I've solved this problem for myself. I stagger meal prep and cooking on alternate days. So I eat leftovers and meal prep one day, cook and eat fresh and get leftovers the next. That way I'm only spending 15 or so minutes in the kitchen on any given day.

Which is why I don't have fried chicken anymore. It's not the end of the world, turns out.

Almost every issue you're describing can be addressed with proper mise en place. Unfortunately, it's a skill that requires practice and can be improved by training. Teaching mise en place as a core skill in schools could help everyone with anything from cooking to home repair, but we apparently don't want people to know diy skills...

Anyway, here's a few tips:

• For burgers: Find some frozen patties that you like. I really like Birchwood Beef Burgers (not beef patties, different products). I go with frozen so that I didn't feel pressured to eat more beef in a week than I want to, just because I bought it.
• Also for burgers, but great for home cooking: Buy frozen, diced onions. An entire bag usually costs less than two onions. When you're about to flip your frozen burger patties, lay a small bed of frozen onions, sprinkle on salt and pepper, and flip the burger directly on them. This trick also works great with Morningstar veggie burgers.
• Fried chicken marinating: Use a bag and insert a straw to create a small opening before you close the bag. Then, slowly submerge the bag in water while you seal it. Once your marinade starts going above the top of your seal, pull the straw out and seal your bag. This will substantially save on the volume necessary to marinate the chicken.
• Fried chicken dredge 1: Add a little corn starch to your eggs. You can put the corn starch directly on your raw chicken, but that tends to lead to waste. The corn starch helps the eggs and batter stick. Don't worry about lumps. Chopsticks are great for mixing.
• Fried chicken dredge 2: Use the chopsticks or a fork to dribble your dredge into your breading, then give it a slight mix. This will give your chicken a crispy texture.
• Fried chicken breading 1: Mix your spices first. Keep it relatively simple. My favorite mix is plenty of salt, a little msg,, lots of garlic powder, little onion powder, white chili powder, black and white pepper, freeze dried chives. Add your flour to your spice blend, and taste it. Add flour until the spices give you just the right kick. The floury flavor will go away when it cooks, but it'll still dilute the spices, so the flavor profile shouldn't change much while the chicken cooks.
• Fried chicken breading 2: Use a container that is deeper than you think you'd need; it's easier to conserve breading when you stack the chicken instead of spreading them out. Place all or as much of the chicken into the breading, coating and covering one piece at a time. Let them sit in there for a while before you start frying them. Fry in batches, you'll have to re-coat the chicken in the breading before frying the later batches. These will be extra crispy.
• Fried chicken breading 2: Don't make too much. Make more if you need more and then dump it on top of the chicken laying in the breading, but you'll need far less than cooking videos will make you believe.
• Fried chicken frying 1: Use a high temp oil, and don't let it get too hot. You can use a thermometer if you want, but sprinkling in some of your breading will let you know if you're at the right temperature. Instant bubbles that swell then subside, and then slowly turning brown is exactly what you want. If it bubbles slowly start and you don't notice a color change after 10-30 seconds, your oil isn't hot enough. If it bubbles rapidly and changes colors immediately, your oil is too hot. Give your oil a few minutes to reach temp, 3-10 should be good.
• Fried chicken frying 2: I favor wider pans over deeper pans. You want the pan about 1 or 2 inches taller than the halfway point of your thickest piece of chicken. That extra 1-2 inches is to prevent your oil from spilling over. Even if your oil level doesn't quite reach halfway up your thickest piece of chicken, the oil will bubble and climb its way up your fried chicken. So, you'll likely be fine if you're under by as much as a quarter of an inch. I've used cake or pie pans and tongs on a hot plate to fry chicken, and it comes out great. My preferred pan is a deep saute pan.
• Fried chicken frying 3: Keep a plate or something with a wire rack over it to drain your chicken after they're done. Sprinkle salt over the pieces immediately once the next round of chicken comes out of the fryer, you can move the chicken from the rack to a plate. Add soon as the last batch of chicken goes into the fryer, dump what little breading you have left into the trash, and then at least rinse the container. When you're done, allow the oil to cool completely, and then filter it through some coffee filters. If you kept the oil at a good temperature, you should get one or two more uses after it.

If you follow the fried chicken tips correctly, you should have used:

• 1 ziplock bag
• 1 straw
• 1 pair of chopsticks
• 1 bowl
• 1 container
• 1 oil frying thing
• 1 funnel
• A few coffee filters
• 2 plates
• 1 wire rack

If you clean as you go, your kitchen should be clean (except for the still-hot oil in the pan or fryer or whatever) before you bring the chicken to the table. That'll give it enough time to rest and be juicy as fuck instead of drying out the instant you bite into a steam bomb.

I couldn't have said it better myself, unless I was a 1997 Church's Chicken commercial.

https://youtu.be/JR9SWZb0eEw

More than one hour of hourly wage for a single meal. Or more than one hour of work for multiple homemade meals? I’m going with more than one hour of work for multiple meals. But you do you

An air fryer goes a long way, I don't see much difference in terms of crispyness compared to regular oil frying and it's a lot less cleanup and work.