These days many of us are out of our home for over ten hours in a day, and there is little time to prepare a good and rather healthy meal. I’m going to review some tips that will save you time in preparation your Chinese meals. Here are some great quick ways to cook your Chinese food fast:

1. Use common ingredients as substitute for hard-to-find ingredients. Some Asian foods may not be available in your local grocery store. You may substitute other foods when cooking your meals. If you need Asparagus in your dish, you can substitute broccoli, string beans, and other green vegetables. Another example would be substitution for black mushrooms. You can use fresh American mushrooms.

2. Buy food ingredients in larger quantity. A) Buy a whole chicken. Remove the bones or debone the chicken and use the bones for soup stock. Use the chicken meat for your Chinese dishes to be stir fried with vegetables for your refrigerator. B) Another technique is to buy a fresh fish like walleye or tilapia. Remove the bones from the fish known as filleting the fish. Save the bones for soup stock and use the fillet part of the fish for stir frying. As you can see there are numerous ways, use food when buying in bulk.

3. Make several meals from bulk purchase. For the chicken that is not used in your large quantity purchase, keep it in an aluminum foil, and place in the freezer for your next meal. For a fast and easily thawing technique, place the aluminum foil with fish between two pieces of meat.

4. Use leftover food for your meals. If you could a Chinese vegetable dish for the previous night, you can easily as some noodles or rice to make it meal one day or two later. Or, you may a few pieces of steak with some spices to give your new meal a bit more flavor. I would advise using food as meal if it’s been there for several weeks since you may get ill from eating it.

5. Make some quick bites if you’re really pressed for time. Buy some frozen steam buns from the store. It comes in a variety of flavors from red bean paste, black bean paste, and chicken or meat filling. Steam a few extra buns for breakfast and leave a few cooked one in the refrigerator. Microwave the steam buns for an afternoon or evening snack.

6. Save energy and fuel by using your equipment efficiently. When you’re steaming those buns, you can use the other layers of the steamer to steam other food items too. Most good steamers have two or three levels to steam food. Buy a three level steamer if plan buy one. You can steam a variety of food for your meals like meats, vegetables, and even cooked rice.

7. Prepare sauces in advance. Put your favorite sauces together in a jar, and store them for later use. We have a 12 oz. jar of black bean sauce, but put it away in the refrigerator to store away for up to 3 weeks. When we need that right flavor in our meals, we take a few teaspoons and put in right into our wok. We're ready with our meals within minutes.