A home-cooked meal is the epitome of a balanced, healthy diet and the best way to nourish loved ones. If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times.

But, modern life can sometimes get in the way of completing this task, especially when you work full-time and run a household caring for your parents, your spouse and/or your kids. Even when there’s no one else in your sphere, home cooking is hard.

To ease the burden and help prioritize this important daily ritual, technology has made preparing a family meal at home a whole lot easier—if you know where to look.

We’ve unearthed some services, apps and gadgets that women everywhere can utilize, even if only a couple times each week.

Meal Kit Delivery Services

Meal kit delivery services provide everything you need to make a home-cooked meal on a regular subscription basis, without having to prep at the grocery store. There are dozens of services on the market, each with distinct features and offerings, so you can find one that’s best fit for you.

For example, HelloFresh customers can choose a meal plan depending on dietary preferences, schedule and household size, and have the cooking instructions and portioned ingredients delivered to doorstep.

Some services cater to specific preferences. Green Chef offers meal kits containing at least 90 percent USDA-certified organic ingredients, while MamaSezz features only plant-based meals.

Planning Apps

Every woman can relate to the struggle of planning out a week’s worth of dinners. What should you make? What ingredients do you need to pick up at the store and how much of each?

To get organized, try the MealBoard app, which provides recipe ideas, meal planning, budget management, and shopping lists all under one platform for your iPhone.

This can be a less expensive alternative to meal kit delivery services; yes, you’re doing more legwork, but in a streamlined and organized way.

Gadgets That Do All the Work

It’s pretty nice to walk through your front door after a long day and smell dinner on the stove. But, let’s face it, how often does that happen?

Thing is, it can happen, if you plan ahead.

Four decades ago, the Crock-Pot debuted, and busy women have been using it since. These days, the all-in-one cooking device is light years ahead of the slow-cook bean cooker of its origins.

The Express Crock Multi-Cooker is a one-pot pressure cooker that can cook food all day or instantly make a healthy, fresh meal in under one hour.

Mothers frequently feel the frustration of dealing with a child’s selective palate—one that’s stubbornly attuned to grilled cheese, french fries and chicken nuggets, only. While working moms may want to stuff their faces with such fare, we should probably refrain, which consequently means you’re tasked with making not one, but two meals every night: one for the kids, and one for you.

Enter the Gourmia Air Fryer that cooks food by circulating hot air at a high speed, forming a crispy layer on top without using cooking oils with excess fat. It can also roast, grill or bake almost anything. 

Baking is a science, requiring exact measurements and ingredients for successful recipes.

If you don’t have time to meticulously quantify ingredients, figure out portions, and calculate baking times, the Perfect Bake PRO is a useful tool.

Pour ingredients in one single receptacle until the Perfect Bake tells you to stop. Built-in timers indicate how long to mix, bake and cool for consistent results. Built-in Wi-Fi and an accompanying app feature more than 500 recipes, and a pantry feature lets you discover what you can make with ingredients you already have at home.