to think batch cooking is a bit soulless?

[iCod]

I get the logistics practicality, time saving etc ...
but apart from that (!) when you see the sad plastic boxes it seems to reduce food to fuel rather than joy

I prob am unreasonable, obseity prob etc but YANNOW

Lentil bolognese, vegetable burgers and bean chilli freeze well

Agree most vegetables go mushy if frozen

Yes, batch cooking is always more enjoyable - and looks so much more appetising - after a trip to TKMaxx to stock up on some glass containers. 😄

There’s almost always some cooking or chopping involved even if I’m using something from the freezer.

Pasta sauce - cook the pasta
Curry - the rice
Chilli - rice, baked potato or bake on tortillas with cheese to make nachos
Soup - bread for the side, herbs/seeds/croutons for on top, cream added

And side veg or salad with all of these

Also a batch cooked meal is so much less depressing than a ready meal or crap takeaway.

I’ll cook a curry for 4 - 6 ppl that we will have that evening and just double it. we will only eat 2 portions (kids take from that) leaving 6- 10 portions for the freezer, frozen in tubs if two large portions.

Many are quick (and I now know how long various ones take) so it’s not a lot of extra chopping in reality.

It's weird to assume that it's batch cooking or takeaways/ready meals/Pret sandwiches as various posters have done.

It's neither for us.

We are in a rhythm where on a day when I have a bit more time, I make a more elaborate meal. On days when I have less time, I make a quick meal - e.g. salmon and vegetables, stir fry.

For lunches, if I am WFH, I will throw together something quick from left overs - e.g. an omelette with left over veg. If I am in the office, a salad or I might roast some extra veg with dinner and then make it into soup.

There are some meals that freeze well but not that many and I just prefer freshly cooked food and don't find it takes all that long. Before anyone assumes I have loads of time on my hands, I work full time, have primary age children, volunteer etc, I just don't personally like batch cooking - of course others should do what they prefer

I only batch cook for others and use glass dishes with nice lids
I don’t mind taking leftovers to work next day but they have to be in a decent container and have something fresh to accompany

I hate cooking so the few times I've batch cooked it's been miserable and exhausting. I seem to spend my life eating leftovers.

As soon as this house is finished I'm only going for are things to chuck in the oven.

I love it and it means I can always send DC back to uni with a couple of pre prepped after a weekend visit home.

I batch cook - but I don’t do a week of meals at once, I do a large pot of 1 thing and freeze it in single person portions (I use Ikea ziploc bags) to use as part of the mix of dinners over coming weeks. I have just used my last country sausage ragu for pasta, chicken and mushrooms in creamy white wine sauce and butter chicken from the freezer this week. I still have a veggie chilli, some lamb rogan Josh, chicken vadagam and lamb bhuna to use. And a couple of packets of roasted Mediterranean veggies to use in plain tomato sauce.

I plan to do a proper spaghetti Bol sauce (the kind with half a bottle of wine in the pot) next weekend, and some of that may become a couple of lasagnas too.

I don’t have a microwave and it makes it so much easier to cook a decent healthy meal quickly after work as I’ve put lots of good stuff into it when cooking. Most of my curries need long slow cooking. And in winter, I do some lovely slow cooked stews/casseroles as well.

I’m single so if I didn’t batch cook I would never eat lasagne, casseroles, cottage pie etc! There’s no point in me making 1 portion of lasagne

I like to cook my evening meals from scratch in under 20 mins during the week so wouldn’t cook curry from scratch during the week. But on a weekend we will make things that take longer and that have leftovers but it would take an age to make something with 10 extra portions for my household and I’d need a massive vat and massive freezer. So just don’t bother as not practical.

I love batch cooking, dh started it when I had cancer last year, as just I didn’t always feel like eating or would start and then want something different and having a wide selection of homemade stuff just helped with that aspect. but we’ve continued it even though I’m through that now, so relaxing just knowing when we don’t fancy cooking there’s a delicious homemade meal in the freezer, got a huge variety and all very delicious, we use cardboard type containers which I think look quite good tbh 😂 nothing sad about them

Bought ready meals don't look attractive in their tubs either. That's why they come with cardboard sleeves round them that show how they're supposed to look after they're plated up and garnished. No-one would buy them otherwise.

Maybe you need to take some pictures of how your batch meals should look when they're all plated up and add wrappers to your sad plastic boxes?

Well I assumed those doing it find it joyous. If not, then that's pretty sad yeah.

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?

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

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?

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.

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

Totally agree

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.

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.

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 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!

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.