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The Low-Spoon Kitchen
The Best Meal Prep Tools for ADHD Brains
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I’ve been doing this meal prep thing for 10 years now. In that time, I’ve tried a lot of gadgets, returned a few, and quietly banished others to the cabinet of shame. What’s left is my Low-Spoon Kitchen.
The goal is simple: to keep my prep days as set-and-forget as humanly possible, so I’m only cosplaying as a chef from The Bear when I actually have the mental energy for it (and only for the components that I'm prepared to spend extra time and energy on). For everything else, there's The Tools and Appliances
This is exactly what lives in my cabinets right now to make The LEGO Method work.
WTF is a Low-Spoon Kitchen??
If you’re new to the term, "spoons" are shorthand for your daily energy. A lot of us dealing with ADHD and AuDHD executive dysfunction start the day with way fewer spoons than we’d like, and end it with the reserve on E.
A low-spoon kitchen is a setup where your tools carry as much of the physical and mental load as possible, so meal prepping doesn't depend on you having a 10/10 brain day. We're talking fewer steps, fewer dishes, and zero standing in front of the open fridge having a full existential crisis at 6:30 PM.
The Essential Low-Spoon Appliances
This rice cooker was the first appliance I bought and she probably hated to see me coming every Sunday (or Monday). She’s an absolute workhorse and takes all the guesswork out of the high-stakes tightrope that is cooking rice on a stove.
I dump in rice, water, salt, butter/oil and maybe some seasonings, close the lid, flip the switch, and walk away. Perfect rice, every single time.
Bonus: You can also use it to steam proteins and veggies, or whip up soup and oatmeal. It’s one appliance quietly doing four jobs.
Okay, fine—the air fryer brigade finally got me. I resisted for years for reasons unknown to man, and then I bought this air fryer and... my God, why didn’t I do this sooner?!
I throw food in, set the timer, and come back to crispy snacks and perfectly cooked proteins, without turning my entire house into a sauna. The only cleanup is washing the liner. In the summer, turning on the main oven is basically illegal in my house, and honestly, this thing might keep it that way year-round.
I wanted to upgrade my old 4-cup rice cooker. But I also wanted a slow cooker. But I refused to own 49,584,894 unitaskers (Good Eats, anyone?) eating my precious counter space. After some deep-dive research I found this multi-cooker and it’s now one of my favorite things in the house. I use it damn near every week.
Some weeks it makes a massive batch of yellow rice. Other times I toss ingredients in during the morning, when I actually have spoons, so Low-Spoon Evening Rach has dinner waiting when she needs it most.
Low-Friction Kitchen Tools & Storage
I love these containers for my LEGO preps because they stack and don’t hijack my fridge real estate. The lids are leak-proof, so a juicy protein or veg isn’t a disaster waiting to happen. The BPA-free plastic doesn’t hold onto smells or tomato stains, and since it isn’t glass, I’m not tiptoeing around the kitchen terrified of thermal shock or dropping something.
My proteins, pastas, and veggies live in these. I also keep a couple of empty ones ready to assemble my bricks into when Feral Dinnertime hits and I don't have the patience for getting out a good plate and making my meal aesthetically pleasing (which is more often that not, if I'm completely honest).
Now, you might have noticed the theme of "low-barrier-to-entry" things that I've listed thus far. And you might think—like I do—that turning on the oven is decidedly not a low-barrier-to-entry task.
But, I also happen to think that baking sheets are essential for one-pan meals, pizzas, and garlic bread. And, once you slap some parchment or foil on them, you have no dishes to wash. That's a win
Plus, I love using the smaller ones to organize my supplies (olive oil, seasonings, etc) while I cook a higher-spoon dish. It makes me feel extra chef-y😅
This little gadget constantly saves me from the classic AuDHD “oops, completely forgot that was in the back of the fridge” purgatory.
Vacuum sealing gives prepped ingredients extra life in the fridge—both before and after they’re cooked—and prevents nasty freezer burn. On the rare occasion I have leftover components at the end of the week, it keeps good food out of the trash. It’s easily one of the best investments I’ve made for my grocery budget.
Now, Do You Need All of This to Meal Prep as a Person With ADHD?
Absolutely not. If you want to upgrade your kitchen setup so your weekly routine has less friction, this is just where I’d start:
Rice cooker first
Air fryer second
The rest whenever your budget and counter space give you the green light.
Okay, but who decides what’s for dinner?
Real talk: a rice cooker and an air fryer will not feed you on their own. Tools make the cooking part lighter, but they don’t answer “what do I want to eat,” and that question is usually what breaks us.
That’s where Brick Builders comes in. If you want a system built on the same idea as this kitchen, where you do the work once while you have spoons and then assemble dinner all week without cooking or deciding, join Brick Builders here. Grocery lists and menus drop every Wednesday, so the thinking is done for you.
Prep day is still prep day, I won’t pretend otherwise. But the rest of the week is hands-off, and you still get to pick your own combo every night.
Go protect your spoons and have a great week!
Talk soon,
Rach
Founder of The Meal Prep Gang
Rach
Founder of The Meal Prep Gang