You can save money on your natural gas bill and make your energy usage more environmentally friendly by adopting a few new habits in the kitchen. Here’s a few small tricks that can make a big difference.

• Cover your pots and pans. When you’re heating water, soup, or other liquids to a boil, always use a lid to cover the pot. This traps the heat inside your pot instead of releasing into the air, allowing it to heat up faster and more efficiently.
• Match your pots to your burners. If your stove has different sized burners, try and match the sizes of your pots to the closest size that makes sense. If you place a small pot on a large burner, that’s of energy you’re wasting when a smaller burner would’ve worked. On the other hand, placing a large pot on a smaller burner means it will take much longer to boil, wasting both energy and cooking time.
• Use energy efficient options on your appliances. Modern cooking appliances often have settings that make cooking more energy and time efficient. Convection ovens can cook the same food in less time than a conventional oven can because it circulates the hot air around your food as it cooks.
• Let residual heat finish cooking your meal. When you turn your oven off, it doesn’t get cold immediately. In the same way, your food keeps cooking for a few minutes when you take it out of the oven. You can turn your oven off a few minutes before the cooking time you need is over, and let the remaining heat finish the job.

Making these simple adjustments can go a long way in the kitchen. Not only will they help you save money on your natural gas bill, but good habits like these can help you be a more efficient and effective cook.