Batch cooking, textures and boredom
In an effort to solve my cooking woes, I thought batch cooking would be the answer. Cook once, eat many times — efficient, right?
The trouble is, I can only eat something three or four times before I get sick of it. By the fifth portion, the thought of reheating it makes me want to order Uber Eats instead.
I tried portioning meals and freezing them. It wasn’t too bad, but it only worked if I kept the number of serves small. And then another problem appeared: everything started to have the same texture. Curries, casseroles, soups — all delicious at first, but eventually just one big blur of soft, saucy mush.
On top of that, batch cooking often didn’t leave much room for vegetables. By the nature of those recipes, I was eating lots of carbs and sauce, not a balanced plate.
Eggplant parmigana that while delicous, I only managed to eat half of. I think there might even still be some lurking in the back of the freezer
Halfway fixes
For a while, what worked was a mix-and-match approach: microwave rice bags, frozen veg, and pre-marinated meat. All I had to cook was the meat, then I’d portion everything up.
Freezing worked well because reheating in the microwave finished the cooking for me. It felt balanced, flexible, and not so boring.
This is also my go-to when I’m tired, sore, or have no spoons for standing and cooking. The pre-marinated meat especially helps me get past that hurdle of food “tasting like something I cooked” — because honestly, sometimes I just don’t want that.
Bulk cooking faves
There are a few recipes I can deal with in bulk without instantly hating them:
Spinach and ricotta cannelloni off the back of the San Remo pasta packet (it changes a little over time, but the core recipe is solid).
The chilli con carne from RecipeTin Eats.
Pea and ham soup once per winter (even when I try to make a “small” batch, it still ends up feeding an army).
Unexpected problems with batch cooking
Hyperfixation vs. demand avoidance
I thought hyperfixation would get me through all the serves, but actually it just turned into demand avoidance — a very ADHD thing. I won’t do what you tell me, and that includes me telling myself to eat the food I cooked.The “I can’t eat my own food” problem
Sometimes I just can’t stomach eating something I made myself.Maybe because I know it didn’t quite turn out.
Maybe because I don’t want food I had to think about or taste-test along the way.
Or because I’ve been tortured by the smell all day (slow cooker, I’m looking at you).
The condiment/herb/topping problem
Freezing the meal is easy — but what about the extras? Fresh herbs, sour cream, crunchy toppings… Can anyone solve how to freeze the fresh part of food? Because a reheated curry isn’t the same without coriander (sorry haters), and chilli con carne feels incomplete without sour cream.Office drama
Having food ready to grab and go is amazing… until you’re at work with one microwave and ten people all queuing. Suddenly you’re that person taking forever to heat up a frozen lump of food while everyone else glares at you.
Pro tip: Portioning
What works best for is splitting the meal into a few different kinds of portions. Using chilli con carne as an example:
Full meal portions (with rice and corn) ready to reheat and eat.
Small amounts frozen in ziplock bags to use later — on a microwaved potato, in tacos, or as a pie filling.
Honestly, those little surprise portions I rediscover in the freezer are the best. They feel like a gift from past-me to future-me.
The real trick: portion at the same time as serving. If I dump a whole batch into one giant container, it’s guaranteed to end up in the bin next week.
Not the solution, but a tool in the kit
Batch cooking is something I can use sometimes — but I’ve had to accept it won’t always work. If I plan food too far in advance, that in itself is a risk. There’s every chance it’ll never even get cooked in the first place, and instead just go to waste in the fridge (see my earlier post: Don’t Cook at Dinner Time and Other Ways to Get It Done).
