Weeknight dinners often feel rushed and chaotic, squeezed between work, school activities, and other responsibilities. Can we reinvent dinner into a satisfying experience of connection and wholesome food, while saving time and money? Here are my tested solutions for saving time, energy and money while increasing the pleasure of cooking and the quality of meals.

Theme the Week

Instead of planning a different meal every night, try theming your week. For instance, if the entire week is Mexican, the leftovers and groceries will complement each other. Like a coordinated wardrobe, this approach reduces decision-making because everything goes with everything. You can piggyback one meal onto the last meal’s components without starting from scratch. You’ll know which basics to prepare over the weekend, this allows you to assemble rather than cook when you come home tired for parts of the week.

Decide which cooking techniques you’ll use for the weekly theme. For example, a Mexican themed week can also be an oven-focused week with sheet pan and casserole dishes. Knowing the theme will guide you, simplifying the tasks and creating more space to add fun and delicious touches like homemade salsas, avocados and chopped herbs.

Decide Once

Reduce your mental load by deciding once for repetitive decisions. Try keeping your Mexican grocery list for next month.

I make indexes in Google Drive for cooking projects, like a “Weeknight Dinner Themes Index,” with a subheading for Mexican. Create links to your Mexican grocery list and recipe pages.

Now everything is decided and conveniently in one place, and all you have to do is put ‘Mexican’ in the search bar and everything for the week is at hand.

Deciding once keeps you focused on what matters, like buying seasonal and local ingredients or cooking from scratch. When decisions are made ahead, the expensive and unhealthy quick options are no longer a temptation. The plan is in place, so you can move on to cooking.

The decide once tactic is fabulous for organizing  the helpers on your family team. Plan ahead who the sous chef, dishes and table setter will be for Mexican week.

Cook Smart

The intelligent cook minimizes hands-on time and avoids babysitting food, like standing over the stove. The number one time consumer is cutting vegetables. You can shorten prep time by using a food processor to shred and chop, or try a manual vegetable chopper, which can halve your chopping time.

Eliminate stovetop sautéing by oven-sautéing for better results and saving up to 20 minutes of hands-on time! My favorite time saving appliances include the Instant Pot, Vitamix, and food processor. If these seem expensive, consider the money saved from eating at home, making investments in equipment savvy.

Good cooks also buy in bulk, cook in batches, freeze sauces and pastes, assemble ingredients, clean up as they cook, think ahead, and most importantly, stay present in the moment without attempting to multitask. If you want weeknight dinners to flow and feel relaxing, invest in cooking skills! Cooking skills will give you confidence and ease which is what we want in the kitchen.

By rethinking weeknight dinners, you can transform them from a chore into a manageable and even joyful part of your day. Embrace weekly themes, use leftovers to build the next meal, and enjoy the benefits of deliciousness shared with the ones you love.

Extra Mexican Recipes on Food Coop’s Blog “The Beet.”For more recipes and inspiration visit foodcoop.coop/recipes

Sidonie Maroon is culinary educator at The Food Co-op. This recipe and more are available at foodcoop.coop/recipes