It’s a great way to get the most out of your weekly shop.
- Reduction in meal costs – Buying food in bulk is usually cheaper than buying smaller amounts more often. You can also take advantage of deals and discounts, cook the food, and then freeze it for later.
- Reduction in food waste – Batch cooking usually involves meal planning and only buying the ingredients you will need. This means food is less likely to be thrown away.
- Eat healthier meals – When you batch cook food, you are more likely to include healthy and nutritious ingredients. Cooking healthy meals every day can be time consuming when you may be pushed for time. Batch cooking means you will always have access to a healthy meal.
- Less time spent cooking – As you will be preparing and cooking all your weekly meals at once, this will save you a lot of time overall. You can spend a couple of hours doing all your meal preparation and cooking for the week and save yourself time in the kitchen every day.
Instead of batch cooking whole meals, some people choose to batch cook certain ingredients or foods that can be used in different meals throughout the week or frozen for future use. For example, you can batch cook sauces, meatballs, or rice and incorporate these into future meals.
Once you get the hang of batch cooking, you’ll realise it can make your life much easier. You’ll quickly discover several staple recipes that are easy to prepare and are firm favourites in your household. This ensures you are still eating food you love, but spending less time, money, and effort to do so.
Some batch cooking ideas for meals you can cook, and freeze are:
Soups, stews, casseroles, and ramens.
Pureed baby food.
Chilli, Bolognese, ragu and other sauce-based dishes.
Cottage pie, fish pie and other potato topped pies.
Pastry based pies and quiches.
Lasagne.
Meat and vegetable curries.
Meatballs and burger patties.
Meat and vegetable stir-frys.
Ratatouille and tagine.
Pasta bakes.
Sauces and gravy.
Rice-based dishes, such as paella, fried rice, and risotto