Cooking Tips – The Fastest Way Of Preparing A Healthy Oven-baked Dish
If you love oven-baked dishes but your schedule is tight, then you need to take shortcuts if you don’t want to sacrifice your favourite meal type. In fact, there are many ways of cooking an oven-baked dish without investing much time.
Most oven-baked dishes consist in three basic ingredients:
- Vegetables and/ or meat
- Pasta or potatoes
- A sauce
- Cheese topping
Trick #1. Pre-cook your foods
If your vegetables or meat are already cooked by the time you put them in the oven, all you need is to heat your dish up and to grill it. No waiting times of an hour until your potatoes are done. You got three ways of pre-cooking your foods:
- Literally pre-cooking them yourself, but that takes quite some time, as you first have to peel your veggies, cut your meat and then cook it. So, if you really are in a hurry, this is not an option.
- Do the pre-cooking when you have time and then stock the cooked vegetables in your freezer. Don’t forget to defrost them in time so that they are ready for use when you need them.
- Use canned vegetables or meat, for unlike frozen foods, these don’t require defrosting but can be used straight from the can. All you need to do is open it and drain the foods. Just make certain the foods you buy are not processed, as these often contain many calories and unhealthy additives.
Potatoes can be part of your pre-cooked package, but if you want pasta, cook it separately. A lasagne simply won’t be done in 10 minutes, unless you cook the whole meal before hand and then just warm it. A great starchy food for cooking in a hurry is couscous, which can be prepared within minutes.
Trick #3. Stock sauces in your freezer
Many sauces can be frozen, e.g. tomato sauce or sauce Bolognese. Prepare them in advance, maybe in bulk, and keep them in the freezer until you need them. Again, make sure you defrost them before hand.
Trick #4. Have grated cheese ready
Certainly the quickest and easiest way is to buy your cheese grated. But maybe you decided on low-fat cheese and your supermarket doesn’t stock grated low-fat cheese, or you may find it cheaper to buy a bulk of cheese and grate it yourself. In that case, keep a stock of grated cheese in the fridge that you can quickly use.
Trick #5. Quick preparation methods
So, you have all your ingredients ready at hand. Use shortcuts for the cooking process as well. Don’t wait for the oven before you start! Try the following way:
- Start preheating the oven on 200°C. If you don’t have a grill function, you might need to set it on maximum heat.
- Then set your pasta or rice on the stove so that it will be done by the time the food comes out of the oven.
- Whilst you preheat the oven, fill your meat and vegetables into an ovenproof dish, pour the sauce over it and sprinkle the cheese on top.
- Put the dish in the oven and grill for 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese has melted and turned golden and the food is warm. If you decided on couscous, now is the right time to prepare it.
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