomatoes have the magical power of always feeling gourmet. Figure out what your “fancy” ingredients are and make sure to always have them on hand to quickly spruce up a meal.

If you’ve got excellent culinary skills, you can make an actual fancy meal. However, if you’re in a rush or cooking just isn’t where you shine, fake it with a “fancy” ingredient.

Who says egg slicers have to be exclusively for eggs? This useful tool can be used for pretty much anything that’s soft and needs slicing. You can use egg slicers for strawberries, mushrooms, soft cheeses, olives, and so on.

Why sit there, spending your time chopping all sorts of foods, when you have an egg slicer that can be used for so much more than its original purpose? Feel free to find multiple uses for your other kitchen appliances as well! Get creative with it!

Caramel sauce can be a true pain to make, as it requires endless whisking, quite a few ingredients, and will burn unless you keep an eye on it. However, there’s a way for even the laziest chef to cook caramel sauce — and it only requires two ingredients.

Mix condensed milk with boiling water, let it sit for roughly three hours, and you’ll have caramel sauce! The best part is that there’s no need to stand over it while it cooks.