Cooking with your significant other can be a great way to spend some quality time together and enjoy great food. It can also be a great way to impress one another on a first date. Unfortunately, all too often, it can turn into a battleground with too little space and hungry dinner guests waiting in the background.

Cooking can be a great hobby that both of you enjoy. Luckily, cooking together doesn’t have to turn into a stressful experience, even if you two have two different cooking styles and tastes. Put on your matching aprons because here are some tips to help you cook with your significant other.

1. Decide on the Meal Together

Choose a meal that you’ll both enjoy eating and cooking. Make sure that the entire planning and process is collaborative so that you’re both happy with the end result. If you can’t decide on a meal, try personalized recipes instead of trying to create one together. If there’s a meal that one can cook and the other doesn’t know how to, make sure that it becomes an environment where there can be teaching and learning.

2. Split Tasks

Decide which partner will be doing which tasks. Instead of having two cooks in the kitchen cutting vegetables at the same time, try to split up the work based on each person’s strengths and skills so that you can cook efficiently. Make sure not to overstep and criticize the person doing their task. Instead, keep focused on your own and make sure to communicate with one another.

Remember, dishes are a part of cooking, and if you’ve planned an elaborate meal, you may have tons of dishes getting used. You may choose to task someone with cleaning the dishes used for prep so that the other one can continue the prep before the actual cooking begins. With the dishes out of the way, you’ll have more space for the two of you in the kitchen.

3. Prep Accordingly

Your dinner date can quickly turn disastrous if you don’t prep correctly. This means ensuring that you have all of the necessary ingredients and cooking utensils like the right size measuring cup. Not only does preparing for the process of cooking help the process go smoothly, but it can ensure that you avoid unnecessary arguments over who was in charge of going to the grocery store and who was in charge of gathering the proper ingredients. By preparing, you’ll start the process off right and avoid conflict from the beginning.

4. Communicate

The odds are that during your cooking together, you’ll be having a conversation. However, it’s important to also communicate about the process of cooking itself. If your kitchen is small and it can be difficult to navigate with a second person in there, make sure to let the other person know when you’re behind them or need to reach a cabinet above their heads. This will help you avoid frustration from being in close quarters with someone who is also trying to get their tasks complete.

5. Leave Room for Romance

It can be difficult to be romantic when you’re slaving over a hot stove together. However, if you cook something that takes longer and needs to simmer for a few hours, you can enjoy some wine together and spend quality time with one another waiting for your food to cook.

Spend the time you are waiting together by watching your favorite shows or discussing your days with one another. This can help bring you closer while you’re already spending quality time together.

6. Play to Your Strengths

Not all couples have the cooking skills to cook together. While one might be a master chef, the other may have little to no experience in the kitchen. While you can order food in these cases, you can also put one person in charge of cooking and the other in charge of the cleanup. This will keep the two of you in the kitchen so that you’re able to spend quality time together even though both of you aren’t doing the cooking.