Is cooking such an expensive chore and you’re planning to cut down on both the money and time you spend on it? I’ll take a wild guess that you also wish that sometimes, you could use a cooking wand. And that when you do, food will magically fill your pot.
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But you’re always smacked back into reality where you do everything yourself, from start to finish. Anyway, consider this article your cooking wand. You’ve just found the most effective hack.
Batch Cooking
Have you heard of this? Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s a yes or a no because either way, you’re in luck. The secret you need for faster cooking with reduced cost is batch cooking.
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You can call this ‘cooking in bulk’. With this hack, you won’t only save time and money, you’ll find out that you’re also having a variety of meals. So, let’s see what it’s about and how you can incorporate it into your cooking routine.
Cook Once, Use Many Times
Thinking about what to cook is just as stressful as the actual cooking. Now, imagine having to do that every day, all through the week. Not funny, right? To save yourself stress, time, and everything else, just cook once.
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If you’re looking to make soup, for example, cook a large bowl and store. This way, it would be like it’s ready-made because you can take from it whenever you want to eat.
Organize Your Ingredients
Before you start cooking, you need to know what you have. So, look inside your fridge, bring out the things you have, and see what meal you can make with it.
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When you do this, you can salvage your ingredients and use them before they go bad. You’ll be saving food and money. This also gives you an idea of what to cook next and keep your kitchen organized.
Be Flexible
Another thing batch cooking does is that it allows you to be flexible with your cooking. You don’t need to have stereotyped meals, you can always mix things up. You can cook different meals without having to start from scratch all the time.
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Maybe you’ve already batch-cooked chicken, you can turn that chicken into all sorts of meals. It would also help you accommodate surprises. For example, if you plan to make a sandwich and have run out of bread, you can easily opt for something else.
Plan Ahead
If you’re in on batch cooking, then planning is key. You need to know the things you want to make before you head out to the supermarket. Things just get easier because you’ll be doing all the thinking you need to do for a full week in just a few hours.
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So, get all the ingredients you need in one shopping trip. Once everything is ready, cooking in bulk would be a walk-over.
Organize Your Freezer
Why your freezer? Because this is where you’ll store all the things that’ll make your cooking a success. When it’s dirty or unorganized, you’ll find it difficult to know what you have.
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As soon as you don’t know what you have, you won’t know what to get either. This would slow your batch cooking down and discourage you from cooking at all.
Double And Freeze
Even while batch cooking is a plan in itself, you can have another plan in it. There’s no rule to how much you can cook, just do what works for you.
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When you’ve decided on the large amount of food you want to make, you can even double it and put it in the freezer. It’s still yours so, you can eat it at any time and have a food supply for longer.
Cook Your Meat as Soon as You Buy It
When you get home from the store with neat, don’t just put it in the fridge. Cook it right away. This way, you’ll have a big batch of cooked chicken or beef.
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So, when you want to cook, you can use your ready-made meat instead of cooking it again from scratch. Once your meat is ready, you’re halfway done with your meal. It’s just like pressing fast-forward for your cooking.
Chop Fruits and Vegetables Ahead
Just like you should cook your meat immediately when you get home from the store, attend to your fruits and vegetables the same way. Don’t just throw them in the fridge, wash them and chop them up first.
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When you’re done, you can now store them in the fridge. Whenever you’re ready to use them, you just bring them out and it’s ready. Not chopping them in advance is one time-wasting activity while cooking.
Use Versatile Ingredients
There are ingredients in the kitchen that have more than one use, right? You should have more of those. Rice, for example, can play any part in a meal. It can be the main dish one time, a side dish the next, and can be turned into rice salad later in the week.
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Tomatoes are also versatile, so, look out for those types and enjoy your cooking.
Utilize Spices And Herbs
After a while, the food that you batch-cooked gets boring. You may get tired of the taste or it will lose its flavor over time. What do you do, then?
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Make spices your best friend. Whenever you want to eat, you can upgrade the taste of the food. You can add curry to your chicken today and chili pepper tomorrow. There are no rules, really. Just add what you want and enjoy your bulk meals.
