man people here really just don't want cooking to be easy huh?

That s why I meal prep

You're cooking the wrong recipes if its taking 2 hours every time.

The more often you cook a specific recipe the quicker you get at it.

I always cook as much of whatever I'm making as I can, then put it in containers in the fridge or freezer (depending on the dish and how much).

And I have some base recipes that I cook that are easy to quickly make other things with. One thing I've done for almost two decades now is make a basic kinda "half-bolognese" (can't think of a better English description right now). Just onion, garlic, meat (or in my case vegan alternative), salt, pepper and some stock of your choice. Then freeze that divided into a couple of portions per bag or container. Very easy to use for a lot of recipes.

I also buy bags of dried beans (way cheaper than undried or pre-soaked) and soak those then freeze them like above, same thing there with being good bases for many things.

One of my current favourite recipe that's quick, cheap and filling without any of the above prep is falafel in tomato sauce. A local brand here in Sweden makes almost weirdly nice falafel that's $5 for 800g (28oz), which is like 50 falafel balls. I put the falafel in my air-fryer (oven or frying pan works just as well) and while those cook I sauté some onion and garlic in olive oil then add spices (the current version I love is with some smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, thyme, black pepper, lots of turmeric, a bit of soy sauce, a stock cube and either MSG or other umami base). Then add the falafel once done and crushed tomatoes and let cook for a few minutes. Works great with rice, pasta, potatoes in whatever variation you like, couscous, and my current fav which is coarse bulgur with vermicelli (roasted noodles). I wouldn't have guessed it before trying but the falafel is so good in the sauce!

PB&Js are quick and Delicious

1. Eat slower than 10 minutes. My God have some company over. If you're spending 2 hours cooking there's no way doubling the recipe takes much longer.

2. Make the company or your significant other do the dishes. If you're in a situation where you're cooking for two hours then doing the dishes yourself, something is wrong.

If you're spending that long cooking, then you're using your time poorly.

Meal prep doesn't have to be like making 20 of the same meal and freezing them, instead, meal prep is supposed to cut corners and make cooking more efficient.

Say, for example, I'm making a sweet potato chickpea curry. I need half a cup of sweet potato. I'm not going to peel and dice half a sweet potato. I'm going to peel 3 sweet potatos, dice half, cube the other half, refridgerate half my diced, blanch and freeze half my cubes, and roast the other half of the cubes in the oven in olive oil and put them in the fridge. Then make my curry with the rest of the dice. Now I have some roasted sweet potato to put into a salad tomorrow (along with some leftover chickpeas), cubes for the next time I do a roast, diced for next time I do a curry or pizza (sweet potato and mushroom pizza slaps) and any leftovers or scraps can be frozen and go in a soup.

Then later, I'm not going to cook 1/2 a cup of brown rice, I'm going to cok 2 cups, set aside 1/3rd in the fridge for a stir fry later in the week, freeze 1/3rd of the cooked rice to heat up some other time later in the microwave and use the remaining 1/3rd in my curry. These two steps alone might cost me an extra 30 minutes today, but they are going to save me hours later in the weeks to come. And I can still freeze half of my curry to defrost and eat later.

As someone who has been cooking for himself for a long time, cook large amounts and refrigerate each serving in separate microwavable containers for later.

I also try to make things that can all go onto a single plate to create less cleanup.

I just got my first ever dishwasher and it's a game changer.

Clean the dishes while waiting for your food to cook and then leave the remaining dishes you didn't clean because you were still using them until the next dish run.

imagine thinking cooking is the hard part of adulting

You’re doing something wrong if it takes you two hours to make dinner.

Skill issue.