Batch cooking is another method in your eating well on a budget toolbox that will save you tremendous amounts of time. The idea behind batch cooking is to cook a large portion of your meals for the week all at once, so you can simply reheat when your mealtime comes.
Some methods you can use to create simple meals with your batch cooking process:
Cook a grain for the week. Brown rice, quinoa, and millet are a few options. If you’d like to go a different route, cauliflower rice is also an excellent option.
Cook a vegetable medley for the week. Fill a baking sheet or two with a variety of veggies — broccoli, squash, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, etc. — roast in the oven with your favorite herbs and spices.
Plan your protein. Some choose to pre-cook protein for the week, or you can stick with pre-cooking most of your meal and choosing to cook your protein fresh each day. This still cuts down tremendously on cook time at dinner.
Once you have all of the elements of your meal ready, you can mix and match different sauces to create a variety of meals with the same ingredients.
For easy lunches, you can batch cook a large pot of soup or create mason jar salads. These are nutritious, simple, and when you use long-lasting, less expensive produce — they’re very affordable lunch options.
Action Steps:
Create lists of your favorite grains, vegetables, proteins, and sauces.
This will help you batch cook and prepare a variety of meals on a rotation.
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