We’ve all been there. The dishwasher is still full of clean dishes needing to be unloaded, you’re trying to get dinner prepped and cooked, but the one utensil or bowl you need is buried in the overflowing sink of dirty dishes….wanna know a little secret? How about five?
It’s my five super simple but super effective ways to keep your kitchen CLEAN! I know right, sounds impossible. Especially when you’re cooking at home and trying to eat healthier. But it IS possible. I’ve been sharing these tips inside my Facebook community (click here to join us) all month long, and now gonna let you in on it!
Here are my 5 tips:
- Meal prep – If you aren’t already doing this, then here’s another incentive. Less messes to clean up throughout the week! With meal prep, you make one big mess. And then yeah you have to clean it up, but at least you do it all at once. For me, it’s the constant unloading and reloading the dishwasher, cleaning counters, washing dishes…every. single. night. That really got to me. Meal prep makes those nightly messes much more manageable.
- Clean while you cook – There’s always those little things involved in cooking like waiting for water to boil, or veggies to cook or something to bake, or whatever it might be. Instead of just scrolling on your phone just watching (a watched pot never boils anyway 😆), or doing something else not useful – use those couple minutes here and there to clean up! Rinse out or even completely wash dishes, get them in the dishwasher, wipe up counter messes, put ingredients that you’re done with away. And by the time food is actually done and ready, your kitchen is basically clean. Not sure about you, but I’d much rather clean up while waiting on supper, than have to go back and do it when I’m done. THAT is when you can relax…and then you can scroll on your phone
- Dishes done before bed – I know, crazy concept right. And yet why is it so hard?! There’s always like 1 or 2 random things that we leave behind or ‘just didn’t get to’ each night. And those can really start to add up over the week. So give yourself a pep talk and just get it done! Give yourself rewards if you need to. Do what you gotta do 🤷♀️ Good news it should be a whole lot easier to do if you already were cleaning while you were cooking. Huh…what a good idea. 😉 It’s so much more peaceful to go bed with a clean kitchen AND wake up to one in the morning. Instead of waking up on Saturday morning to a huge mess of nasty dishes that now you have to spend your whole morning cleaning…😭 I may have done that once or twice…
- Start with a clean slate – More specifically, start with a clean sink and dishwasher. Before you even start cooking, make sure your dishwasher is emptied and ready for dirty dishes, and your sink is cleaned out and ready for dirty pans and stuff to rinse and soak. This should be fairly easy if you followed tip #3. And then if you’re following tip #2, you can just put those dirty dishes straight into the dishwasher when you’re done with them, and wash anything else right away. So open up that dishwasher, fill that sink with hot soapy water, and get to it! You’ll be glad you did.
- Use cups and bowls – Learned this one from Rachael Ray! Before you ever get started, whether it’s your weekly prep or nightly cooking, grab a BIG bowl for all your scraps. If you compost (good for you!), then have a separate bowl for that, and then bring over the garbage or another bowl for anything you can’t compost. This keeps the mess contained in one area and all you have to do is dump it all into the garbage or compost bin when you’re done! Much better instead of picking up all the scraps (and their messy residue) from your counter. 😏
And for those messy utensils you are using, grab a wide cup (or plate) to put them in to keep their messy residue off the counter. Better yet, put some warm water into the cup so it helps to get those utensils soaking and they are MUCH easier to clean! And the cup will be too. Throw everything right into that already clean and unloaded dishwasher 😉
Put all these tips together each week (and day) and I promise you will have a mess-free kitchen!
Get these tips and more every week inside my free Facebook fitness group: Life Fit Collective
Angel Ballance 