Batch it up?!

minipenny_2

Hello Everyone,

Question re batch cooking I'm a total newbie when it comes to this so all and an advice appreciated!!!

To save time and Money I want to batch cook for my weeks lunches
I'm thinking a roasted Vegetable and Rice Combo, Broccoli Tagliatelli(sp) with Carbonara(sp) sauce, mince and pasta and maybe some pasta bakes tuna/chicke/bacon whatever.

So whats easy to make in bulk and how do I store it? Do I freeze as soon as I make it the defrost or will it all be ok in portions in the fridge or what? and will it be ok to reheat in a microwave?

Sorry for all the questions I just think this will save me some money as sometimes I defrost a whole Chicken breast and then think I couldve made 2 lunches with that.

Thanks in advance! :beer:

rinabean

Some people recommend freezing into fairly flexible containers that you can pop the frozen block of food out of, and then putting these blocks into plastic bags, to save you needing dozens and dozens of containers. I do something similar with silicone muffin cases and frozen chopped celery+onion. I can't recommend any recipes with meat or how long to keep them/reheat them as I'm veggie, have no clue and don't want you to poison yourself on my advice!! You can keep anything in the freezer for a month at least. Make sure you label things with what they are and the date! The longer it's in the freezer, the more likely you are not to recognise what it is or when you froze it. The first time you have "mystery lump of freezer food" for tea the novelty is fun, but after that it gets a bit tedious

Big_Graeme

Here is what I would do -

Make your sauces and freeze/fridge them
Make anything that has a sauce like bolognaise, mince, curry and fridge/freeze them.

Make up rice/pasta as I need them as rice doesn't keep well and I'm not keen on frozen pasta, I just don't like the texture.

Soups batch well and so do stews and pies.

Linda32

minipenny wrote: »

To save time and Money I want to batch cook for my weeks lunches
I'm thinking a roasted Vegetable and Rice Combo, Broccoli Tagliatelli(sp) with Carbonara(sp) sauce, mince and pasta and maybe some pasta bakes tuna/chicke/bacon whatever.

These alot of different things there, but I'll try to help a little bit

Pasta bakes first, I would cook the pasta and sauce in a batch. A batch of this will keep in the fridge for at least 3 days. So you can take out a portion at a time and reheat. It will look quite solid but does re-heat nicely. I think oven re-heating is nicer than microwave but still okay. Its something to do with the pasta sucking in the sauce, I think. Anyway once this is reheated I would stir in a portion of tinned tuna or cooked chicken.

As an aside you can cook a chicken and portion that up and freeze. You can use a bag or a plastic box, its up to you. To defrost put in the fridge for, say tea time tonight for tea tomorrow. The key is to freeze in the portions you require, small or large. Otherwise you have the problem of using up that portion quickly.

Remember to label everything as well, it seems obviously but I'm told that caramel sauce looks exactly like stock :eek: when its frozen.

When you make the pasta bake you can add the bacon and freeze this and then re-heat no need to stir this in seperate. I only say with chicken and tuna as these a risk with freezing and re-heating but this way your only using one batch of the tuna or chicken at any time. Hope this is making sense btw.

Any sort of mince meal can be frozen in batches that suit you then reheated and added to mash or spagetti or whatever you have in mind.
When I reheat mince I put in oven for 30 minutes at gas mk 6. This suits my oven, you will know yours.

minipenny_2

Fab thanks! Must remember to label then lol @ "mystery lump of freezer food" @ lol at Caramel sauce instead of stock!!!
I can do 2 pasta bakes a week then and put in the fridge.
Good to know rice is not suitable...I think maybe i'll leave that for the weekend then.

Thanks for all the advice and tips guys as always your extensive collective knowledge is my best source for information!!!!

xx

nuatha

Labelling
I keep a roll of masking tape on top of the freezer, as I've found it the most reliable labelling method, whether I'm packing in plastic tubs or bags. Since doing this I've not had a "label" come adrift.
As well as complete meals, I batch prepare a number of building blocks for meals, eg savoury (stretched mince) bolognaise sauce, cheese sauce, mashed potato. Which gives more flexibility about meal planning. I also keep a couple of rolls of cookie dough in the freezer, simply doubling a recipe and freezing the excess.
The biggest time saver though came from this site and its Thriftlady's vegetable hash detailed on her blog.
The other thing that is very worth doing is keeping an inventory of what's in the freezer (and where). Saves a huge amount of time.

rachbc

yep I bought an expensive roll of 'freezer tape' only to discover its blummin masking tape! I use that and a sharpie to label boxes and write straight on bags.

I tend to freeze sauces and then cook the rice/pasta fresh. Can't see the point in freezing carbonara as the sauce isn't cooked anyway - its just egg yolks and grated cheese. But I would batch cook bolognese, chilli, curry, stew etc.

As another poster said I also batch freeze meal building blocks such as rubbed in butter and flour for pastry/ crumble topping, white sauce, veg hash, cooked pulses etc

maman

I like those plastic boxes (like the ones you get from the Chinese). They stack beautifully in the freezer and are cheap enough to bin whe they get a bit scruffy. I generally buy mine from the £ shop.

Another tip is to portion up meat before putting it in the freezer: so split sausages into 2s or 3s (whatever size portion you like) or single chicken breasts (cut them in half if they're really huge) or pairs of chicken thighs etc

It may be worth you buying some frozen veg too as it can be much less wasteful than fresh.

The freezer is my friend!