batch cooking - please explain how this is cheaper?

[sweetheart]

Is that a stupid question? I just don't see how cooking in bulk and freezing some makes it any cheaper to make. Shurly if you double the ingredients to make double the quantity you are also doubling the cost?

Depends if you get discounts for buying in bulk. I thought the idea of cooking in bulk was to save time rathr than money.

Yes but only one lot of cooking time - gas/electric etc.

I get dead or dieing veg and prepare into small cubes then freeze then when I batch cook I lob the lot in to pad it out.

Also if you have a meal in the freezer you might not ring for a takeaway as it could be cooked before your food would have arrived.

You save on fuel for cooking as well - e.g. on Sunday I cooked a roast chicken, another chicken dish in a pot (Thai red curry) and a gooseberry crumble all in the same oven. If you make one big pot of soup which does 5 lunches, you are only re-heating a small amount each time (microwave v low electricity usage). Once you get into the habit you can buy up whatever veg or meat is on special offer and make one big pot meal with it, so you save a lot.

If you fill your oven with several items and cook them all at once, rather than having your oven on for one pie, or fill a slow cooker to completely rather than half ful, you save on the cost of the fuel.

If I cook a casserole on a low oven, I always fill the pan almost full, to get 2 or 3 meals out of the one lot of fuel. A

If you have just a bit left over, and put it in the freezer, and repeat that several times, every so often you can pull all the oddments out, and have a 'free' meal, each person having something slightly different.

Also, hyou can ofetn get ingredients on bogof or similar, so bulk buy, bulk cok, and you will save money. much better to cok and freeze, than throw out the one you got free because you forgot to use it and it has gone out of date!

It is cheaper for me. My household consists of me - a meat eating, salad hater; my OH - a fussy vegetarian; and my 7mo DD who would eat the cat if we let her. This means that when I want something containing meat that it is uneconomical to cook for one. For instance, if I make my favourite risotto which feeds 4-5 using 1 pack of chicken, 2 peppers, 1 leek, 1 tin of sweetcorn etc... Making for one would only be harder and more expensive.

You buy the meat or main ingredient on a 3-for-2 or some other deal, use one lot of electricity to cook it, and it means you're less tempted to go into the shops (thereby buying other things alongside which you don't need) because you know you've always got tasty homemade food in the freezer.

It can be about cash flow too as well as cost. I've cooked stuff up knowing we were going to have a rough month financially, having some good meals in the freezer takes the pressure off later on in the month.

Definitely saves on ready meals in this house, I have a DH out at work for 12-14 hours a day and 3 DC's under 5. Cooking through the week is a nightmare, re-heating is much better.

I made a cottage pie filling the other day - too much for the three of us to eat, We had cottage pie on two consecutive nights, and the rest of the meat is frozen, so I have a couple of meals or one big one on standby.

If I'm going to faff around chopping veg etc, then I might as well make a shed load and freeze it. I'm doing the same to some very nice stewing steak next week and making Carbonnade. It also means if at Christmas I'm really busy, I have meals to pull out and just do potatoes with it. Simpler that way.