Kitchen analysis paralysis

May 29, 2025 by
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I have been called an overthinker, and my husband says that choices are bad for me. Both of these are truths that I must painfully admit. Ruminating over even the simplest of decisions can result in analysis paralysis, where you never achieve forward progress because you worry about making the wrong decision. For me, this issue extends to the kitchen, where I often fret over choices that need not be as complicated as I make them.

Buying a new appliance is probably the most glaring example of this. I read endless reviews, compare features, and pore over reliability ratings, putting item into the shopping cart and taking them back out again. It’s a wonder that I have any appliances at all. Back in 2007 this culminated in buying two brands of food processors (from a store with a no-questions-asked return policy) and putting them in head-to-head tests until I was satisfied I was making the right choice. I ended up with a 14-cup Cuisinart with paddle controls, which I am still using today, albeit with a replacement bowl and blade. So it seems I made the right decision. (Or did I?)

Analysis paralysis works its way into deciding what to make for dinner, and then continues as I browse through all of the recipes available to me on my EYB Bookshelf. I have even wasted ingredients because I waited too long to choose a dish and the produce or meat spoiled in the refrigerator. I am thankful that this, at least, is a rare occurrence, although I still get frustrated with myself for dilly-dallying when the decision should not be that difficult. It’s a recipe, not a major life choice!

I suppose a degree of FOMO plays into my inaction, although I believe the roots of the issue go deeper than that. But that is a discussion for my therapist (who exists only theoretically because I have not picked one yet). I worry that I will make the wrong choice even when the stakes are low. This is something I am working on, especially when it comes to choosing a recipe. I have winnowed my cookbook collection to authors I can trust, so it is unlikely that any recipe I choose will be terrible. The worst outcome is probably “meh”, so why fret?

Sometimes I think I should get a dartboard to help me decide, but I am not good at darts so I would probably just end up with holes in the plaster and no decision made. One method I am considering to combat the problem is old fashioned: writing the choices on slips of paper, tossing them together in a bowl, and picking a winner. Maybe there is an online “spin the wheel” option I could use.

Please tell me I am not the only one who struggles to decide not only what to make for dinner, but further agonizes over which recipe to use. What strategies do you employ to help you beat this analysis paralysis?

Category: Antipasto

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9 Comments

  • anya_sf  on  May 29, 2025

    Give my family members options from which to choose, then ignore what they pick because at that point I realize I prefer to make the thing they didn’t choose.

  • KatieK1  on  May 29, 2025

    I compare recipes in my EYB library which use an ingredient I have already, see which ones require buying more ingredients to make the dish than are in my kitchen, and read any comments people make. It also helps to imagine what a recipe will taste like, and if that resonates. Unlike Anya, I also ask my family for their opinions and try to accommodate them.

  • FuzzyChef  on  May 30, 2025

    That was one of the reasons I used the “random sort” feature. I’m sorry they had to remove it.

  • vickster  on  May 30, 2025

    I am paralyzed by all the recipe choices, cookbooks etc. when trying to decide what to eat. I need to limit the recipe emails I receive and pare down my cookbooks some more to get this under control!

  • MollyB  on  May 30, 2025

    I find I can’t make any decisions when I’m tired or hungry, so I have (mostly) learned to push off decision-making to the morning, and usually to weekend mornings after coffee and breakfast. With meal planning, that timeline means I actually have time to assess what’s in the freezer or cabinets and make a plan for the upcoming week. If I have 4 or 5 meals planned for the week, then I can make myself just follow that plan.

  • breakthroughc  on  May 30, 2025

    I narrow by focus by what to I need to use or can use from the freezer, pantry and canning shelf. The one that uses the most wins. Tonight is a great example I’m making a quesadilla recipe from Vegoanomicon because it uses tortillas that need using plus corn from the freezer, pickled jalepenos from the canning shelf and raw cashews from the pantry.

  • anya_sf  on  May 30, 2025

    I also use MollyB’s and breathroughc’s methods. (And I was partly kidding about ignoring my family’s wishes – quite often I do make what they choose.)

  • readingtragic  on  May 31, 2025

    After many years of too much stuff in the fridge, I do it the opposite way now – I choose a cookbook, look through it, write a list of appealing recipes with page numbers, and have a few of those in the kitchen. Then, during the day, I choose something from the lists, go do the shopping and have less wastage of ingredients. This reduces the choice of what to make from a smaller selection of recipes rather than choose from my 65,000+ recipes from everything in my EYB collection. But if I have a lot of something in particular, I definitely will check EYB to see what I can do with it.

  • dorits  on  June 7, 2025

    I use the Paprika app obsessively. I have more recipe recipes saved than I will ever be able to make in my lifetime, although I try new ones all the time. When there’s a recipe I have just saved or another I want to make, I add it to the Meals calendar. If it requires a very seasonal ingredient, I might add it to a random day in the calendar months later. I can always change the day later. Sometimes I add multiple recipes to one day and decide which one to cook when I create my shopping list. That’s easy to do in Paprika because it combines and totals the same ingredients in all the recipes. It helps me decide among several recipe choices, based on which will best use up my fresh ingredients that week.

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