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The expert energy-saving cooking tips you need to save money in the kitchen

We’re all mindful of how expensive energy has become. With the average energy bill double what it was last winter, most of us are already looking to make changes where we can to reduce the amount of gas and electricity we use at home. These changes might include turning down the thermostat, putting the heating on less or ensuring lights are switched off around the house. But what about the energy we use when we cook?

Slow cookers may be having a resurgence, but are they actually cheaper to run than turning on the oven? Will using the microwave more really save us money? And, when we do need to use the hob, what energy-saving cooking tips will help us keep our energy bills under control?

There’s never been more advice thrown at us about energy-saving in general, and energy-efficient cooking in particular, but what can we do when we cook that will really help to save our pennies? We bust some myths…

Among the energy-sapping devices in your kitchen, ovens are the biggest culprits; an electric oven can add as much as £335 to your energy bill each year, according to research by energy company Utilita. Meanwhile Hometree, which provides boiler and home emergency cover, puts the energy costs of using the oven at just over £1 an hour.

In comparison, Hometree has calculated that slow cookers, which are enjoying a surge in popularity at the moment, use around 5p of energy an hour, while an air fryer will cost around 30p per hour to run. Faced with these figures, it makes sense to use alternative cooking appliances when you can instead of defaulting to the oven.

One of the main reasons that ovens are less energy efficient is because of the size of the internal cavity. Excess energy is used to heat it up as the whole space – not just the tray or dish of food – reaches cooking the temperature you've set the oven to. However, if you have a fan oven, there is some good news. “Fan ovens can reduce energy consumption by 20% as they heat and cool the oven faster than conventional electric ovens," notes Natalie Mathie, an energy expert at Uswitch.

In addition, using your oven more mindfully can help counter the effects of rising energy costs.

Rather than switching the oven on several times a day, plan your cooking schedule carefully. Slide in a traybake as you pull out a main meal and you can avoid pre-heating the oven twice. Take advantage of the shelves: rather than cooking one lasagne, batch cook a couple then freeze what isn’t used for another day – that can then be defrosted in the fridge and re-heated in the microwave.

Also think how you can make the most of residual heat – energy which would otherwise be wasted but can be useful. Natalie says: “Residual heat is heat that remains after something like a hob or oven has been heated up. You can use it to warm food, potentially saving energy.” Warm up bread rolls, toast nuts or heat the dinner plates.

In some circumstances, you might also be able to use the residual heat to finish cooking food, or to save energy by not pre-heating the oven.

"If you’re cooking a stew, a braise or a low-temperature meaty slow cook, you can get away without pre-heating the oven – just pop the dish in when you turn the oven on, and you can also turn the oven off 5-10min before the end of the cooking time and use the residual heat to finish the cooking process," explains Good Housekeeping cookery director Meike Beck. "For things like pastry, cakes, biscuits or bread that require a more accurate oven temperature and cooking time, however, you’re better off pre-heating the oven as normal and leaving the oven on for the full time stated in the recipe."

In a word: yes. The Utilita research puts the average annual cost of using the microwave at just £31.83, while Hometree says your microwave will use less than 2p of electricity every five minutes.

“Microwaves are cheaper to use because they only heat the food inside them unlike ovens that also heat the air around the food – plus, food takes much less time to cook," explains Uswitch's Natalie. While you might use the microwave to re-heat food or for a blast of defrosting, it’s also possible to cook a greater range of dishes in it so now might be a good time to rethink how you use yours.

“Microwaves are best for foods with high moisture contents, as the liquids both help prevent food drying out – an ever present issue with microwave cooking - and also speed up cooking because of the way the microwave works (literally by vibrating water molecules in food)," notes GH cookery editor Emma Franklin.

"For best results cover food tightly when cooking and stir often. Soups, stews with small pieces of meat (or no meat at all), and even risottos are all good options for microwave cookery. My favourite thing to do in a microwave however is jacket potatoes, as it massively speeds up the cooking time. They’ll still need a short blast in an oven to crisp the skin, but it takes a fluffy baked potato from a 1hr+ cook to a 15min one.”

Whether you’re using induction, ceramic or gas, Hometree estimates hob cooking costs 17p per quarter of an hour – that means it's likely to cost around three times more to boil or steam veg in a pan than it would be to cook them in the microwave.

However, sometimes the hob is the best option and whatever your set-up, there are tweaks you can make to ensure more efficient cooking.

For example, always put a lid on a pan of boiling water: the pan and liquid will heat up quicker. Remembering to do this simple thing alone can save up to 85% of the energy an uncovered pan would use.

The size of your pan makes a difference, too. Using a pan which is smaller than the hob means there’s heat escaping and being wasted. Instead, Natalie has a recommendation: “Matching the pan to the size of the hob is the most efficient way of cooking. If the hob is too big you will lose energy on the sides, while a small hob won’t effectively heat the whole pan.” This tip can save around 40% of the energy that would otherwise be wasted by using a pan that's too small.

Elsewhere in the kitchen there are energy savings to be made. You might be in the habit of boiling a full kettle to make a cuppa, but you’ll use less power boiling what you need (providing it's more than the kettle's minimum fill level). Some thrifty consumers swear by filling a thermos with hot water first thing then brewing hot drinks from it all day. Quantity comes into play as you cram your freezer with batch cooked meals: the freezer will not work as efficiently if it’s over-filled so be sure to do a stock take regularly and plan some of the meals you've frozen into your weekly meal plan.

Keep ovens clean and defrost iced up freezers regularly to help appliances to run as they were designed and avoid leaving fridge and freezer doors open longer than necessary.

...bear in mind that energy ratings were overhauled in March last year.

The Energy Saving Trust (EST) advises: “Energy labels are rated on a scale of A to G, with A being the most efficient. For some product categories, the best available might be a D or an E as we expect these products to become more efficient over time."

To help keep energy bills down in the long term, think carefully about how big a freezer you really need, for example. The EST says that a G-rated, 265-litre fridge freezer could cost around £100 a year to run, whereas a larger 424-litre fridge freezer with a better F rating could cost around £105 a year to run based on October 2022 price cap levels.