Batch cooking is the act of cooking – you guessed it – a batch of food, rather than just for a single meal. This means you have food for a later date when you might not have the time or resources to cook.
How to Batch Cook: A Complete Guide
At Mob, we’re all about giving people the tools to eat well and batch cooking is a great way to do just that. It’s a game-changer for anyone looking to save time, reduce stress and eat healthier. By preparing meals in bulk, you’ll have ready-to-eat options for busy days, minimise food waste and avoid the temptation of unhealthy takeaways. Result.
What is batch cooking?
How is batch cooking different from meal prep?
Meal prep and batch cooking both involve cooking food in advance for a later date but they have slightly different focuses. Meal prep involves preparing individual meals or ingredients for short-term use, typically for 3-5 days, offering quick, ready-to-eat options like salads or pre-portioned grains and proteins.
Batch cooking involves making large quantities of food such as soups or casseroles, designed for long-term storage, often in the freezer. The prepared food may just be a component of the final meal – for example, a batch of our Tuna, Celery & Miso Smoosh could be put in a sandwich, on a baked potato or even stirred through pasta.
Tuna, Celery & Miso Smoosh
What are the benefits of batch cooking?
Picture this: you’ve had a long day at work, your bus home was delayed and to top it all of you promised yourself you’d squeeze in a quick run before dinner. By the time you’re home and showered it’s 8pm and the last thing on your mind is cooking. But instead of spending a small fortune on an average takeaway, all you have to do is cook some pasta and stir in your batch-cooked bolognese. Evening saved.
Time (and energy) saving: cooking meals in bulk reduces the need for daily meal preparation, giving you more free time during the week. Which, let’s be honest, we could all do with.
Healthier eating: Having ready-made meals on hand discourages you from defaulting to takeaways or fast food options.
Cost-effective: Buying ingredients in bulk for batch cooking is often cheaper than purchasing smaller portions.
Reduces food waste: If you are tactical about your batch cooking, you can find ways to use up the same ingredients for different meals, reducing the likelihood of food waste.
Stress reduction: “What’s for dinner?” With batch cooking, you never have to ask yourself that question again.
Portion control: Pre-portioned meals make it easier to manage serving sizes.
Variety: Unlike meal prep, where you might eat the exact same thing on repeat, batch cooking means you can stock your freezer with a variety of dishes without having to cook every day.
Which recipes and ingredients work well for batch cooking?
Recipes are not equal when it comes to batch cooking mainly because some ingredients don’t freeze well. Soups, stews, curries, pasta sauces and anything in liquid tends to work best. We recommend adding your carbs on the day – for example, batch cook a chilli in advance but don’t add the rice until you’re ready to eat. Recipes that can be adapted slightly for each meal ensure you don’t get dinner fatigue.
Luckily, at Mob we’re all about batch cooking and have a whole section of our site dedicated to it. Here are some batch cooking recipes for every meal.
Breakfast batch cooking recipes:
High-Protein Tiramisu Overnight oats
Lunch batch cooking recipes:
Quick & Creamy Butter Bean Bowl
Dinner batch cooking recipes:
These batch cooking specific recipes are all designed to switch-up into different versions so you don’t have to have the same dinner again (and again).
Batch: Coconut Dal
What equipment do you need for batch cooking?
Containers, containers, containers. Small containers, big containers, medium-sized containers. You can’t have too many.
We also recommend investing in a large saucepan (or two) if you don’t have one already. It’s easier and cheaper to cook one large batch of the same thing than multiple recipes.
Our batch cooking tips
By now you’ve hopefully worked out how to batch cook. But just in case, we’ll leave you with these final thoughts:
Don’t beat yourself up. Much like a New Year’s Resolution, the reason most of us fail is we set ourselves too lofty goals and then feel bad about not achieving them and give up altogether. You don’t need to fill your freezer to batch cook successfully. Start small and go from there.
Supplement with fresh ingredients. If you eat the exact same thing over and over, chances are you’ll get bored and stop the whole batch cooking thing. So, add fresh ingredients to each meal to shake things up. And make sure you treat yourself.
Use the freezer. We can’t emphasise this enough. There’s nothing worse than batch cooking only for it to then go off. Your freezer is your best friend. Use it.