My poor wife has to deal with my adhd all the time, which includes cooking. I can’t stand cooking, and have always looked for ways to avoid it. I’ve seen lots of people on here express the same sentiment, and I’m curious if anybody has any advice? What works for you to trick your brain into cooking?
Simple slow cooker recipes are sweet because you just dump the ingredients into the slow cooker and turn it on. Same thing with the rice cooker and a steam basket, rice cooks underneath and then some veggies / protein above bam little meal right there. Marinate your proteins by just putting them in a Ziploc bag with some stuff the day before.
Nothing others haven’t said but if it works for you and your life, cooking once a week works might be much better than trying to cook every day.
I usually make a slop of some kind centred around beans/tofu/tvp and keep that in the fridge. That gets made in the instant pot so there is no waiting around. That’s what I hate most about cooking. I don’t want to have to keep an eye on the stove.
I use dry beans and soak them rather than cooking the beans first or cooking from dry in the final dish. It’s not technically one step but it’s less time sensitive or prone to burn/disgusting texture than the other options.
The slop gets eaten with rice which I do cook throughout the week in the rice cooker. This is more about the volume of rice we eat than anything else.
Frozen veggies or salads get added which helps add some customization and ensure I am getting enough fibre and variety of veggies.
I worked in a catering kitchen in uni and I can’t tell how much of my comfort with this comes from that experience or that it’s just not rocket science 😅
I worked in a dining court in college, and honestly I went into auto pilot during my shifts. It’s easier to do when my brain thinks I have no choice. Unfortunately that doesn’t work with cooking at home. Thanks for the tips!
It’s easier to do when my brain thinks I have no choice
Lmao story of my life. I meant more about knowing what foods handle the week long storage time without degrading in quality and understanding bulk food production, like doing the mis en place as the other commenter said. Sounds like you have a good foundation, good luck!
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“Mis en place”. Prep all of your ingredients in advance. You can even do it a couple days in advance and keep them in the fridge. Then when it comes to the actual cooking part, you’ll find it’s a lot less stressful and requires much less changing gears and switching tasks. There’s a reason pro kitchens do this, it makes cooking a lot easier and less error-prone.
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Cook a big pot of something and eat it over a few days. A big pot of chili or spaghetti sauce can be lunch and dinner for multiple days. A good rice cooker, like a Zojirushi or whatever, can keep rice warm and tasty for a couple days. Likewise, a slow cooker can do the same with a stew or curry. No need to cook every day!
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Get a roommate or family member to help you if possible. Cooking is hard work whether we enjoy it or not, so it helps to have someone to delegate tasks to. If other people are eating, they should be helping to cook and clean.
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I never thought of prepping ingredients ahead of time. That’s a fantastic idea!
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I have pretty severe ADD, no H though. I LOVE cooking, provided I am not cooking for just myself. The key I have found it prep. Make sure you have everything chopped and measured before you throw anything into the pan. Also PREHEAT your damn pans and ovens! If you are data driven the way I am, set a timer and figure out how long it takes to preheat the oven. Your pan shouldn’t take more than 30-45 seconds to preheat. Once everything is chopped and assembled, I turn on the heat, and start to dance.
The dance is a chaotic mix of tossing stuff into the pan, stirring or tossing stuff in the pan, and washing the dishes I have used. Past that, it is literally just practice. The more time you spend in a kitchen the more innate your sense of time will become. I barely need to set timers anymore. I still do, just in case I get absorbed in something else, but frequently I look up at my time with about 00:03 on the clock.
Learn how to make 2 meals. Make massive portions of said meals.
I do two setup foods. Two steps, food is done.
That depends. You have to identify what your particular hang up(s) are. Is it the actual cooking, not knowing what you’re doing, textures of things, prep, clean up, having multiple tasks going at once etc.?
Once you identify the hangup you can work with it. For me personally it’s mostly time and cleanup. I don’t enjoy cooking so it feels like I’m wasting time I could be using for anything else. Then I have to clean up after? Fuck that!
So I try to stick to easy, short, less dishes involved meals. The Instant pot is nice because it speeds a lot of things up, I can set it and walk away. Air fryer is great too. I line mine with tin foil so I have to clean it less.
I also work with my ADHD. I’ll buy frozen veggies and stuff because 90% of the time the extra step to prep/cut things is the step that prevents me from doing anything.
I love cooking and I was thinking about why the other day. Turns out it’s one of the few things that when I start I will actually finish. Whether it ends up good or not is another thing.
Might not be the most adhd compatible tip, but I try to clean up the kitchen after cooking. If I need to do it before cooking I find it drains a lot of energy
Do a weeks worth of meal planning and prep once a week. Do it while relaxed and listening to a good podcast or having your favourite movie running. Make it enjoyable (or at least as stress free as possible). For the rest of the week it’s just plop and cook, plop and cook with very little thought required. Good luck!
Figure out what specifically you don’t like. Is there a texture thing when handling certain foods? Are you too focused on perfect measurements? Is there a planning issue with getting overwhelmed before you can even start?
From there just focus on ways to mitigate the problems.
Same trick that works for most ADHD problems: grease a groove. Make a few select meals over and over until they become effortless, then expand your pool over time once you’re ready.
Simple pasta dish is a good place to start. Then an oven roast maybe, or a breakfast meal.
Once you know a few staples and can execute them with your eyes closed, the whole process is much less daunting.
Yes. It’s the same solution as for non ADHD people. Practice. That’s how you get better at things.
I don’t need more practice, lol. I’ve done tons of cooking. I just don’t like doing it. I appreciate the advice though.
Agreed — though I think the big ADHD-specific barrier is anxiety around all the non-cooking parts of the process: finding a recipe, figuring out which dishes and equipment to use for prep, knowing what ingredients you need at the store, etc.
Keeping the pool of recipes ultra-tight removes a lot of hurdles that an ADHD person who hates the labor of cooking would trip on, whereas I’d tell someone who was really eager to learn cooking to experiment broadly or read some kitchen-philosophy books instead of iterating on something basic right off the bat.
But zooming out, you’re spot on; this is just a strategy to make it easier to get the practice reps in :).
I always listen to podcasts while cooking. Without that, cooking feels like I’m wasting time
I’m going to try this! I hate complicated recipes, but maybe I can trick my brain into just doing it if I have something else to help occupy my brain.
Skip the complicated ones. There are loads of tasty recipes that involve nothing more than dumping things in a pot. We’re getting to fall and it will soon be cool enough that soup sounds good, and most of those are very simple.
Here’s a recipe for a whole crockpot chicken that comes out like a rotisserie chicken - fall off the bone tender - and all you do is rub a raw chicken with as bunch of spices and dump it in a crockpot. I like to put it on a bed of veggies and they cook in the chicken juices.
Good on you for trying!
I find recipes are always complicated. I rewrite them in an order and way that makes sense to me.
Plus the prep all food before the cooking thing that someone else mentioned. It takes linger and makes more dishes but worth it.
As always, it’s getting started that’s the hardest. Once the onions are in the pan then the rest comes easy, but I do have to have something on the TV for some background noise at the very least.
Very true, the hardest part is always getting started. I also pick simple recipes most of the time spaghetti or frozen lasagna that I can just add some veggies too.
I have fatigue condition as well, so honestly I just gave up on “cooking”. Try to aim for “arrangements” instead. Much easier and takes less focus/time/energy.
- Toast with toppings
- Greek yoghurt fruit bowl
- Smoothie
- Canned bean burritos with cheese
- Other healthy snacks
- Etc
Obviously it depends highly on your dietary needs. I’m vegetarian with very complex health so I built my diet around that, but you might have more flexibility. Try not to buy “ready to eat” stuff every day though because they’re usually pretty bad health wise. Also the freezer is your friend; it will forgive you when you forget leftovers for 3 months.
I love cooking but I don’t have the energy fo rmuch thanks to my health issues. I also do have severe ADHD.
For me, it’s looking for simpler recipes.
Look for shortcuts. Find things that are easy but are tasty. Don’t fall for the bullshit that you have to make everything from scratch.
A slow cooker and a rice pot probably would serve you well. It’s so very easy to get a pot of rice going. For my rice, I use:
- 2⅔ C rice (basmati or long grain)
- 3 C / 32oz tetra pack of stock (whichever makes sense with the meal)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon MSG
- stick of butter
(yes, that’s a whole stick! You should get more than 8 servings of rice out of it, and it’s just tastier. But you do you)
Beef stew like my mom made and I still make:
- Cut up a beef roast or just buy precut stew meat (should be around the same price and worth the saved effort)
- Cut up 2-3 large potatoees (after scrubbing). If you have the energy, peel them first, otherwise scrub REALLY well
- Peel (or scrub well) a pound of carrots (or maybe closer to 2 - I like carrots a lot) and cut into 1 inch chunks or so
- Peel a couple of onions and slice in half, the halves in halves, then each quarter in half - or slice each half in thirds
- Add it all into a slow cooker with a tetra pak of beef stock or broth. May have to add water to cover. Add a couple tablespoons of Better than Bouillon beef and stir it in, then cook for 2-4 hours, checking for doneness and tenderness of the beef
Serve stew over rice
If you get some dry roux, take a couple of pounds of stew meat, dust with a quarter cup of dry roux and a couple tablespoons of better than bouillon and mix in your slow cooker and cook until tender. The juices from the beef should be enough to make a gravy, but if you want to add a little beef stock or water if it needs it, go for it. Serve over rice.
My sister’s adhd effects her mor heavily than mine in cooking. I lived with her for a year a few years ago, and I noticed how often she used her rice cooker/instapot.
She’d make rice and have it with the smoked salmon you dont have to cook. Or tuna packets. But that instapot was always getting used for rice. set it, and forget it. haha and she would forget it. but it turns off on its own which was good.
edit: nevermind
edit: cool
