Batch cooking?

[lioness87]

Due date is in 3 weeks time and I'm considering batch cooking and freezing some meals for DH and myself. Has anyone else done this and found that it was useful?

We have a Cook where we live, but I don't eat meat and their veggie choices aren't the best!

I went into Cook and thought the prices were a bit high!

I'm also wondering this - I only have a tiny freezer but a lot of people mention batch cooking. I think my DH may just have to do the majority of food shopping and cooking!

It's a good idea if you have the energy and freezer space. You could also freeze things to put in the slow cooker eg part prepare the stuff for bolognaise sauce or chilli. Tbh we survived on salads with bread because it was spring and okay not to have hot food!

I batch cooked spaghetti bol, chilli and thai curry. For the first couple of weeks after baby arrived I wondered why I bothered as hubby was home and family kept offering to cook for us. Then life went back to the new normal and there were nights we wouldn't have eaten if we didn't have something super quick and easy to grab out the freezer. Also my husbands job means he is sometimes home very late so meant if he was delayed I didn't starve!

Frozen stuff will generally last for months so just having a few bits in there as back up was great. You don't necessarily need enough for every day for months just for the days where you are both exhausted and need something quick!

Yes definitely worth it.

We don't eat the type of food that lends itself to batch cooking - but if you do then it is a good idea.

We tend to eat fish, meat and salad as main meals most days as we don't really have carbs. So we'll instead have regular online deliveries of easy things to have with salad.

Yeah we did this. Chilli, Bolognese, stews, risotto

Yeah I did loads and it really helped us. Spag bol, chilli, lasagne, cottage pie, chicken and ham pie etc.

I bought foil containers to put the oven cook stuff in so I didn't even have to decant into another dish for cooking. A bit wasteful, but it was handy. DS is 11 months old and I miss having a freezer full of home made ready meals. Although have a look at filled pasta, there's usually veggie options and it cooks in only a few min, it's fab with pesto or other jars of sauce. Usually got a long shelf life in the fridge too!

I did loads of batch cooking on maternity before she arrived and it filled my nesting need at the time and gave me something to do but most of it’s still in the freezer and she’s 5 months now so I sort of wish I hadn’t bothered. I eat differently while juggling a baby than I thought I would and hot lunches don’t appeal and we both like cooking so we take turns making dinner.

I've just been making extra as I've gone along to freeze so I made two lasagnes one night and we ate one and froze one. Ditto homemade burgers. We have a few things that we can just cook from frozen but we've also stocked up on sides/ingredients (meat / diced vegetables / sweet potato fries etc) so it's easy to pull something together. I've also made a big batch of chocolate chip cookie dough which I've portioned up and can bake from frozen when we have visitors / when I want a cookie.

It is definitely worth it. Consider freezing some individual portions for when you are home alone with baby, as well as family size portions so you don't have to defrost more than you need. I'm veggie and I made: soups, stew, pasta sauce, lasagne, shepherds pie, veggie burgers, dahl, curry, chilli. Options you can eat one handed are good for when you are juggling baby at mealtimes.

I did this and for me it has been amazing. Baby is now two weeks old and is cluster feeding all evening meaning that cooking is out of the question. But I just get a meal out of the freezer in the morning and by just warming it up and sticking it on a plate with some salad or simple veg we have a nutritious, home cooked meal every day! I did a whole range of things - stews, pasta dishes, curry, chilli etc etc