Meal Prep & Bulk Cooking

I'm curious if anyone does this? Ideally if my life was perfect we'd go shopping at the market on the Saturday (very early am) and do meal prep all 3pm. This would involve marinating meats (over night then freeze), chopping up all the veggie, chopping up all the fruits (for smoothies) and freezing everything that you can freeze. So on a weekday, the night before you'd move say, the meat and veggies to the fridge to defrost, then you just have to cook it when you get home.

Does anyone do something like this?

  • Also all those awesome market deals e.g. a box of figs for $15, or 5kg of ripe bananas, that you hear about others purchasing, how do you come across those?
  • Do you time your purchases at the super/market to get the end of day specials? Like fruit by the box. Roast chickens and bakery goods at Colesworth half price.

Comments

  • I have been trying to do this but my cooking skills are still laughable.

    I can only really cook simple meals like two minute noodles/ boiled potatoes/fruits potatoes and nachos etc

    I can do some ok meals like vegetable stir fry and eggplant too.. Which is nice..

    If the place I was staying at wasn't strictly vegetarian I would probably do much more oven cooked meals.

    As for prices usually users see them in store or check the online websites coles and Woolworths or catalogues.

    • How can be a place be strictly vegan? Sorry if that's rude, I've just never heard of such a thing.

      • Long story short staying at a family friends place who is Buddhist.

        • Ah fair enough, their house their rules I guess.

        • @Malarkey: yup.

  • -1

    I think the only thing that works is curry, meaning you have to consume curries daily.

  • If you have a slow cooker you can prepare meals in advance and freeze them. Then you can put them in the slow cooker in the morning and come home to a cooked meal - http://helloglow.co/slow-cooker-freezer-meals/

  • +3

    Meal Prep & Bulk Cooking

    people do this for a week, eat half the food they make and never do it again.

    • Correct, I did it once. My neighbour made 30 serves of risotto and hide it in the back of the freezer… it's still there and we've both moved on.

  • I did..you will find the novelty wanes pretty quick after a month or so

    I did chicken breast and rice/veggies for a while

  • This is my ideal but I've settled for making a packed lunch the night before and when I'm really feeling it, I prep breakfasts for the week - egg cups, breakfast burritos etc. Better than nothing and not eating out for lunches or rushing through breakfast is what makes the most difference to my week.

  • +3

    I've been doing this for about 2 years, almost every day, so about 90% of the year.
    My meals consist of the three:
    Grain/Carb source: White or brown rice, or quinoa, or sweet potatoes. Buy bulk rice in 25kg bag or Costco quinoa. Potatoes from Sydney Markets (if you haven't been there, I don't know if there's another like it in Australia. It's huge and the deals you get there are amazing).
    Protein: Frozen Basa fillets or chicken breast from YCC Poultry in Sydney. Cheapest the chicken has been is $5/kg towards the end of the year. Basa fillets are $6/kg.
    Veges: Whatever I can grab, but broccoli as a staple plus garden herbs, grated carrots, tomatoes etc

    I'll cook daily for the following day. Rice cooker does the rice/quinoa set and forget. When I buy the chicken I season with s&p and freeze vacuum seal in 1kg portions. Next day I sous vide it (set and forget). I prep the salad with a simple dressing of soy sauce (or fish sauce) + lemon garlic pepper olive oil chili etc. Basa fillets are put under the grill for about 20 minutes straight from the freezer.

    This makes 5 meals for me, but for someone who doesn't exercise a lot daily this could probably make 10 which could be enough for 3 days for you.

    • Might be worth looking into your fish a bit. Basa is typically imported from Vietnam and are farmed in very poor hygiene conditions, hence the cheap price. I'd recommend finding out where your Basa comes from and if Vietnam either find out about the farm conditions, or if you'd prefer not to know just continue in blissful ignorance!

      • It is from Vietnam and yes conditions there are generally pretty average. But it's an extra step to attribute the low price to poor hygiene conditions. Pricing is a bit more complex than that.

        I'm satisfied with the condition of the fish I receive and I do inspect the fillets. I've never found contaminants foreign matter.

        If you have any credible information/reports about the industry feel free to link them.

        • I'm not implying the only reason basa is cheaper than other kinds of fish is because of poor hygiene conditions…

          But the cost of farming fish in overcrowded, polluted conditions is much less than in the wild or in clean, well maintained areas.

          I base my opinions off information given to me by a friend who works in the food importing industry. I'm not at all denying anyone the right to eat basa, just suggesting that they go and have a look at some of the article/videos floating around to see where the fish is coming from. And I'm not coming at this from a humane angle, more of a quality of water, density of chemicals/waste, hormone treatment etc angle.

          This guy gives a pretty good run down of the issues from his personal experiences working with Indian fisheries: https://www.quora.com/Is-Basa-fish-good-for-health/answer/Ra…

        • basa whihc is another name for vietnamese cat fish is bad

        • @Domingo:

          I just respectfully disagree with you because your claims aren't substantiated. I dare say your friend isn't knowledgeable enough to know the industry in detail. What happens in India is also not related to Vietname Basa farming.

          ABC did a program on this and the consensus is that fish from the large operators in Vietnam are of a very high standard. http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2013/s3945647.htm

        • @aoeueoa:

          Seafood importers have now launched a campaign to correct what they believe are misconceptions about Asian aquaculture.

          The third paragraph indicates that the content of that report is from people who profit directly from it. I'm not sure your report is substantiated either.

          The Quora post is talks specifically to Vietnamese practices, comparing them to those in India. It doesn't say not to eat them, it just describes in a lot of detail the processes undertaken to get the results that are observed and leaves it up to the reader to make up their mind.

          Good discussion. I don't think someone is going to die from eating a piece of basa, and someone could probably eat it every day of their life and never suffer any ill effects. There are also plenty of examples of people who have smoked their whole lives and never been severely impacted by it either - a lot of it is luck of the draw. However, I do believe that the fish are grown in overcrowded conditions (eg lots of fish waste in the water they are living in) and exposed to pollutants that I don't want to have anything to do with as part of the farming process. I'll continue with my personal decision to not eat it.

    • How cheap are the potatoes?

      Like $1/kg cheap?

  • I have been doing Meal preps for the last 2.5 months and usually do it on a Sunday. So after grocery shopping, cut up chicken breast and marinate with herbs, garlic and chillies. Cut up veges such as Zucchini, broccoli, red capsicum, beetroot and add cherry tomatoes and into the grill. Mix brown and black rice and make that whilst the chicken and veges are being grilled. Pack it into lunch container. This is lunch Mon-Thursday and Fridays i eat out. Or lunch for 3 days with Thursday being a sandwich day which is easy and fast to make.

    Sunday dinner is prepared in bulk and eaten on Monday night so the next cooking is Tuesday night which is something as simple as salmon pan fried with broccoli which is fairly quick. That is how the rest of the week dinner goes- say grilled chicken and salad. This works for me and does not chew too much time.

    The thing with Bulk cooking is being comfortable eating the same/similar food most of the time. I have been on a plan to lose weight and add on muscles so i have been diligent with what i have been doing and hitting the gym 6 days a week for the last 2.5 months. So far has been working fine for me :)

  • We do bulk cook (large upright freeze etc). Figure out your goal saving money/time/dishes/healthier options and will help you sustain prep cooking and don't buy anything fancy in the beginning. Will depend on age/number of people you need to cook for.

    The best advise is to cook foods that you actually enjoy. Rice/chicken/broccoli everyday might appeal to a body builder focused on perfect macro ratio, but could get boring for the rest of us.

    Freeze flat for even defrosting, write date and any instructions if any on the bag.

    Easy options are just to double a recipe that you normally cook and freeze a portion for later.
    Slow cooker casseroles (google crock pot recipe) not a fan but if you are they are very very easy to assemble these are the ones people can make 50 of in one day.

    With marinating chicken I think it's the acidic marinades last a shorter time (week should be fine) in the freezer before it starts to affect the chicken.
    You don't need to leave the chicken to marinade prior to freezing, just pop into the fridge the night before and it'll marinade as it defrosts.
    - favourite is chilli lime and coriander served over rice + steamed veg

    Most veg can be cooked or blanched and frozen not sure on potato.

    Some homey/kid friendly examples we use for dinner (sometimes lunch) veggies are all hidden in the meals either finely diced grated - cooked grated zucchini over summer bulks out any mince based meal
    Items like burger patties rissoles freeze on tray till solid then bag them up approx 3-5kg at a time
    Taco mince meat onion capsicum bean mix fully cooked freeze in family dinner portions
    Slow cooker pulled chicken 3-5kg - 300/500g bags burritos/sliders/sandwich meat/wraps etc
    Meatballs I fully cook and freeze already in the sauce/veg/pasta mix undercook the pasta just before al denta- then 40min in the oven and its fully cooked
    Butter chicken cook day of add rice
    Lasagna
    Chicken/veg soup
    Meatloaf make a large batch then line your tin with cling film freeze few hours till solid remove from the pan add few extra layers or vaccume, add the next batch to the pan and freeze. Keeps the pan free and at cooking time just unwrap, put back in the tin and bake.
    Zucchini slice bake then portion and freeze.
    Home made pies
    A lot just add steamed/baked veg or carb or assemble in under 15min

    Sweets- Banana bread, zucchini bread, breakfast muffins, raw choc chip cookies, apple sauce.

    Adult work lunches typical prep meals cook multiple different 5/10 matching sets of meat /carb/veg but we freeze all so we can eat something different each day rather than one meal for a week.
    Enjoying the meals from this youtuber

    Anyone who's not great at cooking these two he'll show you how to cut veggies/meat very simple to follow if your just starting out (their personality irks me)

    Best time to shop depends on the location
    With supermarket chickens - they have to be sold within 4 hours check the times written on the bag next time you go past our store does 3 daily cooks, marks them half price approx 3.5 hours. City stores might have a different system. Few years ago Coles started not reducing the chickens but shredding the breast and selling it cold for $20 /kg throwing the rest (family friend worked for them at that time) not sure on now.

    Where we get veg there's 'cooking bananas' very ripe generally $1ish a kg to be used right away or frozen might not be in places of high turnover

  • The best things to bulk freeze are pasta sources, stews, soups etc. Something that starts off pretty "mushy" so you can then add rice and fresh veggies/salad to them. If you do a stew then you can cook some rice and stir fry some veggies to mix in. I do a large lot of neapolitana source then split that into freezer bags and buy frozen stuffed pasta. Quick easy tasty meal; particularly in winter. We buy the pasta from http://www.mariaspasta.com.au/.

    We have found that pureeing fresh stone fruit and pouring it over greek yoghurt is a really tasty quick dessert - it is also a good way to use up fruit that is very ripe. No added sugar as the fruit is sweet enough.

  • we don't prepare ready to eat meals as such, but rather bulk buy a lot of meat and portion the sizes…

    we buy fresh vegetables.. and the time to cook dinner should take no longer than it does to cook rice…in a rice cooker..or make pasta. we leave more complicated food like roasts and other stuff that requires a lot of cooking time to weekends

    our dinners and left over for lunch usually take 20-30 minutes to prep and cook maximum…

    we have a thermos cooker we use for soups, currys and other slow cooked food. usually prepared the night before

    we try not to sacrifice the taste and freshness of food for the sake of convenience.

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