I truly do enjoy cooking. My husband likely disagrees with that statement though, since I try my darndest to get out of doing it so often. The key for me is that I HAVE to have a clean kitchen to cook. Here are 5 tips to keep your kitchen sparkly clean so it will be ready for the next time you use it.
If my kitchen is not sparkly clean, you might as well pull out the take out menus because I ain’t cleaning and I ain’t cooking. 😉
Sometimes, however…not cooking is not an option.
We, like everyone else with an income below 1 million dollars a year, are on a budget. Eating out does not always fit into that budget very nicely.
PLUS, we recently moved and we’re now in a situation where we have multiple generations living in one household. I am the main cook, so if the kitchen is a wreck…who do you think is responsible?
That’s right…moi.
My husband might be able to forgive my hatred for scrubbing dirty pots, but my MIL (bless her heart)…well, I bet at some point her head would explode (she’s a VERY neat person).
Therefore, heretofor and everafter and blah blah blah….the kitchen needs to stay clean.
To keep the sanity of the household.
To keep the cook in the kitchen.
To avoid the nasty habit of living like a hermit because you just don’t want to clean the kitchen today, or tomorrow…you’ll do it next week. Promise.
We’ve done a pretty stellar job keeping the kitchen neat and tidy the past few months (well…to our standards at least) and I wanted to pass along these tips to you, in case you are also struggling with I Can’t Cook if the Kitchen is Dirty and I Don’t Want to Clean it-itis.
Be sure to leave YOUR tips in the comments below!
1. Start with a clean kitchen. Duh.
This means an empty dishwasher, an empty sink…clean and clear countertops, etc. The next 4 tips seem to help take care of this, but if breakfast and lunch dishes are piling up in between dinners…find a means to tackle it before you start cooking dinner.
2. Have a “garbage bowl” near by.
Rachel Ray to the rescue! I can’t remember what she calls it (I think just a garbage bowl?), but I can’t be bothered to open the cabinet to the trash for every potato peel and every wrapper. Having a garbage bowl nearby is a necessity to keep my counters clear of trash
3. Make sure you have rags/paper towels and any necessary supplies for cleaning spills on hand.
LOVE this stuff
This means exactly what it says.
4. Enlist help in the kitchen!
I bet you have tiny people in your house who love to please you 😉 . Even if you don’t, everyone should earn their keep. Have your kids help you cook. Have them empty the dishwasher. You are not their servant!
You can pay them in cookie dough!
5. Clean as you go and make sure pots/pans are soaking if necessary before you sit down to eat.
This makes after dinner clean up a breeze. Plus if I’ve cleaned as I’ve cooked, my husband usually offers to finish up the cleaning after dinner. If the mess is too huge, he’s all of a sudden “busy” and needs to “spend time with the kids” or “has to go to the bathroom”.
Bonus: Do as much “before” prep as you can over the weekend or during a time of the week when things are less hectic.
School nights are generally hectic around here. If I can do my veggie prep and measuring on a night/day when things are less crazy, it’s often just a matter of throwing things in a pot/pan and avoiding the mess of cutting boards, peelers and wrappers.
Skim through your recipes for the week and see if there is anything you can do on a less crazy day!
Is your kitchen always neat and tidy? Or are you suffering from a mean case of I Can’t Cook if the Kitchen is Dirty and I Don’t Want to Clean it-itis? Give us your tips or your story in the comment below!
paper plates, its not so much the cooking items that get to me but the after effect of everybody eating and tons of plates and utensils and cups everywhere!
You can get decent paper plates at walmart for pretty cheap. Not the flimsy bottom of the lines ones but midline ones that will handle most foods.
it cuts down on how much its going through the dishwasher, not to mention the cost of running a dishwasher nightly.
To elaborate on the kids/hubby helping keep clean as you go…teach them to rinse their plates, utensils/cups after they use them and load it into the dishwasher so you dont have a sink full.
I usually load the dishwasher as i go, then fill it up at the end of the night , run it overnight and able to put items away in the morning.
Also having premoistened kitchen wipes helps, you can get them at the dollar store. That way your not wasting all your papr towels and cleaning products, or using dish rags to clean with thus creating more laundry.
I do a nightly clean, wipe counters, stove, sink, and if this is done consistantly its not that big of a job to tackle. Maybe 10 mins to clean up the kitchen??.
We definitely use paper plates during especially busy seasons in life! Thanks for the tips!
We buy the huge pack of paper plates at Sams as well as plastic forks and plastic spoons! The kids think they need separate utensils for everything, so this definitely beats washing a hundred utensils a night 🙂
We try not to generate so much waste, so we avoid paper plates and toss away utensils. It’s really not good for the environment. Having said that we make an exception at holidays. When I’ve been cooking for days, and cleaning as I go, I want to sit and enjoy my meal and family so we use paper plates for the meal, and everything else can go into the dishwasher (utensils, serving platters, cups and such).
Thanks for all the little tips though! I plan to clean the kitchen top to bottom this week, pull the stove out, to clean behind it and wipe down the walls and the stove itself. Will do the same behind the fridge and microwave cart as well. Hoping a fresh sparkling kitchen will make meal prep enjoyable again, or at least not such a pain in the tush, lol.
Thank you for the tips and reminder. I hate cleaning my kitchen, and since my husband also hates doing anything in the kitchen, it is up to me to do it. Just dropped in to say I did it tonight 🙂 I took the extra hour to fully clean everything in my kitchen. I did have netflix going in the background, so that could be why it took so much longer… 🙂
Awesome! Glad you got it done. It’s such a pain in the butt, but I feel so much better when it’s DONE!
I suffer from this horribly! I hate doing the dishes! HATE IT! I don’t mind doing the plates and cups because, lets face it, they’re pretty easy and quick to do. I hate silverware and pots/pans. I’m sure a lot of people are with me on this. I think it should be illegal to not have a dishwasher! 🙂 I’m in the process now of deep cleaning the kitchen before the really cold weather kicks in. 🙂
Love these tips, Heather! I have just recently started doing the garbage bowl thing…..soooo much easier!
I hate hate hate a dirty kitchen and refuse to work in one, so here are some of my tactics that we have found really helpful one if a pan needs to soak to come clean (like a lasagnas pan) then I put in a dryer sheet while it is soaking it helps the gunk of cooked on in the corners come right off. I also do ziplock meals where once a month I will season and chop meats for different meals and place in ziplocs then before bed the day before I place in refrig to defrost that way when I get home from work into the pot it goes side salad chopped and we are ready to eat, I love the stone pieces from Pampered Chef they make my cooking chore and cleaning chore not so much a chore and much more enjoyable like the deep covered baker I make a whole chicken once a week in this pot in the microwave (cooks in 30 min) I then cut the meat off the bone and use for chicken salad, burritos, nachos, pizzas etc I do this in place of the grocery store rotisserie chickens it is cheaper and much more healthy for my family. I love your site being a displaced southern woman living in the desert I love seeing what you are cooking and new ideas.
Thank you SOOOO much for your tips! I see you sell pampered chef. I’ve always wanted to try their goodies!
anytime you want to get your hands on a product let me know and I can steer you to the “must haves” from my list.
Love your suggestions! Sometimes I think I’m the only one like this. I hate doing dishes.We’re a family of six and there are always dishes. The paper plate thing has worked well. And rinsing those dishes right away makes putting them in dishwasher a breeze. I do the garbage bowl now it is much easier because of our toddler we have to keep garbage in the dinning room.So while doing dishes cleaning kitchen having it right there is a. Life saver.I use cheap white faceclothes and bleach spray I made and hot water. Cheaper than useing. Up all my paper towels. Seriously I need to make my kids work more,this what makes big families run efficiently chores chores chores I gotta be a tough mom but I’m such a wimp :(.Sorry there might be some mistakes in this I’m trying to nurse a wiggly toddler!!
Using Dawn Platinum Helps tons. Will never use another dish soap. You can soak your worse for 3 minutes and they wipe clean like they have soaked all night. Amazing stuff, and best of all, it takes very little. I have 5 kids and I go through a large bottle ever 4-6 months depending on cookouts and holidays. Worth the bit extra money at the store.
I’ve never seen Dawn Platinum. I’ll have to check it out!
I love my garbage bucket on the counter! I use an ice cream bucket!
I have another issue, though. My daughter has celiac disease. How do I deal with 2 toasters, and 2 waffle irons, etc. Any ideas or suggestions?
Thank you,
I have a cleaning service and speed is as important as the result.
We have bleach in a spray bottle. Spray the sink down, let it sit for just a minute and wipe out. it will be spotless.
Next take Pledge Spray Wax and spray just a little in the sink. Take a clean micro fibre cloth an polish. Total time about 2.5 minutes. Results..outstanding!
Thank you for sharing the helpful post. Thank you for the post.