Cooking can be very time consuming and laborious however it doesn’t have to be. With these tips for meal prepping in batches, or batch cooking, you can be more efficient with delicious meals.
Meal prepping in batches involves making large portions of entire meals or parts of meals so that you can enjoy them later with minimal work. Good batch cooking can benefit from proper preparation and making the right choices. From the recipes you choose to the appliances you cook with, can all make a difference. As you get more comfortable, you can discover how helpful it is to have so much food ready so easily.
Choosing the right recipes
Pick the right recipes and plan your grocery shopping around it
Some recipes lend themselves to batch cooking better than others. Recipes or ingredients that require precise cooking, attention or a lot of space may not be the best choices for batch cooking. Also foods that do not store or reheat well, are not the easiest to cook in batches.
Stew, Chili, casseroles and pasta dishes are all great choices for meal prepping in batches. These dishes can be made completely and portioned out for reheating later. They also reheat well without a worry for loss in texture. These recipes are also typically easy to scale up since as long as the ratios are the same, and you have a large enough dish to cook them in, you can easily make more than the original recipe.
Individual meal components can also be great choices for batch cooking. Roasted veggies and proteins like chicken can be a great way to cook parts of a meal that you can later mix and match. This is a great choice if you’re looking for more of a mix of textures or flavors.
Invest in quality food storage containers
Meal prepping in batches only works if you have the storage containers to store the abundant portions. There are a lot of options here, especially based on what kind of meal you decide to cook. Soups can be stored in plastic bags, remember to let it cool completely before transferring to a plastic bag. If you have more individual containers, see our article on the best meal prepping containers, you can portion out the batch meal into individual meals and store them perfectly ready to go.
Having appropriately sized storage containers can help a lot with portion control as well as reheating efficiently. Trying to reheat a large portion can lead to uneven temperatures in your food or become a pain to deal with.
Good storage containers can last you a long time and help a lot. If you’re meal prepping in batches, it’s recommended to make the investment and get containers that can handle a lot of freezing and reheating.
Utilize your entire kitchen
A nice trick to meal prepping in batches is to leverage multiple cooking appliances at the same time. This can save you a lot of time and prepare meals that are very different. This quickly creates a lot of food so make sure you’re prepared with storage containers. Using the oven, the stove top and a slow cooker at the same time is a lot to juggle so consider your cooking times and plan out the steps carefully.
Portioning
Meal prepping in batches can also make it easier to manage portions. This is one of the most important considerations for staying healthy. Properly setting portions will assist in planning out nutrients and calories. This starts with the recipe choice and the grocery store trip. Plan early and as you get more comfortable with batch cooking you will learn how much food each recipe will make.
Freeze extra portions
The freezer is one of the best ways to store foods, especially soups. Frozen food doesn’t last forever but it can last a long while. Always be sure to check how long certain foods last, remember that it’s not an exact science, if it doesn’t smell right don’t eat it. Freezing and reheating can really affect textures as well so some foods do not handle freezing well.
Make sure to invest in good containers that can seal air tight. Containers that leave gaps can ruin the food inside with either freezer burn or the food can pick up the flavors of the foods around it in the freezer. This can be very gross. I would also recommend that you choose a food storage container that can freeze and reheat all in one since trying to get frozen foods out of a container can be frustrating.
Label and date containers
This seems unnecessary but if you start meal prepping in batches often, you may start to overlap your meals or if you freeze soups, you can quickly lose track of what was made or when. Especially frozen meals. A quick tape label can help you keep your fridge clean down the line and avoid food waste.
Plan for variety
Meal prepping in batches can be extremely helpful since it efficiently makes large amounts of food. Ideally with recipes that freeze well so you don’t have to eat the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next week. The next trick is to choose recipes that can be mixed and matched. Cooking large portions of parts of meals is very helpful in avoiding meal burnout. Cooking the protein, veggies and other sides separately, storing them separately or in containers with dividers can lead to amazing discoveries in combinations you wouldn’t have normally thought of. This also makes it easier to test out what works for you.
Start meal prepping in batches with these awesome recipes
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Beef is a staple in every chef’s kitchen so we put together a list of our Top 10 Meal Prep Beef Recipes. Beef is a versatile protein that works well across cuisines and meal prep recipes as it reheats well and lasts in the kitchen. There are so many cuts of beef that there are endless possibilities. Beef is also a popular ingredient for meal prep as it’s easy to cook, making it a great option for cooks with less experience. It’s very forgiving and still tastes great!
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