Life can be very busy: family, friends and work can take so much of our time. We even forget to take care of ourselves! Being a busy lady often force us to take the easy way out for a meal, either instant meal for dinner or catching ourselves with unhealthy take-out foods. That’s why, the terms of ‘me-time’ was invented. It is a form of self-love through activities such as cooking healthy food! So instead of eating food that might not fulfil our daily nutrition needs, why not batch cook? If you never heard Our Batch Cooking For Beginners is the perfect guide!
What is Batch Cooking?
Batch cooking means that you cook in large batches, different which you can mix and match according to your taste. The purpose of this technique is to simplify your life and to ensure that you get all the nutrients you need during the week.
Usually, you would need to spend two to three hours to prepare the food on Sundays. You then freeze it and warm it up whenever you need. So basically you will have your food ready for a whole week or month. Very simple! We like this technique that allows us to have healthy lunch at the office for example.
Benefits of Batch Cooking for beginners
Batch cooking will definitely help busy ladies, especially moms who wants their toddlers to eat homemade nutritious food. However, there’s more than just a matter of healthy food!
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Keeping your precious time and energy at bay
If you prepare homemade and healthy meals every day, you know it is time consuming. Chopping vegetables, blending the seasoning, cooking it all for breakfast, lunch and dinner can take easily 2 hours of your day. Crazy, right?
You could actually relax without having to do some extra house work after an office day. By batch cooking, you’ll cook less often! You need 2 hours maximum on weekends to prepare different kind of healthy and nutritious meal at once. Thus, you can save your energy and quality time for your top priorities during the weekdays!
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Save money and the environment
Imagine if you have to spend some money on ready-to-eat meal 3 times a day, 5 days a week… On one hand, you probably eat ingredients that are not good for your body. On the other hand, you spend a good amount of your wage in takeaways! By batch cooking, you spend money on buying bulk on groceries, you eat healthy homemade food and most importantly, a lot cheaper!
Moreover, batch cooking can help you preserve the environment. How? By not having too much waste on food packaging. Also, you can always keep leftover food to reduce food waste! Batch cooking helps you to only take the amount of food you need so that no food waste is left to the environment! You can read more about zero waste here.
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You don’t have to worry about meal ideas
Batch cooking implies that you have your different food products ready in advance so no more blank staring in the fridge. Say goodbye to the stress created when you realise you forgot something at the store. Everything is already served and packed in front of you!
How to Batch Cook?
Now that you know why you should batch cook, below are some easy tips and guidelines on batch cooking for beginners!
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Make sure you have a proper food container
Before starting to batch cook, make sure you have the right type and amount of food containers. We would suggest using glass container as it preserves your food quality, can stand in the microwave when reheating and is more eco-friendly.
Also, estimate how many containers you need depending on your fridge/freezer size. Buy more if necessary! If possible, get containers in the usable portion so you don’t have to heat 1kg of vegetable dish for a single meal.
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Make space in your fridge and freezer
To keep those containers, make sure that you have freed some space. This is also great to track what you have in the fridge, to see if you don’t need to buy another ingredient and toss the ones that have exceeded the expiry dates.
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Make plan on what to eat for the week
This is the most important part. You should decide on your meal plan for the week. Get some inspiration from internet, magazine or social media. There are millions of interesting recipes provided in the internet which you check depending on your diet. Once you’re done planning, you can start buying the necessary items.
If you are non-vegan, try to cook 3-4 different kind of vegetable dish to rotate and at least 2 or 3 kind animal-based dish. Don’t forget to also have a plant-based protein food such as quinoa and chickpeas, for both non-vegan and vegan. Also check the vitamins and nutrition so that you have the right amount of healthy food for the week.
Keep in mind to look for food products that you can keep for a week or month, because not every vegetables or meat can be kept for too long in the freezer.
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Label your meals
One Batch Cooking for Beginners tip: don’t get lost in your fridge! A label helps you to quickly take the food you need without having to open your containers one by one.
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Make sure you understand how long you should keep the food
When planning, you have to check how long the food can be kept in the freezer. Normally, you can keep the food in the freezer for 3 months. However, to make sure you eat the best quality of food, we would suggest that you eat the meals within a month.
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Be careful when defrosting
Don’t defrost your food straight in the microwave. Once it is heated, you will see a puddle of water sitting on top of your food which grows bacteria and toxins. Start by merging your glass container in a bowl of cold water until it softens a bit, then you can start reheating in the microwave.
We hope that you found our Batch Cooking For Beginners guide useful and perhaps, consider to try it to save you some time. Get creative and have fun cooking! XX
