3 Batch Cooking Tips Worth Knowing
One essential culinary strategy ideal for busy homes and their occupants is batch cooking.
It is convenient, time-saving, cost-efficient, and reliable to ensure there is always food at home.
The average cooking frequency in many households ranges between three and five times per week. If you run a busy household, that can be further reduced if you adopt the batch cooking approach. However, this cooking method has crucial things to be aware of to help you cook like a pro.
Use different food preservation methods for your cooked meals
Different foods will last longer depending on the preservation methods used. For example, some meals lose their flavor, taste, and appeal when kept in the fridge for more than a few days. Meanwhile, others can last for over a month in the deepest part of the freezer. How does this happen? According to culinary experts, the makeup of the food item will determine how well it lasts in the fridge or freezer.
For example, most cooked vegetables will grow slimy or become mushy in the fridge after only a few days. Meanwhile, if kept in the freezer for more than a week, they may lose their firmness and taste when defrosted. The best way to preserve cooked vegetables is to dice or chop and add them to soups or stews. If this is not your preference, they can be left out and only cooked when ready to eat. Knowing what foods to freeze or keep in the fridge will be helpful to your batch cooking.
Avoid using identical cooking methods on the same day
Did you consider the cooking methods if you have already planned your meals? For example, do you have three or four meals on your list that must be cooked in the oven at different temperatures? If yes, you might waste several hours in the kitchen waiting to cook one dish. Identical cooking methods can be kitchen time wasters, and avoiding them is better. In some homes, however, this might not be a problem, especially if there is more than one oven. On a more realistic note, that is rare.
Alternating your methods will be helpful for batch cooking at home. Using different cooking appliances can help minimize the time spent in the kitchen. So while the easy turkey pot pie is in the oven, you can use your stove to prepare sauces and stews. At the same time, the slow cooker can be used for a bone broth recipe. Before you know it, you have four different dishes ready to be stored.
Be intentional with your storage bowls
Batch cooking means you have a lot of ready meals on your hands that would require storing. The only way to maintain the food’s taste, aroma, and appearance is to be intentional with your choice of storage bowls. Some bowls are freezer-safe, and others are microwavable.
Thanks to technology, several have both properties. The trick here is to store cooked meals in sizeable bowls that would not require frequent defrosting and reheating. In other words, a bowl of food must be consumed within two days without going back into the freezer. Refreezing and reheating tamper with overall food quality.
