I’m the opposite of most here. Cooking can hold my attention on quick but medium complexity recipes. Add X, wait a few minutes mixing in high fire until it starts to water; add Y, keep mixing for another couple minutes until it starts to change color, etc. No period of just waiting, you’re always engaged. I find it relaxing, my mind focuses on just that one thing.

I love cooking, so I may not be the best person to trick your brain into loving it. For me, it’s a healthy thing to hyperfocus on, and I can nerd out and be obsess over my kitchen knives and carbon steel pans. The key is preparation and anticipation. This is where your neurotypical entourage might help. They organize, you cook.

Phase 1: planning in advance

• Plan the meals together. Schedule the whole week. Write them down somewhere visible and accessible. I find knowing in advance what to cook helps a lot. Leave no room for uncertainty and improvisation. Start simple so you can build your skills up. always cook something you know you’ll love.
• Buy all the necessary groceries for the whole week. A single missing ingredient might throw you off track. If necessary, reschedule some meals when best-before dates or time-sensitive ingredients are in conflict with the initial schedule.

Phase 2: prepping

• Plan for today’s meal. Get all the ingredients out. Get all the ustensils out. Mentally map your recipe.
• With a good knife and a good cutting board, cut everything that needs cutting. Don’t weight. Quantities are for pastry, not cooking. Always separate meat and veggies. If impossible, always cut meat last and thoroughly clean everything immediately afterwards.
• FYI, those two phases are called “mise en place”. They’re standard procedure in every single professional kitchen, and for a good reason. It’s all about efficiency.
• Always keep your work area clean.

Phase 3: cooking

• honestly, you’ve already done the hardest part. Just vibe with it. Sear, sautée, boil, season as you like.
• it’s done. Do the dishes immediately. Enjoy.

Bonus, ADHD edition

• Find something you can hyperobsess about. I love kitchen knives, I love caring for them and getting them razor sharp. I love knife skills. If you can get good with a knife, you can save so much time and even take shortcuts because you know you can dice an onion faster than the pan can heat up. I love carbon steel pans and keeping them seasoned and slick because they’re indestructible and can sear at temperatures that would turn any teflon pan in a toxic gas bomb.
• carbon steel ustensils are amazing for people like us. It’s vital to clean and dry them immediately after using them, otherwise they rust. They don’t need babysitting, they don’t need TLC. They just need to be used hard and immediate attention afterwards. That way, your knife and pans are always ready when you need them instead of sitting in dirty water for days/weeks in the sink.
• always cook something you’re excited about. If you don’t feel the rush to eat it, you won’t cook it. Period.
• Find whacky techniques you want to try out. Did you know that one of the best ways to sear a steak to perfection is to coat it in mayonnaise?

I love cooking but I don’t have the energy fo rmuch thanks to my health issues. I also do have severe ADHD.

For me, it’s looking for simpler recipes.

Look for shortcuts. Find things that are easy but are tasty. Don’t fall for the bullshit that you have to make everything from scratch.

A slow cooker and a rice pot probably would serve you well. It’s so very easy to get a pot of rice going. For my rice, I use:

• 2⅔ C rice (basmati or long grain)
• 3 C / 32oz tetra pack of stock (whichever makes sense with the meal)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon MSG
• stick of butter

(yes, that’s a whole stick! You should get more than 8 servings of rice out of it, and it’s just tastier. But you do you)

Beef stew like my mom made and I still make:

• Cut up a beef roast or just buy precut stew meat (should be around the same price and worth the saved effort)
• Cut up 2-3 large potatoees (after scrubbing). If you have the energy, peel them first, otherwise scrub REALLY well
• Peel (or scrub well) a pound of carrots (or maybe closer to 2 - I like carrots a lot) and cut into 1 inch chunks or so
• Peel a couple of onions and slice in half, the halves in halves, then each quarter in half - or slice each half in thirds
• Add it all into a slow cooker with a tetra pak of beef stock or broth. May have to add water to cover. Add a couple tablespoons of Better than Bouillon beef and stir it in, then cook for 2-4 hours, checking for doneness and tenderness of the beef

Serve stew over rice

If you get some dry roux, take a couple of pounds of stew meat, dust with a quarter cup of dry roux and a couple tablespoons of better than bouillon and mix in your slow cooker and cook until tender. The juices from the beef should be enough to make a gravy, but if you want to add a little beef stock or water if it needs it, go for it. Serve over rice.

Instapot and a few recipes that essentially are, “Put everything in the pot, close lid, turn on, wait”.

I have fatigue condition as well, so honestly I just gave up on “cooking”. Try to aim for “arrangements” instead. Much easier and takes less focus/time/energy.

• Toast with toppings
• Greek yoghurt fruit bowl
• Smoothie
• Canned bean burritos with cheese
• Other healthy snacks
• Etc

Obviously it depends highly on your dietary needs. I’m vegetarian with very complex health so I built my diet around that, but you might have more flexibility. Try not to buy “ready to eat” stuff every day though because they’re usually pretty bad health wise. Also the freezer is your friend; it will forgive you when you forget leftovers for 3 months.

Somebody’s gotta do it, and it’s not fair to my wife to make her do ALL the cooking.

Might not be the most adhd compatible tip, but I try to clean up the kitchen after cooking. If I need to do it before cooking I find it drains a lot of energy

I do two setup foods. Two steps, food is done.

I love cooking and I was thinking about why the other day. Turns out it’s one of the few things that when I start I will actually finish. Whether it ends up good or not is another thing.

I’m not diagnosed but based on most of the posts that end on /all I’m suspecting I’m somewhere along the adhd line or whatever.

what makes me love cooking is that I can split large recipes in small sub tasks. I’m using a ton of small bowls to prep each part in and organize my kitchen.

Each of those little steps is in itself a small emergency that must be dealt with instead of multiple recipes for a meal.

Eventually all goes in together in a beautifully organised ceremony of sorts when it’s time to finish the recipes.

And second to that I can iterate a meticulously improve the outcome. And who doesn’t love to track progress with pics and such?

Learn how to make 2 meals. Make massive portions of said meals.

Find something you can cook that other people rave over. The reward is the dopamine hit you get. Do you have kids? Make buttered noodles with cut up chicken breast. Very very low effort and kids love it.

Just the wife? Make meatballs one night. Pretty easy to do, super tasty, bit heavy on the cleanup tho. Make enough to make it worth it. They’re a great snack to munch on throughout the day. I call them one of my ADHD snacks. Then the next night boil some spaghetti, make some sauce, easy peasy and just buy some frozen garlic bread. Boom “fancy” dinner in 2 steps with left over ADHD snacks.

Ever try smoking things? It takes some trial and error, but easily can turn into a hyperfocus. It’s a bunch of low-effort steps spread throughout 2-8 hours. And makes some insanely tasty food.

Do a weeks worth of meal planning and prep once a week. Do it while relaxed and listening to a good podcast or having your favourite movie running. Make it enjoyable (or at least as stress free as possible). For the rest of the week it’s just plop and cook, plop and cook with very little thought required. Good luck!

I made it more fun by using a nice sharp kitchen knife. Not that I cook more now, but I can! If my wife asks me in advance to cook

That depends. You have to identify what your particular hang up(s) are. Is it the actual cooking, not knowing what you’re doing, textures of things, prep, clean up, having multiple tasks going at once etc.?

Once you identify the hangup you can work with it. For me personally it’s mostly time and cleanup. I don’t enjoy cooking so it feels like I’m wasting time I could be using for anything else. Then I have to clean up after? Fuck that!

So I try to stick to easy, short, less dishes involved meals. The Instant pot is nice because it speeds a lot of things up, I can set it and walk away. Air fryer is great too. I line mine with tin foil so I have to clean it less.

I also work with my ADHD. I’ll buy frozen veggies and stuff because 90% of the time the extra step to prep/cut things is the step that prevents me from doing anything.