Batch, please! 10 tips to help make meal prep easy
Imagine a food delivery service that saves you money and reduces food waste. Even better, it’s ready to eat in the time it takes to pick a movie and put your comfy clothes on. Well this could be reality…if your fridge or freezer is loaded up with meal prep.
Batch cooking doesn’t have to be a chore, it can be fun, easy, and definitely tasty. Here are our top tips for meal prepping like a pro - the simple way!
1) Pick your dishes carefully
Look to pick dishes that have common ingredients so that your shopping list doesn’t become too long, and choose meals that lend themselves to freezing and cooking in bulk well, like a chickpea curry, lasagne, chilli or minestrone soup.
2) Cook creatively
Get creative if you are missing something, and identify another ingredient you do have that could offer a similar texture, flavour or nutrition profile.
3) Cook at the right time
Make sure you have an hour or two free. That should be enough to knock out some delicious food!
4) Cheating is ok
Frozen vegetables, ready-made pastes and delicious jar sauces can all save you time. Check out these 15 freezer friendly foods that you can have on hand, & there are plenty more.
5) Tune in
Cooking should be fun. Put some music or a podcast on to cook to. Check out ‘What on earth?’ the sustainability podcast.
6) Mass chop
Garlic, onions and some other vegetables will feature across each of your dishes. Work out how much you need in total, then ready, steady, chop!
7) Keep everything ship shape
Split the ingredients out for each recipe on a tray or plate ready to cook. It is much easier when you have all the ingredients prepared for when you need them, rather than trying to cook and chop at the same time. Clean as you go, a big pile of washing up can seem more daunting.
8) Be ready to change it up
It might seem obvious but cooking several recipes together is a bit different to cooking one. Cook in a way that suits you and your abilities, if you can cook two dishes at once, then great, that will save time.
9) Tupperware at the ready
Make sure you have enough containers for everything you are going to cook. Tupperware is great, but so are old soup containers, large jars and take away tubs – just make sure it has a tight seal if it’s going in the freezer.
10) Make room
Make sure you have enough space for your tasty meals in your fridge or freezer, as food in the freezer will keep for much longer!
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