Advice from a Kitchen Chaos Goblin: Executive Functioning Supports While Cooking
I am, unfortunately, not a cyborg... That is, I would really love to not have to cook for myself, but I am still the reluctant owner of a human body. Food allergies, chronic illness, and financial considerations have also further forced my hand when it comes to needing to frequently cook for myself. Perhaps you, too, are not a cyborg and have found yourself needing to cook for yourself recently. Or maybe you're looking to build this skill.
As neurodivergent people, cooking can sometimes (in some cases, all the time!) feel like a monumental task. Especially when you're overwhelmed, or your body budget is running low. The mental juggling required—planning, organizing, sequencing, and staying focused—relies heavily on our executive functioning, which can be especially challenging when you're running low on resources. However, with some practical strategies, sensory awareness, and budget-conscious approaches, we may be more able to make cooking more manageable and, occasionally, even genuinely enjoyable.
First, some personal context:
After years of trying to deny it, I'm now willing to face the hard truth: I'm a chaos goblin in the kitchen. If left to my own devices, I will waste resources trying to throw random ingredients together in a flourish of creativity that my taste buds later pay the price for, and leave the kitchen looking like the scene of a particularly intense food fight afterwards. (In some ways, it was a particularly intense food fight…)
If this also sounds like you, please learn from my years of struggle! I’ve included some of my best tips in this post.
Breaking it down
For me, one of the biggest challenges with cooking is its many steps, from deciding what to make to cleaning up afterward.
Here are some tools I’ve successfully used for breaking down cooking steps:
Mealime App
If you’re a true kitchen beginner, I started with using the Mealime app to help me think through my meal plan, grocery lists, and the cooking materials I needed for each dish.
You can input your dietary restrictions, and also let it know what ingredients you just straight up don’t like and never want to use.
Then, you’ll browse different options to add to your meal plan (like the image to the left).
Once your meal plan is set, it’ll automatically create a grocery list for you. You can check off the items you already have in your fridge or pantry, and then head to the store to keep checking items off of your list.
Then, when it’s that time of day to make your food, you can just pull out the app and have it give you step-by-step instructions to create a super tasty dish.
I’ve never been disappointed by the recipes, and the cooking instructions are pretty darn helpful.
(There is a free version of this app, or you can opt to pay for the pro version for more recipes.)
Goblin ToDo
If you already have some cooking skills and an idea of what you’d like to cook, I like to use Goblin ToDo to help me break down the steps of complex tasks whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed or brain foggy.
Goblin Chef
Goblin tools also has a tool called “The Chef” where you can type in the ingredients that you have on hand, as well as other constraints like dietary needs or the amount of time you have to cook. It will then spit out an actual recipe for you! It’ll give you ingredients and amounts to use, as well as cooking instructions in a text format.
Simplify
With ADHD, my ideas move faster than the rest of me.
This can lead to unfinished projects in the kitchen (like a pile of dishes nearly as tall as Mount Everest), or cause me to dream way too big when I could just be thinking about how to simply and efficiently get some nutrients into my body.
Some ideas to help you simplify:
Simpler Meals
Try to choose meals with fewer steps. Things like:
Stir fry
Sandwiches
Sheet pan meals / one pot meals
Prep smarter, not harder
You can try prepping ahead if/when you have energy. Turn on a tv show you’ve been meaning to rewatch, or a riveting podcast, and get to work chopping vegetables, or cooking grains, or setting out your ingredient portions in advance. Future you will thank you!
OR… Buy select pre-prepared ingredients
Keep in mind, it’s almost always more expensive to buy pre-prepared ingredients. However, you may feel this cost is worth it, if you’re able to swing it, and if it helps you to free up some mental space.
Following the recipe
Now, I have a very difficult time following instructions without adding my own flair. If I tried to follow a recipe to the letter without deviating at all, I might actually develop an ulcer.
So, when I say “follow the recipe” I don’t mean you can’t add your own spin. It just means following the basic framework of the recipe can help to avoid any mishaps, like under- or over-cooking food, or not adding the right proportions of your ingredients.
I always try to remember that someone has developed this game plan for me to follow, and that I should only go outside of it if I feel confident it’ll actually improve the dish.
Hot tip: another key to modifying recipes is to taste the dish (as soon as you can, please keep food safety in mind!) after you add each new thing. This will help you from getting too off-track.
Visual & Physical Supports
When you’re not feeling particularly up to the task of cooking, external supports can really help guide you through the process. Here are some tools that may be helpful to you:
Checklists
If you aren’t working from a recipe, you can plan out your process ahead of time to keep the inefficiency at bay. Try writing down each step, from "preheat the oven" to "put leftovers in containers." Check off as you go.
(Be sure to add prep and clean up to your checklist! See this list for other helpful steps to add to your recipes.)
You can also add checkboxes to the recipes you find online pretty easily by adding something like the Recipe Checkbox browser extension.
Bonus — you get a little hit of dopamine with each item you cross off your checklist!
Reformatted Recipes
If you, like me, also struggle to follow blocks of texts and confusing numbered lists that don’t break out all of the necessary actions well, you might benefit from reformatting some of your go-to recipes. The best format to use will depend on you and what you need. Some ideas to choose from to help get you started:
Handwritten recipe in lots of colors
Include hand drawn images of ingredients
Use a visual recipe creator, like Accessible Recipes
Does this look familiar? Reading a recipe 1,000 times, only to still not get it quite right? Try the tip above for creating reformatted recipes!
Timers & Alarms
I am a person who can’t have enough reminders or visual representations of the passage of time. I will not ever just magically realize how long it’s been since I put something in the oven. Knowing that about myself, I’ve developed a web of supports for cooking.
I have a very loud kitchen timer that stays on my counter and can be set for up to 3 different times.
I have a visual timer to help me realize how much time I have left.
I set timers on my smart watch that buzz my wrist whenever they go off. This way, if I get distracted and walk away from my kitchen, I’ll still be reminded to take something out of the oven before I burn my house down.
Mise en place
This is a French term for prepping all your ingredients before starting, as well as cleaning up throughout the process. It can be a really difficult skill to build, but once it becomes part of your kitchen routine, it can really prevent mid-recipe overwhelm.
Cooking on a Budget (wallet-wise & body budget-wise)
Plan your meals around affordable staples like rice, beans, pasta, frozen veggies, and canned goods.
Plan for low-cost, low-effort meals:
Batch-cook soups or stews
Repurpose leftovers
Try one-pot dishes to save time/effort and money
Minimize waste:
Use apps like SuperCook to create recipes with what’s on hand
Freeze leftovers if you made a big batch of something
Use masking tape and permanent marker to label when you made your food, so that you can safely consume leftovers. Google the USDA guidelines for your specific leftovers if you’re not sure!
Use Budget Bytes to help you plan out meals within your budget. This is an awesome tool to find recipes and keep costs lower!
See more recipes at https://www.budgetbytes.com/
Helpful Kitchen Appliances & Tools
These lists will be updated when our clients or coaches share things that have been helpful to them!
Appliances**
Instant Pots: These are great for dump-and-go meals. They make take some time learning how to use, but once you’ve got it down, you can make amazing food in a really short amount of time and very little effort.
Rice cookers: Make rice super easily! Rice is a fantastic staple to add things on top of.
Don’t have an oven? Toaster ovens can be a great solution! Many dishes can still be made in a countertop toaster oven.
Air fryers can also be an easy way to make meals, from your entree chicken to side dishes like roasted vegetables.
**Be sure to follow all safety instructions! Many cooking appliances get hot, which means they can burn you, or even start fires when not used properly.
Tools
Garlic peeler, and a garlic press
If you have conditions like dyspraxia or EDS (like me), you may struggle with your knife skills. Coming from someone who has to keep a full box of band-aids in the kitchen, save yourself some pain and get some cut resistant gloves!
Consider Your Sensory Needs
Cooking and eating are sensory experiences, and being mindful of your sensory needs and preferences can make both more enjoyable.
While Cooking
Sound: Use noise-canceling headphones, ear defenders, Loop earbuds, or play calming music to drown out loud cooking sounds like the exhaust fan, sizzling, or blending.
Touch: If certain textures (e.g., sticky dough or raw meat) bother you, use tools like gloves, tongs, or spatulas to avoid direct contact.
Smell: Open a window or use a fan to dissipate strong cooking odors.
I made a Corsi-Rosenthal Box out of Filtrete odor reduction air filters, which helps with cooking smells a LOT, but the odor reduction only lasts ~3-6 months before needing new filters.
Visual overstimulation: Use mise en place to keep your workspace tidy and use soft lighting to reduce visual clutter and make the process feel less overwhelming.
When Choosing Foods to Cook
Texture preferences: If you dislike certain textures, focus on recipes that adjust them (e.g., roasted veggies for a crisp texture vs. boiled for softness).
Flavor balance: Choose recipes that align with your flavor preferences—mild, savory, spicy, or sweet. Simple seasonings like salt, garlic, or lemon can transform a dish.
Temperature: If warm meals feel comforting, focus on soups, casseroles, or baked dishes. If cool foods feel better, opt for salads, wraps, or chilled pasta dishes.
Gamify what you can
Ever seen the TV show Chopped, where they get assigned random ingredients and have to make a cohesive meal out of those, plus some pantry staples? My own version of that is one of my favorite games to play come dinnertime. If you live with another person/people, you can recruit them for this game.
Choose 3-4 “mystery ingredients” from your pantry and/or refrigerator. (Be sure to check expiration dates!) The weirder, the better! (Better, and more difficult… ramp up if you’re a kitchen beginner.) Once you get pretty good at this game, you can even start having others choose ingredients for you. Tell them to try to stump you!
Start a timer for 45 minutes or 1 hour***
Then, go! Use anything else in your pantry or fridge to come up with a meal that makes sense and tastes great, given your random mystery ingredients.
***Do NOT shorten cooking times for things that need to be cooked to a certain temperature…
This game lets your creativity run wild, which can be really motivating. Just be sure you make something that’s edible by the time the timer dings!
Eventually, you might get really good at making a delicious meal out of some sparse and random ingredients.
Could you make a tasty meal that incorporates all 4 of these ingredients?? Search for more inspiration by searching “Chopped home challenge” into your browser.
Wrapping Up
Remember, cooking (especially when you’re feeling low energy) isn’t about gourmet results—it’s about nourishment, self-care, and finding a process that works for you. By being mindful of your sensory needs, staying within budget, and using executive functioning supports, you can start approaching cooking with less stress and more confidence. Every small step you take is an act of kindness toward yourself and your body.
You can still take breaks from this process, when needed, to let your inner kitchen goblin out… Sometimes we do still need to go full goblin mode.
Please feel free to let us know if there are additional ideas or tools you’ve found helpful!
