In the current times, with skyrocketing electricity and gas prices, you inevitably wonder how you can save energy in the long run. This is possible not only in the house, because there are also some tips and tricks on how you can use household appliances more efficiently when cooking. If you try to follow the suggestions, you can save not only electricity and gas, but cash in the long run.
With simple tips and tricks, you can drastically reduce your energy consumption when cooking. Never leave the refrigerator open for long, use kitchen appliances with a high energy efficiency rating and only use the dishwasher when it is completely full. You can wash a few dirty dishes by hand. Also, use the right cookware for the right food. An important example of this is cooking with a lid, because just by using a pot with a lid you can reduce the energy consumption for a cooking process by about 50%. A glass lid is the most effective here. Also, the size of the pot should always be adapted to the size of the hob. A pot that is too large or too small wastes energy. You’ll find more important energy-saving tips for the kitchen later in this article.
1. Switch off ceiling lighting
A very obvious tip that you can use throughout the house. The overhead lighting should be turned off in rooms that are not currently being used. You can also do without lighting in the kitchen when cooking. Using the lighting above the hob often matures to keep track of things.
2. Pull the plug
For small kitchen appliances that you rarely use, unplug them instead of using standby mode. Appliances in standby mode continue to consume a small amount of electricity even though you don’t use them. You can safely unplug your deep fryer or microwave and plug it back in the next time you use it. Calculated over a year, you can save two to six euros per appliance.
3. Use small devices
Always use the right appliance for the right amount. For example, you can bake rolls on the toaster to save energy and don’t have to turn on the expensive oven. Here, a hot air fryer is always more energy-efficient than an oven, and a single hot plate is more efficient than a stove. You can also do many jobs without using electricity at all. You can cut bread with a bread knife instead of using a bread slicer. For a mixer, you could use a mechanical hand mixer.
4. Use modern hotplates
A standard kitchen stove consumes an average of around 445 kWh per year. With modern hobs that use induction, you can save up to 30% energy per cooking cycle. Calculated over the year, you can save an average of 100 to 150 kWh. Nowadays, almost all pots and pans are also designed for induction plates, so it’s an easy decision to opt for an induction hob the next time you buy a kitchen.
5. Fill up dishwasher
To use your dishwasher efficiently, you should try to accumulate as much dirty dishes as possible. The more the dishwasher is used, the less water and electricity you need for your wash. Also, use energy-saving programs or the Eco function. The lower the water temperature and the longer the wash cycle, the less energy the dishwasher uses for the wash cycle.
6. Wash dishes by hand
If you have few dishes to wash, the most effective way is to wash them by hand in the sink. This saves electricity and water that would otherwise be wasted unnecessarily in the dishwasher.
7. Soak the dishes with cold water
If you wash your dishes by hand and want to soak dirty pots or pans, you can do this with cold water and some dishwashing liquid. If you were to use warm water, it would cool down in a few minutes anyway. Dishwashing liquid in cold water is enough to soak and dissolve grease.
8. Use electric kettle for cooking
To save electricity and time when cooking, you should first boil your water in the kettle and then pour it into the pot on the hob. This will save you the time it would take the stove to bring the water up to temperature and energy, as the kettle boils 1 liter of water much faster and more energy efficiently compared to the stove. Afterwards, you can continue cooking on the stove.
9. Cooking with residual heat
You can turn off the stovetops once you’ve cooked your pasta for a few minutes, for example. The residual heat is enough to finish cooking your food. This is true for many dishes and cooking methods. Cooking with residual heat is effective and saves electricity. You can also turn off the oven early. Turn off the stove and oven about 10 minutes earlier than usual.
10. Use pot with lid
When you cook food, you should always use a lid to save energy. As mentioned at the beginning, cooking with a lid saves up to 50% energy. The lid keeps the heat in the pot longer, so the food cooks faster and you save time and electricity.
11. Steam cooking
For various vegetables, it is enough to fill the pot with only a few inches of water and then bring to a boil. The steam will cook the vegetables just as well as if you filled the pot completely.
12. Raw food instead of cooked food
Eating raw vegetables and not using the stove and oven is the way you can save the most electricity and money, of course. Of course, this is not a reason to completely give up cooking, but you can save large amounts of energy by serving a fresh salad more often.
13. Do not preheat the oven
To really save electricity, you should not preheat the biggest electricity guzzler in the kitchen, the oven. Many recipes and instructions recommend preheating the oven to the desired temperature before cooking. However, you can often save this step, as most ready-made meals can be prepared without preheating. You should only preheat the oven for dishes such as bread, rolls and pizza, which require a high basic temperature for a delicious crust.
14. Hot air fryer instead of oven
For fries or chicken nuggets, you should use the hot air fryer instead of the oven. It has a small cooking chamber compared to the large oven, but this also means that the contents are heated more quickly. An oven reaches 180°C in about 15 minutes. The hot air fryer, on the other hand, reaches this temperature in just a few minutes. So you save baking time and thus also electricity. The pure power consumption between the oven and the hot air fryer is similar, depending on the model, at about 2000 watts per hour.
15. Use convection instead of top and bottom heat
With the convection function of your oven, you can save up to 20 percent energy compared to the top and bottom heat setting, as the baking process requires a lower temperature. It is also useful that you can prepare several dishes at the same time, because with the convection function the entire baking chamber reaches the same temperature on several levels.
16. Keep oven door closed
While you are using the oven, it is advisable to keep the door closed. Each opening reduces the heat in the baking chamber by almost 20 percent.
17. Coffee maker instead of electric kettle
If you want to boil water for tea, you can simply use a coffee maker instead of a kettle. This is in direct comparison to the kettle more energy efficient. Just pour the water normally into the container of your coffee maker and start it without using coffee filters and coffee powder.
18. Switch off the coffee machine
Many people leave their coffee machine switched on or plugged into the power supply for longer after preparation. There is great potential for savings here over a longer period of time. Since the hotplate remains activated even after boiling, it draws a lot of power. So, after each coffee boil, turn the machine off directly or preferably unplug it directly from the mains. Because as we have learned, electrical appliances also draw electricity in stand-by mode.
19. Filter coffee maker instead of fully automatic coffee maker
The filter coffee maker is more energy efficient than the fully automatic coffee maker. You can save about 400 watts of consumption per hour.
20. Use a modern refrigerator
A new and modern refrigerator is at first a more expensive purchase than a cheaper appliance, but over its useful life the switch to an efficient model will definitely be worth it. The refrigerator runs day and night. Switching to a higher energy efficiency class can reduce electricity consumption by almost a third.
21. Do not leave the refrigerator door open
The refrigerator is one of the biggest consumers of electricity in the kitchen, along with the stove and the oven. The most basic rule to save electricity here is not to leave the refrigerator door open for a long time.
22. Fill refrigerator properly
A refrigerator should never be too full or too empty. Ideally, your refrigerator should always be two-thirds full. This way, it does not consume unnecessary electricity to cool a few foods and manages to keep the amount inside constantly cool without any problems.
23. Do not put hot food in the refrigerator
Food and food products should always be cooled down to room temperature before being placed in the refrigerator.
24. Defrost periodically
Defrost your refrigerator and freezer regularly. A layer of ice inside the appliance significantly increases the amount of energy consumed, sometimes by up to 30%.
25. Clean kitchen utensils
If your kitchen appliances such as the microwave or the oven are heavily soiled, they naturally also consume minimally more electricity, as the deposits have to be heated up additionally. A clean microwave is therefore not only more hygienic, but also more efficient.
If you’re just starting out in the cooking hobby, you might also find these 36 helpful tips for novice cooks and kitchen beginners useful.
