This Mom Has Mastered Cooking For 10 Kids Over The Years — Here Are Her Easy Tricks (That Also Apply To Any Size Family)

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For astir of us, the thought of cooking meal for 10 kids each nighttime sounds similar a Hell’s Kitchen remake of Groundhog Day. But for Alicia Dougherty, it’s virtually child’s play.

The matriarch of the viral Dougherty Dozen has perfected the look for feeding a bare assemblage without losing her caput oregon her oven mitts. With a scoop of astute shortcuts, a dash of planning, and a dense fistful of ma math, she keeps meal play to a minimum and mealtime stress-free.

Whether you’re cooking for 2 oregon twelve, Alicia’s tried-and-true tricks tin assistance support your room calm, cool, and chaos casserole-free.

1. Sometimes boring and basal is better.

By swapping retired seasonings, sides, oregon toppings, she creates a moving database of top hits the full household tin hold on. “I often rotate the aforesaid 3 vegetables. To immoderate that mightiness beryllium boring, but I cognize my kids volition get their serving of veggies and I won’t person nutrient waste.”

2. Don’t shadiness the premade.

Frozen meatballs, jarred marinara, rotisserie chicken — these are weeknight lifesavers. They aren’t conscionable shortcuts, they’re strategy. The extremity isn’t perfection. It’s everyone fed, with your sanity intact.

3. When successful doubt, starch it out.

Layer atom nether leftover chicken, roast up immoderate murphy wedges, oregon flip pasta with peas and jarred condiment to crook analyzable carbs into casual dinners.

4. Don’t get your pantry successful a bunch.

Label bins. Sort snacks. Keep your shelf-stable items grouped by class truthful you tin spot what’s moving debased astatine a glance. That means less frantic searches and much clip really cooking.

5. Prep earlier the panic.

Alicia started doing this during nap clip erstwhile her kids were younger. Pulling ingredients, chopping veggies, and mounting up your pots up of clip keeps the process creaseless and saves you from scrambling mid-sauté.

7. Shop smarter, not harder.

Alicia adjacent organizes her buying database by store layout: “I marque up the market database connected a template that separates retired what I request by the country of the store I tin find it in.”

When it comes to ingredients, timing is everything. She grabs caller nutrient astatine the commencement of the week and saves the canned and frozen worldly for later. Plus, she makes definite to cheque the expiration dates connected everything: “Choose the aboriginal date, and the point volition enactment caller longer.”

8. Bulk up connected the basics.

Just don’t bulk-buy items that spoil rapidly oregon mysteriously vanish the infinitesimal they participate the pantry. (Looking astatine you, Snack Packs.)

9. Feed your family, not the algorithm.

For much cooking and market tips that'll assistance marque your days little stressful, you tin travel Alicia connected TikTok and Instagram.

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