Cooking several dishes at once helps you eat healthy while saving time and money. We give your ideas of dishes and weekly menus of different types with the elaborations explained step by step.
- Batch cooking: dish ideas
- Batch cooking: easy and healthy weekly menu
- Batch cooking: weekly menu to prepare in 90 minutes
- Batch cooking: weekly menu for two people (breakfast included)
- Summer batch cooking
- Breakfast batch cooking
- Batch cooking for dinners
- Batch cooking of snacks
- Express batch cooking for several recipes of the week
- Batch cooking integrated into everyday life
- Batch cooking of vegetables
Dedicating one day a week to cooking, leaving several recipes or elaborations prepared, can solve the menu of the week. That is the batch cooking, or “cooking in batches”, a great option to eat balanced and that in your day to day there is no lack of vegetables, proteins, complete carbohydrates or healthy fats. You just have to organize a little in advance and choose options that hold up well in the fridge for several days.
BATCH COOKING: DISH IDEAS
Some types of dishes and preparations are better suited to batch cooking. In general, they are ideal preparations and dishes for batch cooking:
- Stews and stews. The pots of legumes (lentils, chickpeas or beans) and vegetables are rich, economical, healthy and can even be frozen. You can make the usual stews with onion, garlic and paprika sauce, give them an Asian touch with ginger, soy sauce, curry or coconut milk, or a Mediterranean touch with tomato sauce and fine herbs. You can see here a recipe for cauliflower curry with tofu ideal for batch cooking.
- Baked vegetables. Cut all kinds of vegetables such as peppers, carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, onion, season with salt and oil and other spices and bake for 30 to 45 minutes. You can fill the trays with vegetable protein such as cooked chickpeas, tempeh, seitan or tofu and bake together with the vegetable, and we have our main course ready.
- Colorful salads. We can leave salads prepared based on harder vegetables such as kale, collard greens, red cabbage, carrot or zucchini, which last a couple of days in the fridge with the dressing. Salads of lentils or other legumes are also a great option. An alternative is to make salads in a jar, with the dressing on the bottom, layers of vegetables and other ingredients, and finishing with the green leaves.
- Burgers or vegetable meatballs. They are prepared with legumes, vegetables, tofu or cereals, shaped and stored in the fridge, and then fried or baked on the day they need to be eaten.
- Breakfast and snacks. We can prepare healthy breads based on whole grains, pastries with healthy ingredients, granola, bars, baked oatmeal, a brown rice porridge or chia pudding or night oatmeal for several days.
- Dressings and sauces. We can also prepare them in advance, but we must remember that it is better to prepare and store them separately. This way they are better preserved and the recipe that we are going to dress also maintains its texture and freshness better. You can, for example, combine tahini with lemon juice, garlic, soy sauce and a little water and save this dressing to give life to your vegetables and cereals.
Other types of recipes ideal for batch cooking are Buddha bowls, which can combine several of the above preparations.
Here are several batch cooking menu proposals for you to choose the one that suits you best:
BATCH COOKING: EASY AND HEALTHY WEEKLY MENU
A complete vegan weekly menu that will solve all the lunches and dinners from Monday to Friday, with the basic preparations that you will make on the day of cooking and up to 16 vegetarian recipes with which you will complete the weekly menu, by Virginia García.
It includes recipes such as chickpeas with roasted vegetables and peanut sauce, roasted pumpkin with spices, vegetable skewers and tofu, black bean burgers and quinoa with roasted vegetables.
See here the weekly batch cooking menu complete, with all the preparations and recipes.
BATCH COOKING: WEEKLY MENU TO PREPARE IN 90 MINUTES
If you have little time on the day of cooking, this weekly menu option for batch cooking, also from Virginia García, is ideal. Baked vegetables are the protagonists, but you will not lack proteins or quality carbohydrates. It will also solve lunches and dinners from Monday to Friday and includes recipes such as lentil curry with rice and vegetables, hummus bowl with roasted vegetables or stuffed sweet potato.
See here the weekly batch cooking menu to prepare in 90 minutes.
BATCH COOKING: WEEKLY MENU FOR TWO PEOPLE (BREAKFAST INCLUDED)
This is another weekly batch cooking menu option for people with little time, this time designed for two people (although you can always multiply the quantities if you want for more people). The proposal is from Marketa Kadlecova and includes two sauces and a nutritious dressing that you can use several times throughout the week.
See here weekly batch cooking menu for two people (breakfast included).
SUMMER BATCH COOKING
A batch cooking menu for a time of year when you want to spend less time in the kitchen and it is easier for improvisation to lead us not to eat healthy. From the hand of Marketa Kadlecova, you will find the previous elaborations explained step by step and how to take advantage of them recipe by recipe during the week, to have lunches and dinners solved. With recipes as attractive as zucchini noodles with peanut sauce, a gazpacho of tomatoes and apricots or a brown rice burrito sushi.
See here the summer batch cooking.
BREAKFAST BATCHCOOKING
Sometimes we may be interested in focusing only on one type of elaboration, those that stress us the most or with which we get more out of control and most unbalance our diet. Breakfasts, being the morning meal when we are in a hurry, are usually one of them.
If it comes to giving healthy breakfasts to children, things get even more complicated. Marketa’s kitchen proposes to prepare some of the children’s breakfasts in advance to ensure that we give them healthy breakfasts.
See here batch cooking of breakfasts for children.
BATCH COOKING FOR DINNERS
If you do not dare with a batch cooking of all meals but you are interested in having dinner under control, which is usually another of the meals that we improvise the most due to lack of time, this batch cooking is ideal. It includes the step by step of the previous cooking and five recipes for healthy dinners, one for each day of the week, with all the details you need to know to take advantage of the elaborations prepared in batch cooking.
See here batch cooking dinners.
BATCH COOKING OF SNACKS
If you need ideas and recipes for healthy snacks to make in your batch cooking, the options are many and very attractive. This will ensure that you always have something healthy to snack on during weekdays, without having to resort to vending machines or snacks loaded with sugar or fat.
See here the batch cooking of snacks.
EXPRESS BATCH COOKING FOR SEVERAL RECIPES OF THE WEEK
We do not always have to solve the menu of the whole week in batch cooking. We can also make a less ambitious, but equally practical, batch cooking that allows us to have several bases ready to use in different recipes.
In this batch cooking you will spend little time in the kitchen, since you will advance only one base and then use it in several recipes of the week. Includes 4 base ideas and 3-4 recipes per base.
See here the batch cooking express.
BATCH COOKING INTEGRATED INTO EVERYDAY LIFE
If you cannot spend a more or less long time cooking a day for the whole week or to make your bases for the week, you can advance some preparations in small moments or in the waits while you cook other things. It is not properly batch cooking, but it works in a similar way and helps you optimize cooking time. Here you will find ideas to do in 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes.
See here the batch cooking integrated into the day to day.
BATCH COOKING OF VEGETABLES
Some vegetables are ideal for batch cooking. Apart from taking them into account to include in any of the batch cooking options above, you can make preparations in advance of the most versatile vegetables and then take advantage of them in different recipes during the week.
Specifically, we look at 5 vegetables ideal for batch cooking, we tell you how to prepare them for later use and we give you recipe ideas to make later during the week with each of them.
See here the batch cooking of vegetables.
