Rachael Ray's Garbage Bowl Tip To Speed Up Dinner Prep

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Getting dinner on the table quickly can be easy, but when the meal is done, you're left with the daunting task of kitchen cleanup. Fortunately, celebrity chef Rachael Ray has plenty of easy food prep hacks, for everything from measuring olive oil to portioning burgers. She came up with this easy trick more than a decade ago, and it proves to be the best way to contain the mess while cooking: Use a garbage bowl.

The concept of a garbage bowl is simple: As you cook, take any food scraps and toss them into the bowl. It saves you from going back and forth to the trash constantly, and it also encourages you to clean up as you cook. Ray even has visually appealing garbage bowls for sale on Amazon, though you can just use any kind of large bowl you have in your kitchen. If you don't have anything suitable for a garbage bowl, you can bring the garbage can over closer to your prep space, which offers a similar solution.

If you don't already have a garbage bowl (or a bowl big enough to work as one), don't worry. Even a large kitchen pot would work in place of a big bowl. If you're concerned about the bowl taking up too much space, you can also hang a small garbage bag on the cabinet door handle near where you're working, so you can toss scraps right in the bag, then throw it in the trash.

Grocery stores usually offer thin plastic bags to bag up fresh produce before putting it in your cart. These smaller bags are perfect for replacing garbage bowls because they don't take up much counter space in your prep area. Plus, you can feel good about getting a second use out of the bags instead of just tossing them out when you get home, since it's not always a good idea to store produce right in those plastic bags. This process of cleaning as you go also reduces the stress of post-dinner cleanup, making the meal more enjoyable.