Batch cooking prep and freezing ideas?

[PonderingTotskeit]

I’m looking for how best to go about it. We are 2 person household. I work part time, husbands part time too as we’re semi retired.

By 5pm I just want to veg on the sofa pretty much every day. We’ve both not had the best of health unfortunately.

I’ve got a freezer and microwave, ovens etc.

I have to cook from scratch due to an autoimmune disease.

Should I cook for six a few times a week on my non working days?. This is the sort of thing I want to know.

I already cook double spag Bol, chilli, curry etc but I don’t generate enough ‘ready meals’. I also peel and freeze raw bags of celeriac, parsnips etc to drop into a pan of potatoes I’ve peeled for roasting. I always cook and mash a whole swede.

So I feel like I’m sort of getting there but it doesn’t seem to last long.

WDYD?

I manage best when i build up to it slowly. Start with one recipe. Something easy like bolognaise. Id make that for 6 and freeze two lots. Then write it down so you can keep track.

I can cook 10 different dishes to cover 40 meals over a 4 day period of solid cooking. So I’m your shoes as it’s the two of you I’d spend a full weekend and cook 5 different dishes that will give you enough for 20 meals which would cover you Monday to Friday for a month.

What sort of food do you eat.

I batch cook things like

mince and onions as a base and then that can be made into other dinners.

Buy a slightly bigger piece of meat to roast and then use the extra as either cold meats or reheat in gravy as a quick roast dinner.

Do you have a slow cooker? I use this for batch cocking. I make bolognese, chilli, spicy chicken (whole chicken thighs in spicy tomato sauce, with veg in - you can then serve as is on jackets or rice or shred and eat with pasta), curry, stews etc. So over 5 days I cook one thing each day (put it on in the morning), but it's goes in the freezer instead of being eaten that day. Each batch makes two meals for 2 adults plus a toddler with often enough left for a lunch the next day. So in 5 days I make us 10 days worth of food. That gets you your "base level" stock for the freezer and you can just start adding to it all the time.

From October I make a large pot of soup a week. I take a tub to work for lunch and freeze the rest in individual portions. The next week I make a different sort of soup and do the same, taking one the previous weeks for a second day. Just remember to label!

Thank you everyone that’s already helpful.

We are very traditional meat and two veg, roasts, shepherds pie, casseroles etc. We do like curries and chilli and mince based meals.

Yes, I do have a slow cooker but don’t really use it, that’s a good place to start as I have lots more energy in the morning and it can be cooking all day.

I always do extra rice and freeze that (cool it quickly and ensure it's piping hot to serve). There are two of us and I do a six person portion of everything - chicken curry, chilli (have with rice, jacket potato or mix with spicy rice and put in enchiladas) lamb tagine (easy to serve with packet cous cous, bolognese, spicy chicken & pepper casserole (over rice or for enchiladas), beef stew (put chopped veg/new potatoes in it and just serve with crusty bread) Arabiatta sauce for pasta (just add chicken or roast veg), sausage ragu for pasta.

Goulash is a good one. I cooked a big pot of it - DH and I had it twice and then while i was away, he had it for two evening meals, from the freezer. (Got a reicpe f you want one.)

But also, why not look at some effortless dinners? Very easy tray bakes can take 5 mins to prep.

E.g. In a roasting tray put Chicken thighs with skin on, chunks of leek, baby potatoes, thick slices of carrot. Toss in olive oil, garlic granules and salt with your favourite fresh herb (eg thyme, rosemary or tarragon. Pour in one glass of white wine and cook for 45 mins while you have a bath or sort out stuff for next day. Serve with salad.

Or chicken thighs, tossed in paprika, garlic granules and salt. Add a pack of cherry tomatoes, quartered red onion, some black olives and some sliced or mini peppers if you can be bothered to prep them. Pour on a carton of passata and cook for 45 mins. Serve with crusty bread and salad.

Salmon slices topped with soy and sweet chilli, roasted in the oven with some kale tossed in sesame oil, chilli flakes, sea salt and garlic granules. Cook for 25 mins. Serve with fine egg noodles that take 4 mins to cook.

One night do filled tortellini with fresh pesto and steamed broccoli - 5 mins max cooking time.

I get really fed up with the massive marathon cooking. I prefer adding to it slowly.

I work long hours and have no interest in cooking (at all really) once I get home. On a day off I batch cook in my slow cooker, and freeze it all. Other days I have really simple things like a jacket potato or something. It's just me, so I don't have other people's tastes to take into account.

I batch cooked a bag of baked potatoes the other week. Scoop out tge inside, mix with cheese, put back in the skin. About 4 minutes in the microwave, just remember to take them out of the freezer before work.

Most frozen homemade meals will keep 3 months. I would come up with a 3 month meal planner with mostly batch cooked meals but a few easy prep meals eg tray bakes using pre-prepared frozen veg (or fresh) such as gammon with sweet root veg, salmon or chicken with mediterranean veg, stir fries.

I would then have a blitz over a weekend or 2 and fill the freezer. That is how I started, then I would cook another batch of something once a week or so to eat fresh and replace the portions that had been used eg I would make 7 family size portions of chilli, we would eat 1, the other 6 would take the place of the 6 portions we had eaten that week. Next week, the same with cottage pie. You have to do the maths to start with though!

It also helps to make things from the same "family" that share a lot of ingredients in a batch eg prepare and cook mince and onions then split into chilli, bolognese, lasagne and cottage pie; or Yorkshire puddings, toad in the hole, onion gravy and onion soup; or Cornish pasties, beef casserole, steak and ale pie and boeuf bourguignon.

We often do a Sunday roast followed by a salad with the cold meat on Monday, if you don't mind cooking once then a no cook day. You can make and freeze roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings to make like easier.

Thank you all. Lots of really helpful ideas and advice.

Move your main meal of the day when not working to lunch then have cheese &crackers etc for evening. I know a lot of retired people eat that way

You can freeze muffins (in silicone cases) and cookies (on tray then decant to bags when solid) to cook at a later date. I make double quantities of mixture.
Pastry and cheese pastry freezes OK too.

I cook a large batch of caramelised onions & freeze in suitable portion sizes.
I also make onion gravy, Italian style tomato sauce, etc in bulk.

I don't make a deliberate effort to make them, but make a large quantity when I need them & freeze the rest.

@megletthesecond

You can freeze muffins (in silicone cases) and cookies (on tray then decant to bags when solid) to cook at a later date. I make double quantities of mixture. Pastry and cheese pastry freezes OK too.

Love this idea.

I love batch cooking Lentil Daal using this recipe. But I also roast vegetables from my fridge to mix it up a little. And I chuck in chick peas if I have them.

www.spicepots.com/blogs/recipes/lentil-daal

Or theres a version with chicken in it too if you like to have some meat! www.spicepots.com/blogs/recipes/goan-chicken-and-lentil-curry

Like pp who does a soup each week, I try to do one batch cook a week (that makes 6-8 portions), eat once for tea and freeze the rest. Then have options for other nights from previous weeks batch cooks. I also do a soup every couple of weeks for lunches

Most of my batch cooks are done in the slow cooker - spag Bol, curries, stews etc have a look on bbc good food website there are some excellent slow cooker recipes on there which can be doubled

Also - to reduce the effort I use frozen veg where possible, and we do meatballs (bought raw) in the slow cooker with a jar of tomato sauce which is effortless!