Cooking can be a rather divisive hobby. While some people love to cook and find great joy in putting together a recipe, others can’t stand it and become stressed from something as simple as boiling an egg. Regardless of one’s comfort level in the kitchen, there is something that both home cooks and professional chefs can agree on: Cleaning up after cooking can be a pain. Unfortunately, there’s no trick to magically restore your kitchen after hours of grilling, frying, and chopping, but there is a way to do so faster while making cooking easier in the process. Instead of cleaning after cooking, clean as you go.
The principle of cleaning as you go is a straightforward and simple one, but it’s also one that professional chefs swear by to keep their kitchens clean and functional. If you’ve ever struggled to fill up a pot with water because the sink is so full of dirty dishes, or if you couldn’t find a place to put your cutting board because every surface is covered in vegetable scraps, then you understand what a hindrance a dirty kitchen can be. Cleaning as you go eliminates problems like these and means less work for you after cooking when all you want to do is eat and relax.
Ways to clean as you go
Cleaning as you go does not mean dropping everything to clean every nook and cranny of your kitchen; it means finding small ways to clean up after yourself to keep the cooking process running smoothly. One simple way to implement this technique is by washing dishes as soon as you use them. This not only allows you to easily use certain cookware again, but it also stops dirty pots and pans from piling up in your sink, which can be very overwhelming.
There are plenty of other tips for keeping things clean, like tossing any scraps or trash into one big bowl as you cook so that you can dump everything into the garbage at once. Some of the best ways to clean as you go involve a bit of planning beforehand — fill a spray bottle with half water and half vinegar, and use it to quickly clean counters and other surfaces. Keeping a dedicated cleaning rag on hand will also help with this.
Basically, the goal is to have small instances of cleaning throughout your time in the kitchen rather than one giant mess to deal with at the end of the night. Doing so should erase a lot of stress and make your cooking more efficient.
