I was today-years-old when I heard the term, “capsule kitchen.” Which, as it turns out, is what I’ve had for the last, oh, 16 years or so.
What is a capsule kitchen?
Here’s the AI overview:
A capsule kitchen is a minimalist, efficient approach to cooking, inspired by capsule wardrobes, focusing on a core set of versatile staple ingredients, multi-use tools, and fundamental flavor bases to create diverse meals without excess clutter or food waste, relying on a consistent pantry of essentials plus rotating seasonal fresh items. It simplifies grocery shopping and meal prep by having foundational items like grains, legumes, oils, spices, and a few key pots/pans always on hand, allowing for quick, varied cooking.
Incidentally, I’ve also been rocking the capsule wardrobe for just as long. Highly recommend.
I became a minimalist years ago because one day I realized that I had a low clutter tolerance (hello, constant anxiety) and a LOT of clutter. This was back in the initial get out of debt days, so I spent a lot of time researching. One of my research binges introduced me to the concept of minimalism as I was looking for ways to save money.
That led to me decluttering our entire house (I will re-post the how-to articles from my old blog here soon in case you’re interested) and, eventually, living in a school bus for 14 months with our four small children.
Yep. Four. In a teeny tiny space. It was awesome. Highly recommend.
Anyway, many of those habits have stuck around, and some did not (though I’m actually going back to them now).
Although, now, I’d consider myself more of an essentialist than a minimalist. That means I only want the things that are essential to living well and joyfully.
In retrospect, I kind of was an essentialist even when we lived in the bus - I had a whole drawer dedicated to coffee and tea and a few different ways to make coffee. Because coffee.
A true minimalist would have gone down to the bare minimum.
Hmmm. Priorities, I guess.
Anyway.
The capsule kitchen has been consistent because it just has so many benefits that make life better.
Here are three:
1. Easy grocery savings
Every month, I restock my kitchen with food items we use all the time (and stock up on staples when they’re on sale to save even more money). These staples are frequently mixed and matched into a bunch of different meal options.
Not only are the majority of our staples inexpensive, but I now know where to buy them for the least amount of money and how to recognize a good deal worth stocking up on.
Pro tip: you will always pay more for convenience, like only getting groceries at one store. I shop at a few different stores to get the most savings. I will be doing a class soon on ways to save money on groceries, so be sure to subscribe to get alerted if you need that.
2. Less clutter, more peace
This may come as a shock, but the less stuff you own, the less clutter you will encounter. I know, crazy. For years, I struggled with keeping up with the clutter, especially with a bunch of littles, and then one day I realized that I didn’t need half the crap I owned and got rid of it.
I took stock of everything I owned and asked if I really needed it. The answer to a lot of it was no.
The result was clear counters and so much more peace. It wasn’t until the clutter was gone that I realized that it made me so anxious because it was on every surface and crammed in drawers and cabinets.
It created the white space I craved but didn’t know I needed.
(My one regret came years later when I got rid of my food processor because I just didn’t use it enough to warrant the space it took up. I finally replaced it this Black Friday with a refurbished Kitchen Aid one for $50. We’ll see if all my lamenting over not having one was warranted.)
3. Meal time flexibility
I’m going to let you in on a little secret … I hate meal planning. There, I said it. I know, I’m a terrible nutrition coach. But I’ve found that half the time what I planned on Sunday doesn’t sound great on Thursday.
Or, now that my kids are older, they end up binging food home and it throws off the whole plan anyway.
Thankfully, having a capsule kitchen means I don’t have to plan in advance unless I really want to (which I would do to create a grocery list so I could go shopping) because I always have plenty of food on hand to make something. Sometimes I’ll plan a couple of days in advance, others it’s the morning of.
Or right at meal time like today, where I’m writing while things thaw because I just decided what to make (I started writing this shortly before 5 pm). But the point is, I just had to look in the cabinets and fridge/freezer and pick a protein, a carb and a veg. Easy.
I also love that if plans come up, or we have too many leftovers, or my kids do bring something home, it’s easy for me to pivot on what to make because I’m not set on a special recipe that I had to buy special ingredients for.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t make those, but it’s usually for more special occasions and it’s been communicated with the family in advance so they don’t change the plans.
Well, it’s 5:20 and we need to leave for trivia in 25 minutes, so I best be cooking.
Do you have a capsule kitchen? Do you want one? Please say yes. ;)
