Batch Cooking: What Does This Method Consist Of?
Batch cooking is an Anglo-Saxon concept that has become fashionable and has now invaded social networks. Literally it means “to cook in series”, or to cook the menu for the whole week on Sundays.
Thanks to this method you can organize your weekly menu by preparing healthy meals and reducing the processing time of the dishes you intend to taste. It saves time and improves your health if done in the right way.
How can we design a batch cooking menu?
In the following lines we will reveal the secrets of this method which has been gaining considerable popularity in recent years.
Planning
We recommend that you prepare a weekly plan of your menu, which you will use to organize your meals. This way you will know what you are going to cook, what you have in the fridge and if you need to buy something.
This method is also useful for us to stick to the shopping list and avoid buying too many ingredients or ultra-processed products.
Healthy batch cooking
In addition to helping you save time cooking during the week, the drafted menu also needs to be healthy. It is very helpful to have the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate, a dish created by nutrition experts from Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, as a reference model. It is based on the following principles:
- Meals should mostly consist of vegetables and fruit, which should make up half of the whole dish. These foods will provide good quality vitamins and antioxidants that are essential in the prevention of complex diseases.
- 1/4 of the dish should consist of whole grains.
- High-quality protein should make up the last quarter of the plate. These nutrients are necessary for the muscles. According to research published in Nutrition Research , regular protein consumption and exercise reduce the risk of developing pathologies in lean tissue.
- Healthy vegetable oils, such as extra virgin olive oil, must be the main source of fat.
Ultimately, each dish must contain vegetables, proteins and whole grains in precise percentages.
Ready meals
This is one of the basics of batch cooking: making sure that everything is ready so that, once we get home, all we have to do is open the refrigerator and get the food. Or, in case you need to eat at work, have your lunchbox ready.
- Since the base of our dishes is made up of fruits and vegetables, we can cut and store fruits such as melon and watermelon in the fridge to be able to eat them in the middle of the morning or for the summer snack.
- In the case of vegetables, we can prepare mashed potatoes, broths and sautées to freeze and reuse. For example, a soup to reheat once you get home.
- Keep pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, eggs, potatoes, etc. ready. There is no need to cook huge quantities, as side dishes.
Take advantage of the utensils in the kitchen
To prepare everyone in an afternoon, we must know how to make the most of the time we spend in the kitchen. So we have to use all the tools and appliances present, such as the plate, the oven, the blender and, if we have one, the food processor.
While we use a tool to grind, with another we roast and with another we prepare the sauté. Furthermore, we can take advantage of the heat of the oven and, after roasting the chicken in a pan and the vegetables in another, we can brown or bake some bread or prepare a sponge cake.
Refrigeration and freezing
It is important to store each food in the right way. Some foods cannot be frozen due to their food structure; an example are salads, pasta, potatoes and eggs. Accordingly, we will keep them in the refrigerator.
Instead, it is advisable to freeze stews, legumes and broth, which will last longer. It is advisable to use airtight glass containers to increase storage times.
Example of batch cooking menu
We show a menu valid from Monday to Friday to be prepared with the batch cooking model. Of course, this is just an example that you can vary, as long as you apply the concept of healthy eating.
Lunches
- Monday: baked salmon with vegetables and baked potatoes.
- Tuesday: Boneless chicken pasta salad.
- Wednesday: spinach with chickpeas and a hard-boiled egg.
- Thursday: boiled potatoes with vegetables and octopus.
- Friday: Stir-fried vegetables with quinoa and turkey strips.
Dinners
- Monday: spinach salad with mozzarella and dried fruit.
- Tuesday: soup and potato omelette.
- Wednesday: beef burger sandwich with vegetables.
- Thursday: Mixed vegetables with fried egg and rye crackers.
- Friday: carrot and cucumber crudités with chickpea hummus.
Introduce batch cooking into your routine
Don’t have enough time to devote yourself to healthy cooking? Try the batch cooking method, it will allow you to have dishes available to take care of your health.
