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Top tips for energy efficient cooking

1. The microwave is generally the most efficient way to heat up and cook food – it’s always quicker and its smaller size (as opposed to the oven) means that the heat is more focused on whatever’s being cooked. Opt for this appliance whenever possible.
2. Use the kettle to boil water quickly and transfer to a pan on the hob for steaming and boiling vegetables or pasta.
3. When using water to boil anything in a pan, make sure that you only use as much water as is needed to cover the amount of food you’re cooking – one of the most common forms of energy wastage is the energy it takes to boil water you don’t need.
4. Slow cookers are also an energy-efficient cooking appliance – they use just a little more energy than a traditional light bulb, and you can leave your food to cook slowly throughout the day while you’re at work or when you need to get on with other things.
5. Cook as much as possible in the oven in one go to make sure all the space and heat is being used. If you make lunches for work, do them all at once – you can always keep them in the fridge or freeze them to warm up when you need them.
6. Keep the oven door closed while you’re cooking. Each time you open the door, the oven loses heat (sometimes as much as 25 degrees) and requires more energy to get back up to temperature. On a similar note, try to keep the oven door clean so you can look in, rather than having to open it to see how your food is doing.
7. Defrost frozen food in the fridge overnight or while you’re at work during the day. Defrosting food in advance not only typically halves the cooking time but also means that you don’t need to use the energy of a microwave to defrost more quickly – you just need to remember to take the food out of the freezer well before you need it!
8. It’s helpful to know how long your oven takes to pre-heat, so you’re ready to start cooking as soon as it’s up to the correct temperature.
9. When cooking potatoes, boil them in a saucepan before roasting them in order to reduce the amount of time they take to cook in the oven.
10. Use glass or ceramic dishes in the oven. They retain heat better than their metal counterparts, making them the most efficient to use in the oven. You can even set the heat lower than needed (if you’re confident enough to do so) because of the increased efficiency provided by these dishes.
11. Some people think that inserting stainless steel skewers into baked potatoes and joints of meat can help to speed up the cooking process because the heat is more quickly and evenly conducted throughout the food while it’s in the oven.
12. If you’re cooking large food like a joint of meat, it can be worth cutting it into smaller pieces so it will cook more quickly. Additionally, if you use this method on meat, you should also be able to avoid overcooking it.
13. Invest in a fan-assisted or convection oven, which uses fans to circulate heat around the food as it cooks. This is a more energy-efficient way of cooking because it means the heat doesn’t have to be as high as it would in a conventional oven.
14. When using an electric oven, turn it off ten minutes before the food’s finished cooking. The oven temperature will remain the same so the food will still cook through to completion without the oven using energy.
15. Always use a pan which is the right size for the amount of food you are cooking to ensure that you use less energy in heating a bigger surface area when you don’t necessarily need to.
16. Similarly, when you’ve selected your pan, make sure you use the right size hob for it. A bigger burner will waste energy and a pan that’s too big will take longer to get to the right temperature.
17. Sometimes the instructions on a recipe may mean that it’s not a good idea to put lids on pans but, if not, use lids in order to keep the heat in.
18. Use a double steamer to cook vegetables so you can layer vegetables on top of each other and still use one ring.
19. Turn down the level of the ring or burner once the cooking temperature or state is reached; most dishes need to simmer, not boil.
20. It can often be worth using a pressure cooker to cook beans, meats, whole meals or stews. The pressure cooker’s sealed lid traps steam and ensures that the food cooks more quickly and efficiently than it would in a pan, therefore saving energy.
21. If you’re using an electric hob, choose flat-bottomed pans so the pan is in full contact with the ring and the heat spreads through it as evenly as possible.
22. Certain pan types are better at conducting and retaining heat. Copper-bottomed pans heat up more quickly than stainless steel, and cast-iron pans retain heat more efficiently, so you won’t need the heat to be turned up so high.
23. Keep heating rings as clean as possible – any food that sticks to the ring will absorb heat, making it less efficient.

Source: www.uswitch.com