to think batch cooking is a bit soulless?

Aren’t ready meals just batch cooked frozen plastic encased examples though?

Where from?

Black beans

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables/sweet-potato-chilli/

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/black-bean-chilli

So everything stinks? What about ready meals?
they’re not leftovers, I’ve planned to make more

Thank you. What beans do hi put in the chilli out of interest?

Yes the same as this.

Easy and quick to cook a bit extra for the next day and rather eat food.that hasn’t had to go through freeze-thaw process.

As well having quick but healthy choices that don’t take much preparation.

Batch cooking too time consuming and unappetising for me. The foods often lose taste and texture and not worth the hassle or storage space.

No I love it when I’ve just made a huge pot of something. I just chuck the whole thing in the fridge and grab portions from there through the week.

I think it's grim. Who wants to keep up to the eating the same heated up leftovers.

And for the love of god, don't bring it to work. I'm sick of its stinking out the kitchen and the microwave with your heated up batch cooked crap.

Can every batch cook meal be heated from frozen in a microwave?

Lots of supermarket ready meals says do not reheat from frozen allow to defrost.

personally I really like cooking so i don't batch cook as such (because, yes i feel it is a bit souless) but I always make more than I strictly need and freeze the remainder-so usually just one or two extra portions.

I understand having stuff "just in case" as well as due to time constraints. Personally, I enjoy cooking. Don't get me wrong, I know that not everyone enjoys it. Even I find it a pain in the arse at times, but I feel the "creation" process keeps it alive and dynamic. It feels like freezing the end result is kind of a waste.

Every time I’ve batch cooked and frozen a dish I end up throwing it away. Just doesn’t look appetising to me when it’s frozen.& gets left in the freezer for months and gets freezer burn. Just like it fresh I guess.

The only exception is when I have cooked extra for a friend/relative who was unwell. I also batch cooked some chilli for my DS when he was at uni.

I love a day in the kitchen with some music

went shopping early this morning and did some prep for the week so I don’t need to cook now
the freezer has a meatball pasta bake, lasagne, beef stew and cottage pie. Plus oat biscuits, banana cake and chocolate chip cake
the fridge has leftover sausages so I can have a sausage barm before work plus some chopped salad, tuna mayo and cheese savoury ready for sandwiches

I often batch cook things like side dishes so that dinner can be more of an assembly job and quick to pull together. Looking at jars of pickled veggies, homemade stocks and sauces etc in the fridge sparks joy for me! If your batch cooked meals taste soggy and sad, that sounds like a skill issue tbh.

I'm coming from a different corner. I'm a single person. Retired/Old. Generally I cook from scratch for 1. I "assemble" many meals from raw or simply boiled / grilled ingredients. I avoid/don't like ready meals.

But occasionally I like to batch-cook a big boeuf bourgignon or a bolognaise sauce or a coq au vin. Then I like to choose a quiet afternoon, when there's a good play on the radio, to enjoy making a really big batch of something delicious. Often I'll be using up the 'dregs' and 'ullages' from long-gone bottles of wine. I pour off little dregs into old wine bottles,1 marked "Cooking White" and 1 marked "Cooking Red" - nothing goes down the drain. I, then, enjoy a lovely supper and freeze most of batch.

And, when o'seas family come to visit & stay, I can slap out a really nice meal - boil/steam some potatoes/rice, steam some broccoli - really quickly.

I batch cook delicious food that I can reheat quickly. I work full time and solo parent two kids so it means healthy food rather than eating rubbish. I don’t really understand the sad tubs thing. We eat it on plates or in bowls. We’re not sat at the table eating out of plastic containers!

Nope. Can't agree with you sorry. Chilli con carne isy happy place. Chilli con carne also happens to be piss easy to batch cook, and still tastes spectacular after being frozen.

As a result, the sight of one of those sad little tubs brings the promise of deep joy to me, and will always brighten my day.

I think frozen food never tastes as good as fresh food. We might put some in the fridge for the next day but I agree that batch cooked food does not look very appealing.

I’ve always said it’d annoy me knowing I had so many portions of the same meal in the freezer. It’d feel like a chore having to eat them all.

Totally agree

Maybe use pyrex containers with lids? Less sad and easier to wash. I wish I could get into a routine of batch cooking.

What is soulless about having home-cooked food ready to go whenever you need it? Unless you have the time and inclination to flounce around the kitchen like Nigella for hours every day, putting “soul” (whatever that means) into your food, then surely batch-cooked stuff is the next best thing.

I made a bolognese sauce today, enough for 4 meals. It is absolutely delicious! It takes very little more time to prepare than just one meal's worth and means that I have 3 more delicious meals in the freezer for when I need something quick.

I also made a big batch of curry sauce, some of which I made into two chicken curry meals for myself, which I will have when DH has horrible chilli, and the rest of it I made into 4 meals of vegetable curry, again for myself, which I will put tinned tuna into because I really like it. DH doesn't like it but he can have disgusting faggots or lamb chops when I eat my delicious curry. Again... quick and easy meals that I really like. What's the point in cutting up 1/4 of an onion, half a carrot, half a sweet potato, 1/8 of a red pepper, 5 green beans and adding just a spoonful of lentils, when I could cut up a whole onion, a large carrot, 2 sweet potatoes etc. and have 4 meals all ready to go?

Most do it beacuse of financial necessity, do you not realise that? x

I love batch cooking. I can make several nice meals in my own time without stress and listening to something enjoyable. Then we have trouble free meals down the line. What's not to like?