The kitchen is by far the busiest room in any home. A lot of time is spent in the kitchen on food prep, cooking and cleaning. Naturally, it makes sense to make this space as efficient as possible as this will make your life so much easier.
The key idea to keep in mind when optimising kitchen flow is placing items in strategic places allowing you to find things quickly, tidy easily and maintain an organised kitchen. Believe me, stuffing everything in random cupboards and drawers will only make your life harder, and who would choose to do that?
This quick article will give you 5 top tips on how to optimise the flow of your kitchen.
Top Tip 1 — Zones
Easily the most important piece of advice on this list, you must make sure that the items used together are stored together for smooth kitchen flow. Does it sound sensible to have a space on your worktop for a kettle, mugs, saffron, and yeast? Of course, it doesn’t. Those items aren’t used together.
While not aware of it, most people are probably already familiar with the idea of kitchen flow as they have a designated area for the kettle, mugs, coffee, tea and sugar. However, the key is to extend this idea to everything in your kitchen.
Have a designated baking cupboard with your yeast, flour and baking soda etc. Do the same for all your herbs and spices (keep these near the hob for easy access while cooking).
That covers storing things together correctly, but you also want to have designated zones for meal prepping, cooking, eating and storing food. Knowing where everything is and having specific areas for using them will make it so much easier when you’re following a complex recipe.
Top Tip 2 — Storage
Do you have to battle your way past a big soup pot every day to reach your dinner plates? Well, you shouldn’t. To maximise kitchen flow, you should set aside some time to reorganise your kitchen storage such that the items you use most regularly are easy to hand.
Another familiar example is having all your herbs and spices together and close to the hob. But why stop there? Keep cutlery and dinner crockery in an easily accessible drawer. At the same time, your smoothie maker that’s used once every 3 months is probably better off at the back of a cupboard until required.
This highlights another good point; kitchen flow will be different for everyone. For the smoothie enthusiasts, maybe your smoothie maker is best out on the worktop. Make it work for you.
Top Tip 3 — Condiments
If you have some condiments you and your family use every mealtime, perhaps it makes sense to store them all in a neat little condiments holder or basket, saving you time each mealtime hunting for the salt, pepper, tomato sauce and vinegar then putting them all away again when you’re done.
Top Tip 4 — Plan Around Your Dishwasher
Dishwashers already save you a lot of time and energy in the kitchen, but they could save you even more time and effort if you section off the cupboards directly next to it for storing all the things that go in and out of the dishwasher every day.
Top Tip 5 — Chopping Board Placement
You wouldn’t think it that important, but for an ideal kitchen flow, where your chopping board is placed can really impact your efficiency during meal prep. The best place to store and use your chopping boards is as close to the sink as possible.
That way, you can wash your vegetables, put them straight on the board for chopping, fire them in the frying pan then rinse your chopping board straight away.
The Final Say
For optimal kitchen flow, try to plan by keeping the items you commonly use together. By taking a little time to think ahead, plan appropriately and organise your kitchen, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and effort in the long run.
