Search
Guide to meal prep and batch cooking
When it comes to saving time and money, meal planning and batch cooking are the perfect partners.
Batch cooking simply means preparing extra portions of your meals so that you have leftovers to enjoy the next day or freeze to have another time.
Planning your meals and batch cooking some simple freezable meals at the weekend helps to minimise food waste and makes it easier to stick to healthy balanced midweek meals when time is short in the evenings.
In this guide, we share and example of a week’s meal plan and show you how to use weekend meal prep time and leftovers or spare ingredients throughout the week. You’ll also find our top tips for batch cooking at the end.
Example of a week’s meal plan:
| Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | |
| Sunday | Meal prep time | Roast chicken, potatoes and veg | |
| Monday | Egg muffins | Lentil soup | Shepherd’s pie |
| Tuesday | Egg muffins | Lentil soup | Peanut and sweet potato stew. Meal prep time |
| Wednesday | Smoothie | Leftover peanut and sweet potato stew | Chicken stir fry Meal prep time |
| Thursday | Overnight oats | Egg muffins, veg sticks and hummus | Baked fish, sweet potato and greens Meal prep time |
| Friday | Overnight oats | Salmon pasta salad | Veggie tortilla pizza Meal prep time |
| Saturday | Smoothie | Leftover veggie tortilla pizza | Leftover Shepherd’s pie |
How to incorporate batch cooking and meal prep for the plan above into your week.
Sunday Afternoon:
-
- Prepare smoothie bags: chop and freeze mixed fruit (such as banana, berries, avocado) ready to blend with yoghurt or milk for a speedy breakfast later in the week.
- Prepare egg muffins: make a batch of freezable egg muffins. Keep some in the fridge for Monday and Tuesday’s breakfast, and freeze the rest to have for lunch on Thursday.
- Make lentil soup: refrigerate portions for lunch on Monday and Tuesday.
- Roast dinner leftovers: cook extra potatoes and veg for tonight’s roast to use in Monday’s Shepherd’s pie. Chop and freeze the leftover chicken to use in Wednesday’s stir fry.
- Prepare Shepherd’s pie: keep enough portions for Monday refrigerated, and freeze the remainder for Saturday.
- Prepare veg for the week: prepare as much or as little veg for the week’s recipes as you like, depending on the amount of time and storage space you have.
Tuesday Evening:
Box up leftover peanut and sweet potato stew for tomorrow’s lunch
Wednesday evening:
- Prepare overnight oats: make a double batch have for breakfast on Thursday and Friday
- Defrost leftover egg muffins in the fridge overnight and chop veg sticks if needed
Thursday evening:
Prep salmon pasta salad: Cook some extra portions of salmon along with tonight’s baked fish, and boil some pasta while cooking tonight’s potatoes. Mix your pasta and salmon with chopped salad veg (such as peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, spinach) and refrigerate for tomorrow’s lunch.
Friday evening:
- Box up leftover veggie tortilla pizzas for tomorrow’s lunch
- Defrost leftover shepherd’s pie for Saturday night’s dinner
Remember, this is just an example. If you’re new to meal planning and batch cooking, why not start with just one or two meals to begin with? Once you’ve built up some meal plans, you can recycle these to save even more time. Don’t forget, we have lots of recipes in the app that are suitable for batch cooking and freezing.
Batch cooking tips
Ensure food is cool before freezing (warm food will raise your freezer temperature). Most food can be kept frozen for up to three months (or two months for meat). Thaw food in the fridge overnight rather than at room temperature, and never refreeze food once thawed. Reheat meals once only until piping hot. After cooking, rice should be cooled as soon as possible and stored in the fridge for 1 day maximum before thoroughly reheating.
Ensure you have enough portions for leftovers by scaling up recipes. For example, if there are 2 people in your household, double a recipe for 2 to make 4 servings, and freeze or refrigerate 2 portions.
Before you start cooking, read your recipes to ensure you have everything you need and prepare your ingredients before starting to cook. This can save energy by ensuring you only turn your hob or oven on when you need to.
Keep your kitchen safe and tidy by clearing your worktops and washing up as you go. Wash your hands after handling raw meat or fish.
Make sure you have some reusable freezable containers to store your meals in appropriate portion sizes. Label these with the name of the dish, date and number of portions so that you can easily locate these in your freezer.
Slow cookers are perfect for batch cooking. Most can hold a large number of portions and allow you to get on with other recipes or activities while your meal cooks.
Use frozen pre-chopped veg to cut down on chopping time.