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

"Soulless" is a really weird criticism. DP loves cooking and I don't, but I do like spending a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen with him with a glass or two of wine doing the sous-cheffy jobs I can actually do, putting tunes on, chatting while he does the work that actually requires skill. It's really nice bonding time and results in delicious food.

As much as he loves cooking, he doesn't love cramming it into 20 minutes when he's knackered from a working day so much. Rushing to get a "quick weekday meal" on the table just for fuel is what's soulless, not taking your time and putting love into a big vat of chilli or bolognese or multiple curries or a pie or a lasagne or a tart.

And for all of those things it doesn't make any sense to just cook what you need for one meal. Stews and curries are absolutely made for batch-cooking.

I don't get bored eating the same meal a few days in a row when it's as delicious as DP's cooking, really.

I can't afford to buy extras so literally cook what we need that day. If I make a cottage pie, for example, I use two small packs of mince for the six of us. When I go shopping, I just buy the two packs of mince.

Plus, couldn't freeze it due to no space in freezer.

I also never spend hours cooking anything...if it cant be prepared in 20 mins tops on a weekday, it doesnt get cooked!

Good Food website has a great chicken and chorizo ragu recipe that I make in batches for the freezer.

I love my batch cooked meals for the days when I am just not in a state to cook.
But I make them nice looking and veg is not soggy because I account for freezing and reheating.
I do agree I've seen some not so appetising looking batch prep on Insta though.

But each to their own. Some people are fine with frozen, some are not. Neither is wrong

I mean... just don't do it, then?

Batch cooking is absolutely not for me. I like to be more spontaneous. If I fancy, eg, lasagne one night, I want to make and eat a lasagne, not heat up a portion of curry simply because that's what I decided to make three days previously. If I fancy going out for dinner instead of cooking, I do that - I wouldn't stay in just because I'd batch cooked and I only have a tiny freezer because I can't be arsed to defrost things before I eat them either.

But that's just me. I don't have kids, I don't really plan much ahead in any area of my life, and I love food and cooking and eating. I'm also very good at working out the calorie content for meals as I make them, and I rarely use recipes. So batch cooking doesn't suit me.

However, I don't see why it would be soulless or sad for someone whose lifestyle and preferences are well suited to it?

I love batch cooking. I hate cooking so it allows me to cook much less frequently.

Thanks so much I’m going to try this!

What do you do with your leftovers then or are you making a one portion lasagne?

I don’t find it limits me as it’s all frozen so I take it out in the morning, if I don’t fancy it at night it’s fine the next day

I don’t batch cook as such but will happily freeze a portion of leftovers or a couple of extra portions of soup. Mostly I take it into work for lunch so it tends to be a brighter part of the day. But a freezer full of spag Bol etc on rotation wouldn’t fill me with joy.

Batch cooking gives me the boak.

For starters, I am not spending my weekend cooking piles and pile of food, fuck that. And I hate knowing in advance what I’m going to eat, and quite often can’t face it if I’ve known all day.

But mostly the actual act of batch cooking just seems tragic to me.

Batch cooking gives me the boak.

For starters, I am not spending my weekend cooking piles and pile of food, fuck that. And I hate* knowing in advance what I’m going to eat, and quite often can’t face it if I’ve known all day.
But mostly the actual act of batch cooking just seems tragic to me.*

Blimey that sounds a bit dramatic!

I can honestly say ive never spent a weekend cooking piles of food!

Why would I know in advance what I was going to eat, well to be fair most people who have a young family have an idea what they are going to eat that evening but the point of the batch cooking ( to me) is you have options. I can look on the freezer and see ive got a lasagna, chilli, strew, stroganoffs, soups, etc and see what everyone fancies.

Im not sure why its more tragic to pull a meal ive made myself out of a freezer and have it it defrosting while I'm at work than cutting up onions , making a bolognaise or whatever and washing pots and pans afterwards when I'm shattered.
If i don't want to know what i. Having g for tea, I'll pull something out of the freezer when I het home.

Anyway things that you buy frozen are batch cooked!

The opposite of soulless IMO.
You're creating the option to have a day out of cooking, to focus on your own interests, deal with a crisis or have a family outing and STILL put a good meal on the table.
Even better, somebody else can put it on the table!

We don't "batch cook". That does sound a bit soulless. We just cook tasty meals that we fancy eating, but cook more than we need and freeze what's left. Making enough bolognese or chilli or curry or stew for 3-4 meals takes barely more effort than cooking for one meal, and these things only improve when made ahead so the flavours can meld.

I absolutely agree that the plastic boxes aren't appealing, but they're not the meal, they're a storage medium. The packaging food comes in in the first place is no better. Nobody ever looked at a heat sealed plastic tray of chicken breasts with its little absorbent pad and thought "Mmm, tasty"!

At the risk of stating the obvious, you have to take the frozen food out of the box and serve it as you would have served the original meal, with freshly cooked rice or pasta, a sprinkle of cheese, a scattering of fresh herbs, or whatever floats your boat. And don't eat the same dull food repeatedly. We never eat the same thing more than once a week. Meals will keep perfectly well in the freezer for a few months.

I see freezing meals as a way of showing love to your future self. Perhaps they're having a shitty day and will really benefit from a nice warm nutritious meal.

To some people, batch cooking = cooking extra chilli to have another time

To other, batch cooking = spend one day per month cooking everything you'll eat for 28 days

As soon as you've decanted the tubs into a nice Le Creuset on the stove you've got instant wholesome home cooking without the prep. Don't microwave reheat in tubs - it's bad for you anyway and much nicer to stir a pot gently reheating while your potatoes or pasta or whatever are cooking.

I use Pyrex dishes, they work fine in the microwave rather then dirtying another pan! They look ok too

I don’t care about things being batch cooked, I just will not waste my weekend doing it myself. So joyless.

I have a 20 mile drive home from work and I finish work at 5.30 so it can easily be 6.30 before I get home. DH often has evening work meetings so being able to reheat bolognese, chilli, curry, etc in the time it takes to cook some pasta or rice is a game changer. I occasionally have an afternoon in the kitchen batch cooking but normally I just make a big pot of whatever I am cooking and portion it for the freezer.
We are now usually a household of 3 and most recipes serve 4 so if I make something like lasagne, the extra portion goes in the freezer and either DD has it when DH and I are away or on a night when we aren't all eating together, I take 3 individual meals out of the freezer for us to heat as and when we want. Yesterday we had a visitor for lunch and I had made something in the slow cooker with I served with rice. There was enough left for 3 additional portions so they are boxed and in the freezer.

I don't batch cook but I love having leftovers, which is pretty much the same thing. What's not to like about a ready-cooked meal? It does need to be something 'wet' though, like stew or curry. Dry stuff doesn't re-heat well.

I think it’s how you meal prep that makes the difference.

I “meal prep”, that is: I do a big shop once a month or so, and process the food to provide meals/meal ingredients that can be easily taken out of the freezer and cooked without starting from scratch.

So I process (chop) onion, carrot and celery to mix and freeze and use for chilli, bolognese and cottage pies, make chicken and beef burgers, chop chicken and freeze in portions for a meal for three, and chop and freeze the remaining carrots (so they don’t go slimy) in batons, make mash and freeze that (so before the potatoes sprout) and make a big batch of Katsu curry sauce which I portion and freeze for a cheat’s chicken Katsu curry (using pre-prepared chicken gougons) mid-week Etc.

I also prepare salads in individual portions weekly so that all we have to do is grab a tin of tuna or some feta and olives to add to it before taking it into work as lunch. Minced beef, lamb, sausages etc. are frozen in their packs or portioned into bags with quantity of one per meal, so that I can get the packs out as and when we want a meal that includes them, and I take advantage of cut-price roasting joints and freeze them so we always have a potential Sunday roast in the freezer, too

If you’re prepping food to have the same meals each day, you’re doing it wrong!

I don't know anyone who spends whole weekend doing this tbh.
DH and I do it once every couple of weeks. Turn on the music, get on chopping, once knife is minimal use, we crack open the beers and have some fun with it.
Nothing joyless 😁 But I do have to set lots of timers especially as the beers flow😂
Tbf we really do enjoy cooking. Sadly lots of our faves are not particularly a quick cook weekday dinner. Hence why we prep them and freeze them.

What about batch ironing? Or batch cleaning? Or batch washing? Or batch gardening? Are they all weird and wrong too?

Yeah I dont either @CoffeeCupOnBreakbut everyone is obsessed with it on MN!

People come on here asking for timesavers and the answer is always ‘spend an entire Sunday cooking’. Like that really helps!

Batch cooking isn’t spending all day cooking to me - that’s just silly

its about making double and freezing one when it’s no extra effort

and that increases joy - because you have a ready meal that’s good quality when you need it

I cook extra so there’s enough for two or three more meals, it doesn’t really take much longer. I don’t understand ‘sad’, unless you mean it’s not spontaneous but isn’t that the point? To come home and NOT be faced with a fridge full of random ingredients you have to cobble together for a meal.