One Pot Meals
Before you get too excited at the title of this section, we need to tell you something. You will be using more than one pot to prepare some of these dishes.
Okay, most of these dishes.
We know you were envisioning a two-minute clean-up after cooking from this section—just you, a sponge, and one pot (unlike the usual kitchen carnage that shows up after you prep, cook, and serve dinner). But the title of this section isn’t really meant to represent your cooking vessels; rather, the fact that you’ll be cooking a complete meal (protein, vegetables, and natural fats) all in one dish, with no need to find a side dish or dressing pairing.
So we are making it easier on you here. Just maybe not easier on your dishwasher.
If you feel like you’re in “Good Food jail” (chained to your cutting board, stove, and sink) during this Whole30, let’s talk about a few ways you can streamline the preparation, cooking, and clean-up process.
The first tip is to batch-prep your food. Set aside a few hours on a Sunday or thirty minutes on a weeknight after work and make some things ahead of time. Prepare a marinade or spice mixture you know you’ll be using soon, make three or four dressings and sauces, and pre-chop your vegetables (they’re fine stored in a covered container in the fridge for a few days). The less you have to do when you’re rushing around to get dinner on the table, the cleaner your kitchen will be.
Place a “garbage bowl” on the counter for remnants like onion tops, apple cores, or herb stems. Limiting trips to and from the garbage can saves time and spills onto your kitchen floor.
Reuse kitchen tools as often as you can. If you’re just chopping vegetables, there is no need to use more than one cutting board—just wipe the remnants of the vegetables off, then move to your next ingredient. Same with knives and measuring cups—you may need a quick rinse in between, but you certainly don’t need a fresh tool for every ingredient. (Careful with raw meat, though—that should have its own cutting board, and any tools that come into contact with the meat should be washed thoroughly before using them again.)
Combine ingredients whenever you can. If you add the onions, the peppers, and the mushrooms to the pan all at the same time, leave them all on the same cutting board or hold them all in the same mixing bowl—no need to dirty extras. Same for spice mixtures; if you’re combining all the spices in the pan anyway, just use one small dish to hold them all during your prep.
If you need to coat vegetables in oil before roasting them, you can put them in a bowl, add the oil, and mix . . . or you can do what we do, which is lay the vegetables out on your lined baking sheet, drizzle the oil evenly over the veggies, and toss with your hands until they are well coated. One less greasy bowl to wash = winning.
Finally, we know every cookbook will tell you to clean as you go, but you really should clean as you go. (Or at the very least, rinse.) If something is simmering for a few minutes, wash a bowl or two, wipe your counter down, or return your spices to the cabinet. If you can finish cooking your meal with a relatively clean kitchen, the clean-up post-dinner is a snap.
Especially if you make your spouse, partner, or roommate do it.
