Chapter 1: What is meal prepping and how can it help save time and money?
Hello and welcome to The Food Chain from the BBC World Service. I'm Ruth Alexander. Whether you're trying to save time, money, food waste or eat more healthily, batch cooking or meal prepping can help. That's what we hear said on this programme so often. Cooking extra portions to freeze for later, preparing lunches for the week ahead or spending a Sunday filling the fridge with ready-made meals.
The idea is simple. Make once, eat several times. But in my slightly disorganised experience at least, it's easier said than done. So how do you plan it? How do you even find the time to plan it? And how can you turn it into a routine that sticks? In this episode, we are going to find out how to make batch cooking work.
First, let's hear from Hannah Hambleton, a BBC World Service listener who's keen to get into batch cooking. She lives with her two sons, aged 10 and 12, in Shropshire, England. I asked her what mealtimes look like in their house.
They're quite busy. Obviously, I work full time. I've got two children who are in school and then after school, it's, you know, their activities and clubs and things. So They're quite rushed. And although I do like cooking, it's just trying to find that perfect combination of tasty food that's fast and nutritious as well. So quite busy.
So why are you interested in batch cooking? What's got you thinking about batch cooking as a potential solution?
Yeah, I think a couple of things, really. First of all, I see a lot of it on social media and it just looks like a really really nice system for bringing organisation into my life in the kitchen. And second of all, I think it's fair to say we're kind of stuck in a little bit of a rut of the same recipes all the time.
So the recipes that I know will be quick and everybody will like, but it would be nice to have some different recipes to try that fit that brief of quick, tasty and nutritious as well.
What would you say the obstacles are in your way? What's stopping you from just getting going tomorrow?
I think it's maybe seems a little bit overwhelming sometimes, especially if you look on, say, Instagram, everything looks very perfect, very neat, organized. And also, I think there's an idea of batch cooking being just lots of the same meals. And if a recipe or a meal hasn't necessarily worked, then you're stuck with a lot of the same items.
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Chapter 2: How does Hannah's busy lifestyle influence her meal planning?
What got me into meal prepping was actually just trying to save my budget. I was working in corporate America and it was a nice job, but I wasn't making that much. And I realized during my monthly budget that I was spending seventy five dollars a week just on lunch. And that was something that I could not afford. And so that really prompted me. to start to look at batch cooking at meal prep.
At the time, I was out of shape and I got a lot of inspiration from the bodybuilding community. I feel like bodybuilders in the fitness community were among the first ones to really perfect meal prep just because they have to have a certain amount of macros, they're always eating. And so what those experiences taught me was it taught me a whole lot of discipline.
And had it not been for meal prep, then I wouldn't really be where I am today. I know what portions are. I know what foods pair well together. I've told my followers that the most expensive meal that you'll ever make is the one that you toss out. And before, I would prep for seven days and I would put that on Instagram, put that on YouTube, and it looked great on the grid.
But behind the scenes, by Thursday and Friday, I was pretty much trashing it just because I was so tired of it. And so my meal prep journey... That's very honest of you. Yeah.
Yeah.
And my meal prep journey progressed. And what I've learned to do is just try to simplify it a lot more to first off, cut down the time in the kitchen before I would spend about two to three hours on a Sunday prepping. Now I can spend about an hour and a half, an hour just prepping on a Sunday and then prepping again, like midweek. And yeah. That is the best way to not have food waste.
That's the best way to have variety as well. You know, Jessica mentioned a protein and a grain. One of the things that I've been teaching now, I guess, for the past few years is this idea called mix and match meal prep, where you do prep like a protein, a grain, your veggies. And then maybe another protein and another veggie or a sauce. And you're able to mix and match those throughout the week.
And I've seen a positive response with parents with that approach just because it's kind of like setting up your own taco bar at the house. You can put everything out and everyone can make what they want. And there's a lot more variety that way and less food waste.
Hannah do you think that kind of thing could work with your boys I'm assuming that they don't always like the same thing?
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Chapter 3: What obstacles does Hannah face in starting meal prep?
So what would your top tips be for Hannah?
So I have some questions for Hannah. I'm curious if your family or your boys kind of go towards a certain flavor profile. Like I know I've had clients who really love like Mediterranean flavors and some who really will kind of gravitate towards more kind of like a Mexican inspired flavor profile.
Yes, barbecue type flavors are very popular with both children and also a lot of Mexicans. type flavor. So a lot of tacos, fajitas, that kind of stuff. So chicken features normally quite heavily in all of those meals.
That's awesome. And so for instance, say you decide you're going to go to the grocery store and you know you see the bulk chicken breasts or chicken thighs and you know it's cheaper to buy it that way. You can come home, put some of those chicken breasts in a crock pot with sort of a neutral broth and and seasoning.
And a few hours later, while you've been running errands or bringing the boys to sports practice and home or whatever, you'll come home to chicken that's ready to be shredded. And then you can divide that up into bags throughout the week or even start adding sauces. Like you can add some of that Mexican seasoning to one batch or
You can add the barbecue sauce that everybody enjoys to another container. And then you sort of you build from there. And just that one protein can turn into tacos or burritos, shredded on nachos, a barbecue sandwich on top of a salad for, you know, you if you're trying to eat more veggies, that kind of a thing.
So I really think as far as reducing that decision fatigue goes and trying to streamline your second shift after you're done for the day, just try to pick that anchor protein and an anchor grain and kind of have some fresh, interesting stuff on hand. So it's easy to just throw something together.
You mentioned a brand of slow cooker there. Other brands are available. But if you're going to have success batch cooking, do you need to buy a slow cooker? Is that the key?
You don't necessarily have to have a slow cooker, but it definitely helps. It's one of the tools that I find a lot of visitors to our website really love, but there are ways to get around that.
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Chapter 4: What are the benefits of batch cooking according to Jess and Kevin?
But if everything else is prepped and it's just the rice you're cooking fresh, maybe that could be possible.
Say you've gone to the shops and there's meat in the refrigerators there that's reduced because it's got a very short shelf life, perhaps needs to be cooked that day. Is it okay to freeze that on the day of purchase and then defrost it and cook it at a later date? And could you then refreeze that meat once cooked?
Yes. So definitely like this is so important in terms of food waste as well. So, yes, you can freeze that raw meat up until midnight on the day of the use by date. And then when you want to use it, take it out of the freezer, thoroughly defrost it. Once it's defrosted, then you want to use it within 24 hours.
So that's not from when you take out the freezer, it's from once it's defrosted, use them in 24 hours. And then let's say you cook this chicken that was raw, that you've frozen, that you've then defrosted, you cook it, you can then freeze that cooked chicken.
Thank you very much, Natalie. There is a lot to think about, isn't there? Jess and Kevin, so once you've done all your batch cooking and your fridge or your freezer is stacked full of meals, how on earth do you know what is what? What systems do you have?
I love listening to Natalie talk as a former restaurant owner and line cook. I'm still really big on labeling the same labeling that we would have used in a restaurant is something that I personally do at home, not just for the food. safety side of things, but also so my husband knows what it is. So in the United States, we have painter's tape, like a blue tape, you know, that you would line.
We use that a lot. It just comes off really easy.
I like, that's also known as masking tape or decorator's tape, kind of like papery tape that just you can, if you're painting a wall, you can put it on your carpet or your floor and it just comes off really easily.
Yeah.
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