Bulk cooking is a form of meal prep that saves you time and money, and makes having a healthy home cooked meal every night easier than ever. These bulk cooking recipes will help you start cooking less often, yet having home cooked meals more often.
Batch cooking is perfect for midweek meals. Let’s talk about how it can work for you and keep your whole family happy.
Advantages of Batch Cooking Recipes
- You save cooking time because you’re cooking several meals at once.
- It saves cleanup time, because you have fewer cooking sessions to clean up after.
- It’s a great way to make homemade freezer meals, which are great for lunches or when kids need to heat up their own dinners.
- It saves money because bulk cooking makes it easy to shop better. You can take advantage of sales and bulk buys (even if you live and eat alone!) and, with a little planning, make sure everything you buy gets used in a recipe.
- You can also take advantage of cheaper cuts of meat because most of these recipes – especially slow cooker and crockpot recipes – are designed to tenderize tough meat and make it all delicious.
- No wasted leftovers, because these recipes are designed for freezing and serving again later. It’s a good way to avoid food waste.
- You know exactly what’s in every meal, which gives you lots of control over the nutrition.
- Adapt it to any diet. Bulk cooking may make you think of meaty stews and casseroles, but you can also make vegetarian bean salads. Swap beef for fish or chicken. Swap meat for lentils or any other substitute you prefer.
Planning Freezer Meals
Cooking in bulk does take a little bit of planning in advance. Less than regular cooking, I think, but you will have to make a few adjustments. Here are some links to give you ideas:
- Several different strategies for bulk cooking explained.
- This guide to cooking in bulk in has some great tips.
Basically, there are a few ways to make bulk cooking work for you. You can:
- Cook a few elements of meals, such as the meat or a veggie, and keep them on hand to add to meals. That way, you just need to cook sides and maybe some rice or pasta, or just put the meat on a bun. You can also cook your sides in advance, and mix and match to form meals.
- Cook one-dish meals, like stews and pasta dishes. You can even freeze your own “ready to heat” pizzas. Just freeze the portions you don’t use immediately, and heat them up as needed.
