The Ultimate Guide to Batch Cooking

What is batch cooking? Here’s everything you need to know, plus how batch cooking can save you money and time, and how to include batch cooking in your time in the kitchen.

Every year I try to make small goals that help my family in our real food journey. One of those past goals was to use my freezer more. The batch cooking habits I picked up during that year continue to help me feed my family delicious, healthy food on a budget!

Sometimes, batch cooking means official freezer cooking sessions, like when I made 9 breakfasts in one hour and 10 dump dinners in one hour. Other times it means getting intentional about freezing something left over from dinner almost every night of the week.

I’ve learned a lot, and I want to pass that knowledge on to you! Here’s everything you need to know about batch cooking: what it is, how it can save you money and time, and how to include batch cooking in your schedule, no matter how much or how little time you have!

WHAT IS BATCH COOKING?

By definition, batch cooking is cooking food in batches. Now, I know it’s not appropriate to use the same words you’re defining in the term itself, so let’s use a very simple example of rice.

Instead of making Instant Pot Brown Rice multiple times throughout the week, batch cooking would mean making enough at the beginning of the week for the whole week, and reheating whatever you needed for your meals later.

I view batch cooking in three different ways.

1. BATCH COOKING RECIPES ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

You can make whole meals, cook them, and then freeze them.

This is probably what most people think about when they think of batch cooking recipes, and the idea is pretty straightforward. You make a whole meal and cook it, but instead of eating it, you freeze it. Then later when you DO want to eat the meal, you pull it out to thaw and reheat it in the oven.

Meals like casseroles or Chicken and Spinach Enchiladas or Stuffed Peppers or White Chicken Chili are really great for this type of batch cooking.

Breakfast foods like Cinnamon Oatmeal Waffles or Chocolate Waffles or Banana Bread Muffins or Breakfast Sausage are also really great for the freezer!

I’ll be honest, though – this type of batch cooking wasn’t on my radar much when we lived in California. We had the world’s smallest freezer, and to fit a 9” x 13” glass pan, I had to remove a whole shelf!

In that season, batch cooking whole cooked meals wasn’t an option. So, let’s talk about another way you can batch cook.

2. BATCH COOKING FOR THE FREEZER TO COOK LATER.

You can batch cook whole meals and freeze them WITHOUT cooking.

This is similar to the first batch cooking method, except you have more wiggle room with your storage containers.

I’ve done this recently in my One Hour Freezer Cooking Session: Dump Dinner Recipes, where you put the entire meal into a freezer-safe container (I use gallon plastic bags) and freeze it. Then when you want to cook it, you thaw the meal in the refrigerator and cook it as desired.

Meals like Classic Slow Cooker Pot Roast or Sausage and Peppers and Onions or Homemade Hamburger Helper are great options for this method of batch cooking. These meals are all cooked differently – slow cooker, sheet pan, and stovetop, respectively – but everything from the container gets dumped out and cooked at the same time.

Because the storage method of batch cooking for the freezer is flexible – meaning I can use freezer bags instead of actual baking dishes – I can fit these types of meals into my freezer more easily.

But if that still doesn’t work for you, how about a third batch cooking method?

3. BATCH COOKING MEAL PREP.

You can batch components of meals, cooked or uncooked.

Batch cooking meal prep is my favorite method for batch cooking because it gives the greatest flexibility in both freezer storage AND what you’re eating for dinner.

In this method, you’re not freezing whole meals at all. Instead, you’re freezing just PARTS of a meal.

Meal components like Brown Rice or Beans or Lentils or Quinoa or Shredded Chicken or Ground Beef or Crumbled Breakfast Sausage are perfect for the freezer. You can make a lot of them at once, portion them out into servings that best fit your family (more on that below), and then simply pull out what you need for a meal later on.

If you’ve ever bought a big pack of pork chops or chicken from the store, brought it home, and separated everything into bags before freezing, you’re practically batch cooking! Simply toss some marinades in those bags and you’re done!

Batch cooking is also a great way to make the most of seasonal produce. You’ll usually find the best deals on the fruits and vegetables that are in season, and you can batch cook and freeze them to get the most for your money!

Tip: Use your slow cooker or Instant Pot to make meal components whenever you can, and you’ll save even more time because you won’t have to be hovering over the stove!

WHICH OF THESE BATCH COOKING IDEAS IS BEST?

So, which of these batch cooking ideas should you use? Whichever one you’ll actually DO! I use a combination of all three methods, depending on what the food is.

Cooking in bulk can save you enormous amounts of time, but it can also save you a lot of money.

Let’s talk about the money aspect first.

HOW TO SAVE MONEY WITH BATCH COOKING

COOKING IN BULK LETS YOU SHOP IN BULK.

Shopping in bulk is a proven method for saving money on real food, and batch cooking is a great way to take advantage of this. It doesn’t matter if you watch the weekly circulars and stock up when there’s a sale, or you buy in bulk from a local co-op, or you buy in bulk from a warehouse store… it’s all buying in bulk and all of these methods save you money! If your bulk groceries are too much to cook at one time, consider adding some of your goods to a pantry stockpile (here’s how to build a stockpile in $5 a week).

BATCH COOKING IS CHEAPER THAN BUYING THE FOODS INDIVIDUALLY.

Take black beans for example. I did an in-depth study on whether canned beans or cooking dry beans from scratch was cheaper, and dry beans won.

When I batch cook dry beans, I know right off the bat that it’s cheaper than if I were to buy a can of beans from the store.

Plus, when you stack this with shopping in bulk, you can REALLY see the savings add up!

BATCH COOKING KEEPS YOU OUT OF THE GROCERY STORE.

You know as well as I do that anytime you go to the store for just one item, you ALWAYS leave with more.

One of my own personal shopping strategies is to be intentional with your shopping trips. By default, it means not going to the store for just one item. When you batch cook and you have food ready to go in the freezer, you don’t have to stop at the grocery store nearly as often!

This is just one of the strategies that I teach in my course Grocery Budget Bootcamp. Enrollment is currently closed, but you can check out my FREE Fight Inflation Workshop for even more tips on lowering your grocery bill. These three video sessions focus on saving money on groceries NOW – despite the rising cost of food. Find out more here.

Pay attention to things you normally pick up at the grocery store that you could make ahead of time and freeze. For example, if you normally pick up a rotisserie chicken for shredded chicken, make Instant Pot whole chicken yourself, shred the meat, portion it out, and freeze it. That’s batch cooking on a budget!

BATCH COOKING KEEPS YOU FROM ORDERING TAKE-OUT OR GOING THROUGH THE DRIVE-THRU.

You know you have “something” in the freezer. It might not be glamorous, but you know you can easily pull out some rice and a protein and vegetables of some sort and have a healthy dinner on the table FASTER than it would take the delivery guy to show up. And you certainly would feel better later than if you had gone through the drive-thru!

HOW TO SAVE TIME WITH BATCH COOKING

Not only can you save money by including healthy batch cooking in your kitchen time, but you can also save time!

YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE EVERYTHING, EVERY NIGHT.

Let’s go back to the rice example I shared earlier. I use my Instant Pot for a ton of different things, but even if I only ever used it to make brown rice, it would still be worth every penny.

Any time I don’t have rice in the freezer and I need rice for dinner, I make no less than 6 cups of brown rice (measured dry) in my 8-quart Instant Pot DUO (like this one). We’ll use some that night, and then I measure out the rice in 4-cup portions and freeze it in freezer-safe bags.

By doing this, I don’t have to cook brown rice again for at least 3 more dinners and it saves me a TON of time!

Note: I’ve found that 4 cups of cooked rice is just about right for my family of four. Freeze in whatever increments you want, but you do want to make sure it’s enough to cover your needs.

For example, my husband ALWAYS takes leftover dinner to work the next day for lunch. If I serve rice at dinner, I need to have enough for us all to have dinner (plus maybe seconds) AND leftovers for his lunch the next day. When in doubt, over-estimate – and this goes for whatever you’re cooking. The whole goal here is to intentionally cook a lot so we don’t have to cook the same thing again next time. If you make too much rice, all you have to do is freeze it!

BATCH COOKING MAKES MEAL PLANNING EASIER.

Instead of wasting time or energy browsing Pinterest or cookbooks trying to figure out what to make for dinner, just look in the freezer and make a batch cooking meal plan!

Batch cooking can give you whole meals, ready to go, that you can simply pull out the night before to thaw and put in the slow cooker (or Instant Pot or stove top or sheet pan or whatever the recipe calls for) in the morning.

You can also meal plan based on the batch cooking meal prep you’ve already done. Once you start to regularly include batch cooking in your life, you can check the freezer and you might find that you have over half of your meal components already ready to go!

BATCH COOKING DURING BUSY SEASONS

Anyone who has children knows that those first few newborn weeks are bliss. But the days go fast and often it doesn’t feel like you have time (or energy) to cook a decent dinner.

Similarly, the same thing goes when you’re driving your son around to soccer practice three nights a week.

Or when your daughter has multiple dance practices for a recital.

Maybe you’re going out of town in a few days and the to-do list is growing exponentially.

Or you’re working full time and going to school and finals are coming up and you need every spare second to study.

Batch cooking is a massive time saver when you’re in a busy season of life, regardless of what that season actually is.

IS BATCH COOKING HEALTHY?

I know this is a funny question, but people ask me this often! Freezing food doesn’t change its nutritional value. The texture might change, but that doesn’t make it less healthy for you. If anything, batch cooking can help you eat even better!

When your freezer is full of meal ingredients that are ready to go – literally, all you have to do is heat them up and eat – it makes the drive-thru or take-out seem a bit silly. I mean, you already HAVE the food, right? And it’s already cooked! It would take longer for the delivery guy to show up at your front door than it would for you to reheat what’s in the freezer!

IDEAS FOR BATCH COOKING: HOW DO YOU DO IT?

There’s no right or wrong way to start batch cooking.

• Some say to spend all day Sunday getting ready for the week ahead.
• Some say to do it while the kids are napping.
• Some say to spend just one hour on Saturday morning getting some of the basics out of the way.

Again, the best way to batch cook is the way that works best for YOU. I personally don’t want to spend a whole day in the kitchen on the weekend. As much as I love cooking and baking, I need some time away, too!

Instead, I like to maximize the time I’m ALREADY spending in the kitchen, so that’s when I batch cook.

Good foods to batch cook:

• Soups
• Grains: rice, quinoa, barley
• Freezer-friendly veggies like sweet potatoes, onions, bell peppers, green beans.
• Beans, lentils, chickpeas
• Sauce (non-dairy based)
• Pasta (here’s how to freeze cooked pasta)

You also don’t need any special equipment for batch cooking. Maybe some extra freezer bags and a permanent marker, but no fancy labels or cooking pans.

No matter how you approach it, any of these ideas for big batch cooking can save you time and money. You just have to do it!

Do you use batch cooking in your kitchen? What are some of the foods you batch cook most often?