I know from years of working with clients, to a lot of people, the concept of batch cooking is quite intimidating or overwhelming: we’ve all seen those pictures on social media of someone who’s made 99 tupperware boxes of food in 2 hours to feed the whole family for the next month and thought I’d love to be that organised with our food but there’s absolutely no way I could 1) achieve that or 2) find enough room in the freezer to store it all!
But in this blog post, I wanted to share my ‘relationship’ with batch cooking, how I’ve used it in different ways at various points in my own weight loss and healthy eating journey and provide you with some easy ways you can start to become a ‘batch cooker’ in a way that fits in with your lifestyle / freezer space / eating patterns.
What I do want to say at the start is that I am a huge fan of batch cooking and that for all of my weight loss clients, when they start to incorporate it into their weekly routines and cooking patterns, it makes a huge difference in so many ways – not only with their weight loss but also saving them time, money and stress (and who wouldn’t love to reduce all of these!)
What is batch cooking?
“the practice of cooking large amounts of food at one time and keeping some to eat at later meals”
There’s no rule to what this actually means but there’s no question that having some ready prepared food in your fridge or freezer makes your life a lot easier and simpler especially if you’ve got a busy schedule or even if you’re someone who doesn’t like to cook much. It helps you stick to your healthy eating and weight loss goals a lot more and will reduce down the need to order food in because you don’t have the time / energy / desire to cook every evening.
What you need
You don’t need any particular special equipment but I would definitely recommend investing in a very large saucepan and a healthy stock of storage boxes. I’d also recommend some sticky labels so you can label up anything you are putting in the freezer (I’ve learned this from experience when I’ve defrosted boxes of ‘red stuff’ without having a clue what it was actually going to be).
You are also going to need some room in your fridge and your freezer (if you are going to be batch cooking some meals for future days / weeks.
I’m going to talk you through different ways in which you could add some batch cooking into your week depending on what suits you best – I’ve used all of these methods at different points in the last 10 years or so depending on my lifestyle, schedule and commitments. There’s no right or wrong way to do it – it’s about finding what works best for you.
One big batch cooking marathon
This is what I did at the start of my own weight loss journey. I lived alone, wasn’t a very good or confident cook and I was commuting 3 hours a day, only getting home at around 8pm in the evenings. I knew full well that I would not want to cook from scratch at that time in the evening after a long day at work and often a horrible train journey home so having pre-cooked and portioned meals was going to be essential in order for me to ensure I was eating healthily and supporting my weight loss goals.
So, once a fortnight, I’d allocate several hours at a weekend to batch cook 3 or 4 different dishes which would form my dinners for the next two weeks. This would take me about 3-4 hours (including clearing up) but meant that for the next 2 weeks, all I had to do was take out one of the boxes out of the freezer in the morning and just cook the accompanying rice or pasta when I got home from work.
Tips
1) A lot of recipes will use similar ingredients so work out what is needed for each dish. For example, all of the meals I would batch cook would include onions, peppers, courgettes and mushrooms so I’d prepare all of the onions and then add them to each pan before moving on to the courgettes for example. This saves a lot of time.
2) Invest in a vegetable chopper – I adore mine and it saves so much time (and mess too). Mine is one of my most used gadgets (I wrote about these on an earlier blog and if you’d like to read, here’s the link: top 5 kitchen gadgets
3) Wash up as you go (where possible) to save yourself the daunting task of a big kitchen clean up at the end
4) Allow everything to cool down completely before boxing into portioned storage boxes and labelling up and putting in the freezer (or fridge if you are eating it later or tomorrow)
5) Keep it simple – pick a couple of recipes that are firm family favourites that you always have in stock in your freezer
Batch Cooking as you go
This is a lot less time consuming in terms of dedicating set time each week to cook multiple meals but it’s a brilliant habit to get into. It simply means that whenever you cook a meal, if it’s possible, double or treble up the ingredients so that you are making enough for dinner that night but also making enough to freeze for dinner next week / later in the week.
When my life circumstances changed and I got married, moved closer to work and actually learned to cook a lot more and was more confident in the kitchen, I stopped doing the batch cooking marathon sessions but I now batch cooked on the go – we still needed the quick and easy options for busy days and preparing vats of chilli / curry / pasta dishes was still normal but I’d do it on the day we’d be having it for dinner rather than all in one go.
It means that you are gradually topping up your freezer several times a week rather than all in one go.
Tips
1) If you have a family favourite (ours is chilli), make a note when you use the last one from the freezer and add it to next week’s meal plan with the word COOK next to it so that you know you need to factor in the time to cook it rather than forget that you’ve used up the last of your storage boxes!
2) The extra you cook doesn’t always have to go in the freezer for next week – you can have the same meal two nights on the trot or for lunch the next day – this is particularly helpful if you’ve got a really busy few days coming up. The soup in the picture above was one I made for a week when we were having some builders working on the kitchen and I knew in advance I’d only have access to the microwave – me and the hubby had this for lunch for 3 days on the trot.
Batch Cooking Base Recipes
I’ve never done this myself but I have worked with clients who find this really helpful.
What it means is cooking up a large vat of ingredients in advance, freezing them in individual storage containers and then adapting on the day to make into whatever meal they fancy on that day.
An example would be: reduced fat mince, onions, peppers, courgette and carrots – cook all of this up in a huge pan. Allow to cool before freezing and then on the day, adding herbs, spices, stock, chopped tomatoes etc to make into a bolognese, a lasagne, a chilli, a cottage pie, a keema curry for example. This gives you more flexibility but will also save you a lot of time and money too.
Batch Cooking Ingredients
This is another huge time saver (as well as money saver) and it’s a great habit to get into to help you throughout the week in terms of your healthy eating.
So what do I mean by ingredients – it’s more like elements which you can pull together to make up meals on the go.
A few examples – whenever I put the oven on to cook some chicken for example, I will also stick in a tray or two (if there’s room) of vegetables to roast. I may or may not be eating those vegetables with that particular meal but I don’t like putting my oven on for just one thing and these veg keep great in the fridge to be used cold in salads for lunches or reheated for dinner the next night.
Other ‘ingredients’ I will also cook / prepare more of and use up in various meals during that week are:
- boiled eggs
- boiled potatoes
- big bowls of salad
- fruit salads
- homemade hummus / guacamole
Some other tips and ideas
A roast is always a great one to ‘batch cook’ – I think there’s nothing better than a leftover roast dinner for lunch on a Monday or even coming home from work and just reheating yesterday’s roast for dinner – the only thing you may have to do is make up some more gravy!
Your slow cooker is a great help for batch cooking – I always fill mine up to the top and let it work it’s magic – serve dinner and then save the rest for another meal later in the week.
You can batch cook any meals – this is a picture from one of my clients – she works away a few days a week so before she goes, she prepares a few days of overnight oats to take with her and store in her hotel fridge so she’s got breakfasts sorted and makes them all in one go – saving time as well as keeping her weight loss on track.
Batch cooking and meal planning go hand-in-hand and de getting into a regular practice of both will make a world of difference to your weight loss (as well as saving you both time and money). If you would like to become a meal planning expert, you can buy my Meal Planning Made Easy Workshop for just £5 here – I talk through my simply method to make meal planning something that you can fit into your life easily and plan a week’s worth of meals for you and your family in just 15 minutes.
To summarise, batch cooking can be something that you fit into your lifestyle in the way it works best for you – but having ready prepared meals available for those days when you can’t face cooking, plans have changed or you simply don’t have time will most definitely help you achieve your weight loss goals.
As a weight loss coach, I love helping people discover the best ways to reach their individual goals – from working on their mindsets and habits to help with nutrition and healthy eating advice and recipes. If you would like to find out more about my 1-2-1 coaching programme or how I can help you, please do get in touch.
Email me or phone/message: 07834 442607
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