Do you envision dirty grills and stained picnic tables when you think of cooking outdoors? Though that may be the case in your neighborhood park, it does not have to be the condition of your backyard!
With the right tools and some sharp tips, you can enjoy cooking with friends and family while also eating healthier. It’s also cheaper than dining out!
Check out these great reasons to cook outside!
Change of Pace
As long as you’ve got the equipment to cook outdoors, it can be much more enjoyable and fun than heading to the kitchen or ordering takeout. Consider the possibility of gathering the family outside to make individual pizzas and put them into an outdoor pizza oven.
Doesn’t that sound much more enjoyable than ordering delivery pizza or throwing a frozen pizza into the kitchen stove? There are so many ways to cook outside; aside from the common grill, your other options include:
- Outdoor kitchens
- Cooking in a firepit
- Outdoor stoves
- Smokers
- Dutch ovens
- Outdoor pizza ovens
All of these options are fun to do with family and friends, and can lead to great memories. At the very least, a change of pace can be beneficial for your mental health.
By cooking outdoors, you may add a little variety to a routine that might have grown too casual or monotonous.
Social Events
If you’ve ever been stuck cooking during a social event, you know what it’s like to be left alone in the kitchen while everyone else is visiting in the living room. Perhaps you’ve been embarrassed to let visitors in the kitchen because of the mess that’s being made, so you encourage them to go somewhere else.
Cooking outdoors dispels both of these concerns. Most of the time when you cook outdoors, there’s enough space for people to visit even while you’re preparing the food.
In addition, there’s less of a standard of cleanliness to maintain outdoors, so you’re apt to feel more comfortable with a mess. Whether they’re near a grill, or around the fire, everyone finds it easier to feel involved in the conversation.
Saves Time and Allows More Productivity
It’s not unusual to find you have too many things to cook and not enough appliances when you’re in the kitchen. All too often, food gets stored in refrigerators, skipped over, or reheated.
The simple solution is to cook outside. Rather than having to reheat the rolls after the meat comes out of the oven, you could bake the rolls while the meat is on the grill.
As a result, the food is fresher, and more items can be cooked simultaneously, which saves time. Cooking outside also saves time when it comes to cleaning.
Indoor cooking can be messy and require a lot of cleanup. Outdoor cooking generally requires fewer appliances and dishes. Since cleaning expectations outside are usually different from indoors, there’s usually less to wipe down and scrub.
Healthier
People tend to use more fresh food when they cook outside. Whether they’re grilling chicken or vegetables, or cutting up fruit, people usually cook more health fare when they tackle an outdoor meal.
This is especially true when you consider that the alternatives are getting takeout or putting processed food in the oven.
Conclusion
Outdoor cooking is a good way to mix it up, stay more involved in the social activity, and save some time. If you’ve never experimented with cooking outdoors, or don’t know where to start, a simple flat-top grill is a great way to try things out.
These are great for experimenting with various recipes and cooking just about anything. Once you get a few recipes down, you can be confident and ready to make outdoor cooking a regular part of your meal prep and socializing.
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