What is Batch Cooking and How Does It Help Save Time, Energy and Money

For entrepreneurs and start-up founders putting in as many hours in their work as possible has become a normal culture. Even 9-to-5ers put in extra hours just to get the promotion sooner. Everyone has started focusing solely on moving forward in their careers and will sacrifice anything for it. It is a good thing but not when it costs everything: your health, your life, your relationships.

Let’s focus on the health aspect today. Let’s say you work non stop- no time to eat or sleep. Your body gets tired, doesn’t get proper nutrition, falls sick, and then you stop working and spend all that you have earned in getting back in shape. Is it worth it?

We work until we feel total burn out. My question to you is how logical do you think it is? Why not do what we can to take care of ourselves and not fall into the predicament that many young, ambitious people are falling into. As important it is to work toward our dreams, it is equally important to keep ourselves in shape so that we can work toward our dreams.

I get it. You don’t have time to cook meals, so you resort to takeouts or packaged fried junk. They might be quick fixes, but processed food, fried food, and everyday takeouts will take their toll on your body. One solution to that is batch cooking.

When you have no time to cook during the week, batch cooking is the best way to ensure that you have healthy food and always have something to eat. All you have to do is take some time out of your weekend to make sure you eat well for the week. Just imagine the amount of stress regarding the food you will forego and how much time and energy you will save overall.

What exactly is batch cooking?

Batch cooking means preparing or cooking larger portions of a variety of dishes that can be mixed and matched to create different meals throughout the week. Most people do it on Sundays to prepare for the week. Some people like to break it down and do this on Sundays and Wednesdays so that they can get more variety.

All you have to do each day is pull out the meal out of your refrigerator and heat it or maybe if it is something that you can just grab and go then more props to you. You will be thankful to your weekend self for taking a few hours out to save so many hours and headaches throughout the week, and your stomach will be thankful for not getting the onslaught of junk food and cheap takeaways.

How to go about batch cooking

• Plan out your meals for the entire week – Decide the meals that you want to home cook. If you are starting out, maybe plan only dinners and then see how it goes or you can go the whole mile and plan all the three meals on the weekend and prepare them. That is actually the best thing to do. It can get too much for beginners though, so start out with one meal. If you are planning for lunch then maybe you would want to focus on something that you can just grab and go because lunch hours can be short for most of us. For dinners, you can have something that can have all its prep done already, and all you have to do is put it together, it will give you the feeling of cooking a quick meal but not the time-consuming process of putting everything together.

• Make a grocery shopping list – Now that you have a plan of what you are going to be cooking, you need to list out all the ingredients that you need. Cross check it with what you have at home and then head out to stock up on the remaining things you need.

• Grocery shopping – Saturdays and Sundays are usually the busy days at the grocery stores because everyone heads out to get their shopping done so plan accordingly. If you have a farmers market nearby head over there to get fresh produce or your good old grocery stores, general stores, departmental stores will do – stock up on anything that will help you make a quick snack and also help your dish better.

• Prep – Once you are done gathering the ingredients, start prepping. This is also a great time to catch up on all the podcasts you have been meaning to listen to or the audiobook that you keep putting away. Maybe just songs or the show that you have wanted to binge watch? Wash, chop, cook, boil, bake – whatever your dish entails. Make sure to work on recipes that can be reheated (soups, veggies, lentils, beans) or can be eaten cold (salads).

• Store – Now that your dishes are prepared. Pack them in airtight containers and refrigerate them so that they are good to go throughout the week.

In summary

Batch cooking has a lot of advantages. The only disadvantage is that you have to dedicate some part of your weekend to cooking, but that is nothing when you look at the advantages. You bulk produce, so you use less energy, and bulk buying ingredients also saves money.

You have to head out to the grocery store only one time a week. You don’t have to spend tons of money on restaurants and takeouts. You don’t have to cook every day, nor do you have to worry about what to eat. You eat healthy so you can mark that off your list of things to do.

You can also work on your health goals and diets because diets require a little planning, which usually puts us off. You can do something or do nothing with the time you save every day with the meal plan in place.

You must have heard that “Modern problems require modern solutions.” This is the solution to everyone being too busy. It’s a win-win!