Hello, my #Yoors friends once again. Today I will be talking about a topic that is trending on #Instagram: Batch Cooking.
If you are one of those who do not have time to cook but want to eat healthier in #2022, cooking for a few hours for the whole week maybe this is the solution. I will tell you the benefits of batch cooking and how to organize yourself to carry it out.
What Does It Consist Of and What Are The Benefits Of The Batch?
Batch cooking is the name given to a method that proposes cooking in a few hours for the whole week, optimizing resources, and cooking food to the maximum.
Thus, batch cooking is in fashion today and is called with this anglicism but it is a way of solving the daily meals that even our grandmothers used.
The first and greatest benefit of batch cooking is that it brings us closer to homemade food, it makes us friends with the kitchen, and allows us to move away from ultra-processed, fast food and food prepared outside the home that is always of lower quality than what we can create with our own hands.
As if that were not enough, it allows us to reduce the time we spend in the kitchen and organize our diet, something that can be very helpful in improving our diet in both quality and quantity.
An advantage that many of us do not take into account is the economics that batch cooking undoubtedly offers, not only because it distances us from high-value purchased food, but also because in a few hours we cook for each day of the week, thus also saving energy used to prepare different dishes.
This, of course, also translates into a benefit for the environment, since we waste less and save energy.
The Keys To Organizing Your Batch Cooking
The first thing we need to do if we plan to cook in a few hours for the whole week is to plan a weekly menu, that is, anticipate which dishes we will consume throughout each day of the week.
To do this, it is necessary to consider that batch cooking aims to take advantage of the ingredients and cooking of one dish in another, therefore, it is advisable to choose one or two quality meats, one or two fish or shellfish (in case you are not vegetarian), one or two cereals in what whole grains and various vegetables that we can use for various dishes.
We can also go to a dried legume or two canned legumes to add to our weekly dishes in a simple way.
Taking this into account, we will create our own weekly menu that we will later cook in a few hours one day of the week.
Prior to the day that we will dedicate to the kitchen, we will organize the purchase by creating a list to know what we need. I recommend preferably choosing fresh and seasonal foods that can be frozen since a large part of the dishes will be sent to the freezer in a Tupperware or container suitable for it.
With the ingredients in hand and the utensils available, we can cook different dishes on a weekend day to solve the rest of the weekly meals that it is advisable to label before freezing or storing in the fridge. It will make our task much easier to put, in addition to the date of production, the day (and lunch or dinner if necessary) on which we plan to consume it, so that it can be removed, reheated, or defrosted, and ready to eat.
A practical example:
So that you can easily apply the keys given above during your batch cooking, I leave you the following practical example:
- We choose rice, carrot, peppers, onion, broccoli, eggplant, lentil as some of the ingredients for cooking.
- We prepare dishes such as sautéed broccoli, broccoli omelet, sautéed vegetables, sautéed brown rice with vegetables, miso eggplant with brown rice, etc.
The key is to sauté or steam vegetables and use them for different preparations. In this case, we can sauté vegetables and add rice or chicken according to the recipe and if you are vegetarian or not, as well as remove sautéed broccoli to add to the tortilla or similar.
It is very practical to have a magnetic calendar on the fridge that allows us to consult, day by day, the planned lunches and dinners. Just as it serves as a guide during the cooking session. For those who prefer to write down the ideas that come to them, it may be more comfortable to use the classic notebook.
Have On Hand The Necessary Kitchen Utensils
To cook rice in the microwave and always come out just right, we recommend rice cookers like this one. They are also valid for cooking pasta, so we can give them a double use and get more out of it. It hardly takes up any space and is so elegant that it can be taken directly to the table.
Fast pressure cookers have been helping us cook for years. Perfect for preparing all kinds of food, especially legumes, broths, and stews. From the conventional to the ultra-fast pressure cooker, having one in the kitchen saves considerable time.
Glass is easier to clean and the Tupperware made of this material can also be used for cooking in the oven, saving us the occasional source or expanding the ones we already have. There are some with several compartments, something especially useful for taking food to work without the food mixing with each other.
DM
