Home Cooking Statistics

Home cooking statistics at a glance

Home cooking is easy to treat as a lifestyle preference, but the numbers show it as a measurable daily habit that shifts with work location, gender, and broader food spending patterns. The latest available data in this dataset shows how much time people spend on food preparation and cleanup, how often they do it, and how those routines differ between home-based and away-from-home lifestyles.

Fast facts

• In 2024, U.S. adults age 15 and over spent 0.67 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup on average (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart).
• In 2024, men spent 0.46 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart).
• In 2024, women spent 0.86 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart).
• In 2023, food spending in the United States reached $2.57 trillion (USDA ERS U.S. Consumers Increased Spending on Food Away From Home in 2023, Driving Overall Food Spending Growth).
• In 2018, food away from home accounted for 54.4% of total U.S. food expenditures, while food at home accounted for 45.6% (USDA ERS U.S. spending on food away from home outpaced food-at-home spending in 2018).

Contents

• What the time-use data shows
• Who spends more time cooking
• How work-from-home changes home cooking
• Eating at home versus preparing food
• What long-run food spending says
• Compact data table
• Reading the pattern carefully

What the time-use data shows

The most direct home cooking statistic in the dataset is the daily average time spent on food preparation and cleanup. In 2024, U.S. adults age 15 and over spent 0.67 hours per day on those activities on average, according to the BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart. That works out to a little more than 40 minutes a day.

The earlier ATUS figures in the dataset show a similar but slightly lower pace. In 2019, the average person spent 0.62 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). In 2020, that rose to 0.66 hours per day (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). The change from 2019 to 2020 was small in absolute terms, but it points to a steady daily commitment rather than an occasional burst of cooking.

The same data series also shows how common the activity is on any given day. In 2019, 59.0% of people age 15 and over did food preparation and cleanup on a given day (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). In 2020, that share was 59.8% (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). So the pattern is not just that some people cook for long stretches. It is that a majority of adults are doing some form of food preparation or cleanup on a typical day.

That distinction matters. Hours per day measure intensity, while participation rates measure breadth. Together, they show that home cooking is both common and time-consuming.

Who spends more time cooking

The 2024 figures show a clear gender difference in time spent on food preparation and cleanup. Men spent 0.46 hours per day on average, while women spent 0.86 hours per day (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart). That is a difference of 0.40 hours, or 24 minutes, per day.

The earlier ATUS tables make the same gap visible in more detail. In 2019, men spent 0.41 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup, while women spent 0.82 hours per day (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). In 2020, men spent 0.42 hours and women spent 0.89 hours (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). Those numbers show the same directional split across multiple years.

Participation rates differ too. In 2019, 48.0% of men did food preparation and cleanup on an average day, compared with 69.4% of women (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). In 2020, the shares were 47.1% for men and 71.7% for women (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). Women were not only spending more time on the activity when they did it, but also doing it more often.

The conditional time measures are useful because they separate frequency from duration. In 2019, men who did food preparation and cleanup spent 0.86 hours per day on it, and in 2020 that rose to 0.89 hours (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). For women who did the activity, time spent went from 1.18 hours in 2019 to 1.24 hours in 2020 (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2). That means the overall gender difference comes from both participation and time spent per participant.

How work-from-home changes home cooking

Home cooking becomes easier to understand when you compare people who work from home with those who work away from home. The dataset includes several indicators that connect work location with food routines.

In 2019, prime working-age adults who worked from home were more likely to prepare food than those who worked away from home, 75% versus 63% (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). That is a large gap in participation. The result suggests that work location is not just about work hours. It also shapes whether food is prepared at home at all.

The same USDA ERS source shows that home-based work is linked to more eating at home. In 2017-18, 78% of prime working-age adults reported eating at home on an average weekday (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). Among those who worked from home, 89% ate at home on an average weekday (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). Among those who worked away from home, the figure was 77% (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home).

Time spent also diverged. In 2017-18, prime working-age adults who worked from home spent 41 minutes on food preparation activities on an average weekday, while those who worked away from home spent 30 minutes (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). That 11-minute gap is modest compared with the participation gap, but it still signals that home-centered schedules support more meal preparation.

The ATUS work-at-home tables reinforce the point from the work side. In 2020, employed persons who worked at home on an average day did so 41.7% of the time they worked, up from 22.4% in 2019 (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4). At the same time, employed persons who worked at home on an average day spent 5.78 hours working at home, up from 3.64 hours in 2019 (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4). That shift in work location is part of the backdrop for home cooking behavior, because more time at home changes the opportunity structure around meals.

Several other work-related splits in the data show that remote work is associated with heavier home time overall. In 2020, employed people with some college or an associate degree worked at home on 36.2% of days they worked, up from 16.8% in 2019 (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4). In 2020, employed people with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked at home on 65.3% of days they worked, up from 37.2% in 2019 (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4). For those with only a bachelor’s degree, the share rose to 59.0% from 33.8% (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4), and for those with an advanced degree it rose to 73.9% from 41.5% (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 4). Those home-work shares help explain why cooking-at-home trends can vary across groups.

Eating at home versus preparing food

The dataset separates eating at home from food preparation, and that split matters. Eating at home is not the same as cooking from scratch, and cooking from scratch is not the same as cleanup. But when the two move together, they tell a cleaner story about household food routines.

In 2017-18, 89% of people who worked from home ate at home on an average weekday, compared with 77% of people who worked away from home (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). That difference is especially important because eating at home is the downstream behavior that home cooking often supports. If eating at home is more common, then some combination of prep, planning, and cleanup is probably also more common.

The food-preparation measure points in the same direction. Prime working-age adults who worked from home spent 31 minutes per day on food preparation activities on average (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). Those who worked from home spent 41 minutes on food preparation activities on an average weekday, while those who worked away from home spent 30 minutes (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). The different figures in the dataset are from different slices of the same broad pattern, but the message stays consistent: home-centered work tends to go with more home-centered food work.

The same source shows that prime working-age adults engaged in food preparation activities on an average weekday 64% of the time (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home). That means food prep is not a niche behavior. It is part of the daily routine for a majority of adults in that age range.

What long-run food spending says

Time-use data captures behavior, but spending data shows how households allocate money around that behavior. The US food market is large enough that home cooking has to be read alongside eating out and food purchased away from home.

In 2023, food spending in the United States reached $2.57 trillion (USDA ERS U.S. Consumers Increased Spending on Food Away From Home in 2023, Driving Overall Food Spending Growth). That headline figure is useful because it shows the scale of the entire market, not just home cooking. A large share of that spending can move between at-home and away-from-home categories depending on work patterns, family routines, and convenience.

The 2018 expenditure split is especially revealing. Food away from home accounted for 54.4% of total U.S. food expenditures, while food at home accounted for 45.6% (USDA ERS U.S. spending on food away from home outpaced food-at-home spending in 2018). That means more than half of food dollars were going to food prepared outside the home in that year. For a home cooking topic, that matters because it shows the scale of the competing option. Home cooking is widespread, but it is not the only default pathway for meals.

The fat-content trend in the dataset adds another dimension. In 1977-78, at-home foods supplied 41.0% of calories from fat, while in 2011-14 that figure was 32.1% (USDA ERS Declines in Fat Content Have Been Largest for Home-Prepared Food). Away-from-home foods supplied 41.2% of calories from fat in 1977-78 and 37.4% in 2011-14 (USDA ERS Declines in Fat Content Have Been Largest for Home-Prepared Food). The direction of change is downward in both cases, but the decline was larger for at-home foods. That makes the home cooking conversation more than just a time-use story. It also touches nutrition composition over time.

Compact data table

Metric	Year or period	Value	Source label
Average time spent on food preparation and cleanup, adults 15+	2024	0.67 hours per day	BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart
Average time spent on food preparation and cleanup, men	2024	0.46 hours per day	BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart
Average time spent on food preparation and cleanup, women	2024	0.86 hours per day	BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart
Share who did food preparation and cleanup on a given day	2019	59.0%	BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1
Share who did food preparation and cleanup on a given day	2020	59.8%	BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1
Food spending in the United States	2023	$2.57 trillion	USDA ERS U.S. Consumers Increased Spending on Food Away From Home in 2023, Driving Overall Food Spending Growth
Food away from home share of total food expenditures	2018	54.4%	USDA ERS U.S. spending on food away from home outpaced food-at-home spending in 2018
Food at home share of total food expenditures	2018	45.6%	USDA ERS U.S. spending on food away from home outpaced food-at-home spending in 2018

Reading the pattern carefully

A useful way to read these home cooking statistics is to separate three layers. First is time: people spend measurable minutes every day on prep and cleanup, and that time has been remarkably persistent in the available series (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart; BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). Second is participation: most adults do at least some food prep on a given day, which shows home cooking is broad-based rather than specialized (BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 1). Third is context: work-from-home patterns and food-spending shares shape how often meals are made at home versus bought outside it (USDA ERS Working From Home Leads to More Time Spent Preparing Food, Eating at Home; USDA ERS U.S. spending on food away from home outpaced food-at-home spending in 2018).

The overall picture is straightforward. Home cooking is common, it absorbs meaningful time, and it changes when daily routines shift toward home-centered work. The dataset also shows persistent gender differences in both participation and time spent, which keeps home cooking tied to broader household labor patterns (BLS ATUS 2024 household activities chart; BLS ATUS 2021 news release table 2).

That combination makes the topic useful for more than recipe culture or meal planning. It is a behavioral measure, a household time allocation issue, and part of the larger food economy all at once.