Cook Once, Eat Twice: A Beginner’s Guide to Batch Cooking

Batch cooking does not have to mean spending your Sunday surrounded by twenty containers. The easiest way to start is to cook double of one meal you were already making, and freeze the second portion. Do that a few times a week and your freezer slowly fills with ready dinners for the nights you need them most.

Why it works

Most of the effort in cooking is the same whether you make one portion or two: the chopping, the frying, the washing up. Doubling a recipe adds a little time and a few ingredients, but saves an entire evening of cooking later.

It also helps with:

• busy nights, when a home-cooked dinner is just a reheat away
• food waste, because you use whole packs and bags of ingredients
• takeaway temptation, because there is always something ready

Meals that batch-cook well

Start with dishes that freeze and reheat reliably:

• chilli, bolognese and other mince-based sauces
• curries and stews
• soups
• pasta bakes and lasagne
• meatballs in sauce
• shepherd’s or cottage pie
• cooked, cooled rice dishes and grains (follow food-safety advice below)

Dishes that freeze less well include salads, fried foods that should be crisp, and some dairy-heavy sauces that can separate.

How to start: the “double one dinner” method

1. Pick one meal this week from the list above that you already cook.
2. Double the recipe. Use a bigger pan, or two pans side by side.
3. Serve half for dinner.
4. Cool the rest quickly, then portion it into containers.
5. Label and freeze — what it is and the date.

That is it. Do it once or twice a week and within a month you will have a freezer full of options.

Tip: Freeze in family-sized portions and a few single portions. Singles are perfect for lunches or for whoever is eating late.

Food safety basics

General food-safety guidance is to:

• cool cooked food quickly and get it into the fridge or freezer within about two hours
• keep cooked leftovers in the fridge for no more than a few days
• reheat until piping hot all the way through, and only reheat once
• defrost safely, in the fridge overnight rather than on the worktop

For best quality, most cooked dishes are best eaten within about three months of freezing. Guidance varies a little between countries, so check your local food-safety agency’s advice, especially for rice and for anyone pregnant, very young, elderly or unwell.

Make your freezer work for you

• Label everything. Masking tape and a marker is all you need. Name and date.
• Freeze flat. Soups and sauces in freezer bags, frozen flat, stack like files and defrost faster.
• Keep a freezer list on the door or your phone, and cross things off as you use them.
• First in, first out. Put new meals at the back or bottom.

Plan your batch meals in

Batch cooking works best alongside a simple meal plan. When you plan the week, mark your busiest nights for freezer meals and pick one meal to double. Our guide to meal planning in 15 minutes a week explains how.

What you might find useful

You can start with the pans and containers you already have. If you batch cook regularly, these make it easier:

Start this week

Choose one dinner you are cooking anyway and make twice as much. Freeze half. Next week, on your busiest evening, you will be glad you did.