Victor
What is Batch Cooking?
Batch cooking is simply the method of cooking an item in bulk and storing it in batches for later use. Most of the work with cooking is in the prep process. Food prep is also when you experience the most mess in the kitchen. By batch cooking, you can take advantage of many great benefits in addition to only cleaning the kitchen once for multiple meals.
Batch Cooking is Not Meal Prep
Many people are confused by the concept of batch cooking, but it is straightforward if you have a system that allows you to calculate batch recipes based on the number of batches you want to prepare instead of the number of people you want to serve.
Batch cooking is bulk cooking but based on recipes that allow you to divide the final result into batches that you can store for later use. This site is based on the concept of batches being the perfect size for your family, vacuum sealed, and frozen for future use.
I teach you to batch cook the meat portion of your meals and some select side dishes that batch cook well. I will not waste your time showing how to make a large amount of a recipe and portioning into small containers for individual meals. I teach a module system that allows you to create quick homemade meals with the prepared most time-consuming ingredients.
Most recipes are created for batches of 2-8. For members, there is also a slider on the recipe so you can develop recipes custom to your desired amount of batches, including an online meal planner, shopping lists, and a personal recipe box. Learn more about membership.
Benefits of Batch Cooking
Batch Cooking has many benefits, including money saved, less food wasted, time saved, less work, easier portion control, and a better diet that you control.
How does batch cooking save me time?
One of the things I love the most is a clean kitchen. I simply can’t cook in a dirty kitchen, or even if it is messy. It drives me crazy! This means that cleaning the kitchen is a must after cooking, but I found a way to not mess the kitchen up so often; Batch Cooking. Because I batch cook less often, I don’t need to clean the kitchen as often.
Less Cleaning
I love cooking, but I hate cleaning. I wish I could have someone else do it, but that duty falls on my wife and me. Since I do the majority of the cooking, I do the majority of the general cleaning. That’s only fair, right?
By nature, I am motivated by efficiency and to work less, so I develop systems that allow me to do just that; work less and more efficiently. Now I don’t have to clean so much, and cleaning is easier because I don’t cook as often. Most everything I use goes in the dishwasher on batch cook day.
Cooking Less Often
Even though I love to cook, there are plenty of times when I don’t want to get everything out and cook a meal from scratch. It is too time-consuming! But I figured out how to save a bulk of the time by cooking the meat portion of the meal in bulk and portioning it for our family to enjoy at dinner.
Now when I make dinner, I simply reheat the meat portion, prepare the fresh and dried ingredients, and dinner is ready to serve quickly. The big mess associated with all the pots and pans is gone. I’m happy, and you will be too.
Fewer Grocery Shopping Trips
How often have you stopped by the grocery store to pick up a pound of ground beef to make tacos or burgers? It’s very time-consuming, and it is most likely what sends you to the closest drive-thru for burgers to take home.
With Batch Cooking, you will shop on purpose, and you will shop less often. You will not need a pound of beef for one meal. You will already have that prepared and ready to use.
- Fewer trips to the grocery store
- Less time in the grocery store. You know exactly what you are getting.
The Final Result
Think of all the hours you will get back from these time-saving benefits. This leaves you more time to:
- Enjoy dinner with your family and friends
- Teach your kids to cook and entertain and how to help at dinner time.
- Discuss your kids’ or significant others’ day instead of barking out orders for the next half hour.
- Set the table before dinner
How does batch cooking save me money?
Purchasing in Bulk to Save Money
Buying in bulk means that you have the potential to save a lot of money. Simply compare the price of the meat per pound at your local grocery store to the same price per pound at Sam’s Club or Costco. What’s the catch? You purchase 5-10 pounds of meat per package at the warehouse clubs.
Many cannot take advantage of this benefit by not having a plan for how they will use the meat. For example, let’s say you buy 10 pounds of ground beef. Most likely, most will be throwing a lot of that out in a few days or at the end of a week because they never got a chance to cook it all. But if you have a plan for what you will make before purchasing the beef, then at least you can cook it all.
Shopping on purpose with a plan
Buying in bulk, on purpose, allows you to save more money per pound that you purchase. The savings just don’t come with meat either. Part of what I teach is stocking a pantry as well. This includes dry goods, jarred goods, freezer items, and how to plan for items kept in your fridge.
Calculating how much your family will eat per meal, week, and month allows you to plan for a well-stocked pantry. You may find that you are comfortable with 1 month’s worth of dried goods in your pantry, but you will quickly see that it is not that much money to keep 3 months or a year’s worth of dry goods on hand.
There are several benefits to this. First, you will have plenty of dry ingredients to go with your prepared batch recipes, and second, you will be more prepared in case there is an emergency. This is comforting since most dried goods expiration dates are 1-2 years away from production dates.
Managing food storage
The trick to keeping this much on hand is using the FIFO inventory rotation system. First In, First Out. Always store the new boxes, bags, or cans in the back or on the bottom. This assures that you are using the oldest items first and that your complete inventory is within the good date range.
If you use this system for canned goods also, it can come in handy when there is a food drive at school or work. You will have good items to donate instead of that one can of spinach that you never ate, or the pickled beets that you can’t figure out how to use. I’m kidding, of course, but you get my drift.
Less Food Waste with Extended Storage Options
The next problem with buying in bulk is storage. In my blog post, Vic’s 24-Hour Rule, I discuss reducing the waste of fresh or raw meats. This is the best way to keep from having to throw it out because you never got around to cooking. If you follow this one rule, you will have hundreds and possibly thousands over the years in eliminated waste.
Once you learn how to batch cook the meats, the next phase is how to store the cooked meats, so they safely last a long time. It is not wise to keep cooked foods in the fridge for more than 3-7 days, depending on the item. So, besides having a plan for cooking, you also need a storage plan. This is where vacuum sealing comes in.
Many people don’t know what to do with all that cooked food. And without a plan, you are back to the problem of having food on hand that is spoiling. Cooking the item helps delay its spoilage timeframe, but if it doesn’t get eaten or frozen in time, it will go to waste. This is not what you want.
After preparing the meat, portion it into the batches you want, based on the meals you plan to prepare. Then vacuum seal it and freeze it. It will last for months, and possibly over a year this way. I have eaten foods that were vacuum-packed and frozen for over a year, and they tasted like they were prepared that day. You must use your good judgment, but vacuum sealing the cooked meats solves many of the problems associated with keeping cooked foods for long periods.
By planning this, you will not be throwing any of the meat out, uncooked or cooked. That is a huge benefit because you realize the savings of buying bulk.
