Batch Cooking is a culinary practice that consists of making a weekly menu in a single day, offering numerous advantages that are worth knowing about. Read on to discover them!
This procedure allows us to save time in weekly cooking and to plan more accurately the daily menu for each day of the week.
Additionally, it can also help to reduce food waste by carefully arranging portions and using ingredients efficiently.
In short, if you want to implement this new cooking technique, we offer practical recommendations to help you in the process.
What is Batch Cooking and how to create a weekly menu?
As previously mentioned, this technique is based on making different dishes at the same time, to save them and enjoy them throughout the week, without complications in the kitchen.
To design a weekly menu, we advise you to consider the following steps:
- First of all, it is essential to define the recipes you are going to use for batch cooking.
- Secondly, you can move on to cooking, starting first with the vegetables that need to be peeled or chopped.
- Finally, the meals are stored in airtight or sealed containers and each is labelled with the name of the recipe. Keep in mind that zip bags are an excellent alternative if you are interested in saving space in the freezer.
What advantages will you find?
If you've never heard of Batch Cooking before, it's understandable that you might have some doubts about its benefits and advantages. Here are the details:
- Saving time and resources: One of the main objectives of this technique is to optimise time, as there are different recipes that share the same procedures. Consequently, this greatly simplifies preparation by cooking everything on the same day. The economic aspect is also relevant. Especially because by planning the week's meals in advance, wastage due to food expiry is avoided, and the possibility of buying more than necessary is reduced.
- Organisation and worry reductionDesigning a menu for the whole week gives you greater peace of mind when cooking, avoiding the uncertainty of what to prepare on a daily basis.
- Nutritious and efficient menu: The third advantage of batch cooking is that it simplifies the preparation of a nutritious menu with fewer ingredients. This culinary technique promotes the efficient use of food.
Tips on how to get started with Batch Cooking
When someone enters the world of Batch Cooking for the first time, one of the initial challenges is often menu planning and uncertainty about which recipes are suitable.
Against this background, it is essential to select ingredients that can be kept for long periods in the refrigerator, such as:
- Smoked fish: up to 2 weeks.
- Vacuum-packed preparations: up to 2 weeks.
- Pickled fish or meat: maximum 7 days.
- Boiled eggsup to 7 days.
- Cooked fish, chicken or turkey: up to 4 days.
- Soups, salads and stews: 3 to 5 days.
This time period is for fresh food that we have prepared and cooked ourselves. In contrast, ready-to-serve products that you can find in supermarkets already have their own expiry date.
Once you have chosen your recipes, it is time to organise your week. Generally, many people cook on Sunday afternoons, preparing the dishes from Monday to Friday.
We recommend that you plan the batch cooking menu by allocating the foods that have a shorter shelf life to be eaten in the first few days. Likewise, we also advise you to place in the most accessible part of the fridge those that you plan to consume first.
How to prepare a Batch Cooking with fish?
The recipe options for Batch Cooking that incorporate fish are diverse and simple. They are based on the balance between legumes, carbohydrates, and vegetables.
In relation to fish, those that are generally included in batch cooking are the blue fish. To give some examples, salmon and cod are excellent choices. This is because they are more resistant to reheating, as they have a higher fat content. At the same time, they can go through the cooking and freezing process without losing too much of their flavour and texture. Some recipes you could prepare include: baked salmon with potatoes and onions, curried salmon with roasted vegetables, spinach and salmon pie, among others.
On the other hand, keep in mind that this way you can get the most out of the fish. With the fish fillets, you can prepare main dishes. At the same time, the heads and bones of the fish are valuable for making stocks, soups and stews that are excellent additions to weekday menus.
At Pescados y Congelados Guerrero, we have a wide selection of fish to diversify your weekly menu. Visit our online shop and receive your purchase directly at home.
