Many of us have grown tired of cooking. Even if you’ve always loved the process of creating delicious meals from a few ingredients, there comes a time when even the most seasoned home chef needs a little bit of inspiration. Here are a few tips I’ve found have always been helpful in getting me back into the grove of cooking at home.

READING COOKBOOKS

Sometimes all that is required to light up your inspiration flames can be found within the pages of a good cookbook. You can also try the vast array of cooking accounts on Instagram, Pinterest or even TikTok. Social media is a wonderful tool to help you keep your weekly menus interesting, varied and delicious. All this being said, my love and passion for cooking was birthed by my love for cook books. There is nothing like reading a cook book (yes, cover to cover) and learning about how the author/ chef/ nutritionist stores their ingredients to make you eager to try it out yourself.

TRYING ONE NEW FOOD EVERY WEEK

Stuck in a food rut? Get out of it by trying a new star ingredient or new recipe you’ve never cooked before. I tend to stick to the same grocery list and the same sections of the grocery store, but sometimes, when I’m bored, I explore. Cooking doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. Sometimes all that’s needed is the addition of something new to spark up your passion for the cooking process.

For example, I recently bought fresh beets as something new and healthy to incorporate into my recipe repertoire. I love a good beet salad at a restaurant, but funnily enough, I’ve never cooked with it at home. Admittedly, this tip requires a little bit of research (googling “how to roast beets” was helpful), but it’ll definitely keep your meal times exciting.

EXPERIMENTING WITH NEW TOOLS

Another tip to keeping the motivation to cook high is to not only change what you’re cooking, but to change how you cook. Whether it’s an air fryers, salad chopper, poached egg maker, there are a number of affordable appliances that are easy to use. To be completely honest, my air fryer changed my life and how I prepare meals. The simple truth is healthy cooking is a quick and easy process when you have a kitchen full of tools to help you do it.

PERFECTING A COUPLE OF RECIPES YOU ALREADY LOVE

Rediscovering your love of cooking is more than just uncovering new foods and ingredients to test out, it’s also about falling in love with your old-faithfuls. One of the main reasons I still love cooking so much is because I really enjoy tweaking recipes that I love. A great example of this is making pasta. The process of boiling the water, chopping garlic and putting together a simple tomato-based sauce is forever going to be one of my go to simple recipes. However, it also forms the basis of an unregulated variety of more sophisticate pasta dishes that keep the experience of cooking pasta exciting.