When you work from home, seemingly simple activities like family meals can bring additional mayhem. Luckily, there are a number of things that you can do to balance your meal preparation, saving time and simplifying meals without sacrificing your working time. Implement the following tips to gain control over your meal preparation.

Plan Your Meals Ahead of Time

When you have a good idea of what meals you will be preparing throughout the week, you can cut down on shopping and preparation time from day to day. Plan your meals according to your schedule so that you assign easy meals to hectic days and more complicated fares for weekends and when you have more time.

Take Advantage of Crock-pot Cooking

With a crock pot, you can prepare a meal in the morning and it will cook throughout the day. Crock pots are ideal for soups, stews, roasts, grains, vegetables and a variety of other meal options, greatly simplifying the cooking and meal preparation process so that you can get more done throughout the day.

Get Help From Your Hubby

Let your spouse know how he can pitch in with the meal preparation throughout the week. Make sure that he is participating in meal preparation throughout the week, or get everyone involved by giving everyone a task as part of meal preparation. Meals where everyone can have a task, such as chopping or shredding vegetables or mixing ingredients can get the entire family involved.

Prepare Ahead of Time and Freeze

Many foods can be prepared in large batches and frozen for later reheating. When you are short on time, you can pull out the frozen ingredients and reheat them. This works especially well for pastas and sauces, lasagna and casseroles, for example. There are numerous cookbooks available that teach the art of freezing meals ahead of time for easy preparation later.

Utilize Takeout When You Must

There is nothing wrong with resorting to takeout when things are hectic and you need some free time. Keep a folder of takeout menus and highlight healthy choices so that you can make good choices even when resorting to take out. Every take out restaurant will have a healthy option or two, though you should not be afraid to resort to pizza to satisfy the family when things are really hectic.

There are many tips and techniques that you can harness to make meal time simpler for your family. You can free up some time and make meal time stress-free for yourself and your family just by doing a little bit of planning, delegating tasks to other family members, taking advantage of a crock pot and using your freezer to your advantage.