Our Top 5 Weeknight Dinner Rules

We get asked all the time how we manage to cook real dinners on weeknights. The honest answer is that we've broken it down into five rules we basically never violate. **1. Pick the protein first.** Everything else builds around it. Decide on chicken, fish, pork, or beans by noon and the rest of the meal writes itself. **2. One pan, one cut.** Weeknight is not the time for a sauce reduction and a side salad and homemade bread. Pick a single cooking method and commit. **3. Buy pre-chopped sometimes.** We used to feel guilty about pre-chopped onions and pre-cut squash. We don't anymore. A 30-minute dinner is better than no dinner. **4. Double the protein, always.** Cooking two chicken breasts instead of one takes exactly the same effort. Tomorrow's salad, wrap, or fried rice is already halfway done. **5. Clean as you go.** This is Will's rule and Syd has come around to it. A sink full of dishes at 8pm makes weeknight cooking feel like a punishment.