It is entirely possible that you hate cooking. Maybe you don’t hate it, you just don’t really enjoy it that much. This could be because you see it as a never ending chore, or because you aren’t very good at it, or for some entirely different reason. The fact is that you pretty much have to cook. You don’t have to be great at it, but you have to be able to feed yourself. Because it’s something that you pretty much have to do, why not try and enjoy it? Cooking is much easier and much more fun if you actually enjoy doing it, and it’s much easier to enjoy when it’s easy and fun. How do you take something that you don’t enjoy but have to do, and make it fun?

There are three main tips that I can give you that might be able to help you enjoy cooking.  These three tips will help make things easier, but really you need to reframe how you look at cooking. If you view it as a chore, it will remain a chore. If you view it as something you are terrible at, you will remain terrible at it. If you view it as something you hate, you will always hate it. See what I’m getting at? You need to remove all the negative connections you have with cooking and start fresh. I know that it’s easier said than done, but it really is the only way. I am very confident that if you wipe the slate clean, you can start to enjoy cooking.

The first, and by far the most important thing you can do to start enjoying cooking is to plan. Before you ever step foot in the kitchen know what your going to do when you get there. This doesn’t have to be written down point by point even though you can do that, but take a second and think about what you’re going to do. Think about what you need to do first. What do you need to get started before anything else? What can wait until later? What are you making? How is it going to look? How is it going to taste? These are all things that you should have a pretty good idea of before you step foot into your kitchen. Just having some kind of plan will make your life so much easier.

When you make your plan, think about clean up. Clean as you go, and you won’t be left with such a big mess at the end. This alone will make the whole process of cooking much more enjoyable. Nobody wants to spend time cooking and then be faced with a giant mess after they eat. Clean as you go. Keep the sink full of hot soapy water and whenever you have a second wash whatever dishes are there. Wipe your counter down as often as you can. Just keep everything as tidy and as clean as you can. It makes the experience of cooking so much better.

Something that people do, that I really don’t understand is that they cook things that they don’t want to eat. Why would you do it? I have not idea! Cooking things that you actually want to eat, makes the whole process exciting because there is a delicious reward at the end. You are giving yourself something to look forward to. If you are spending all this time cooking and cleaning, and you’re making something you don’t even want to eat, it’s no wonder you hate cooking. I know that things get complicated when you have to feed your spouse or your kids. I don’t have kids so I can’t speak to that. Generally, my wife loves when I cook so I can’t really speak to that either. But I have been a child, and I have been the husband of a wife who has cooked a dinner that I didn’t entirely love. And you know what, I ate it. As a kid, my mom always told me that if I didn’t like the food she made I could go somewhere else (there was nowhere else to go), so I ate it. When my wife makes something that I don’t love, I eat it because I love her and she put the effort in. If you are doing the cooking, you get to choose what you cook.

You really need to be able to cook. It is so important for so many reasons. Since you need to be doing it, why not put every effort into enjoying it? Read blogs like this, articles in magazines, or even books. Watch videos on youtube like these or cooking shows. Whatever you need to do to find some kind of enjoyment. The more you know about cooking, and how to do it, the better you will be at it, and the more you will enjoy it. It is a chore that we all have to do, but that doesn’t mean we have to treat it like one.