5 Batch Cooking Tips Everyone Needs to Know

When you think of frozen food, you usually think about the trays that you can buy in the frozen food section at the grocery store.  But there is a whole different meaning to the term “frozen dinners”.   You can still buy the tray dinners in the frozen food section but these days “frozen dinners” oftentimes refers to the frozen dinners that are made at home ahead of time in batches.  

Batch cooking can seem a bit overwhelming at first.  It does take a little bit of time out of your weekend to prep ahead these freezer meals that you are going to eat later.  But in the long run, you will be saving time and money by having meals already made.  Just think about it, you won’t have to stop at the grocery store to pick up something for supper or you won’t have to wait in line at the drive-thru.  Plus, you will know exactly what is in each meal. 

Once you try making your own “freezer meals”, you will wonder why you have tried it sooner. We’ve put together this beginner’s guide of tips that we wish we had known when we started making “frozen dinners”.  

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Be organized.   

You probably already have a lot of the things you will need to batch cook — several pots and pans, a slow cooker or Instant Pot, some muffin tins, and cooking utensils.

There are some things that you will need to have on hand to store your food in after you finish batch cooking.  You will need the following:  cling wrap, heavy duty aluminum foil, aluminum pans, freezer bags and a permanent marker.  You may want to have labels on hand but we generally just write the info on the package.  

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Decide what to “batch cook”.  

We use Pinterest for this.  Simply search “frozen dinners”, “freezer meals”, or “batch cooking”.  There will be a lot of recipes and ideas that will come up in the search.   I usually go for the recipes that will help me make easy dinners to freeze.  I don’t want to spend my weekend on complicated recipes.  

When deciding how many meals you want to prepare, think about the frozen meal ideas that can be easily doubled.  This way instead of making twelve different recipes, you can use six recipes and double it.

Also, look for frozen meal ideas that use similar ingredients.  This saves money by not having to buy a lot of smaller quantities of ingredients for each different recipe.  For example, if you have several recipes that call for tomatoes, you can save money by buying the bigger cans of tomatoes and divide it between the recipes.  

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Know how long you can freeze what you cook.

Know what the shelf-life (or in this case freezer life) is for the meals you are preparing.  Check foodsafety.gov for the storage times for certain foods.  Make sure you put the “Use-by” date on your freezer packages.  

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Store your meals in the appropriate containers and wraps for the freezer.

Make sure that your food is fully cooled before storing them.  Consider the portion size for each meal.  Choose your containers based on the portion size.  

Store your meals in containers that are as air-tight as possible.  This will help prevent freezer burn.  

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Label your freezer packages. 

After preparing your meals for freezing, be sure to clearly label each meal.  Use a permanent marker.  Include the following:  the name of the meal, the date it was prepared, the “use-by” date, reheating instructions. 

When you place the new freezer meals in the freezer, check to see if you have any freezer meals from a previous batch cooking session.  If so, make sure you rearrange the freezer so that the older meals will be used first.

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By using these tips, you will be able to create simple and healthy frozen meals that will save your money and your time.  Is batch cooking something that you are going to try?  If so, leave us a comment and tell us about a recipe that you are going to try making or already make.

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