Skills
Cook Once, Eat Three Times
Not five identical containers. Three different meals from one afternoon.
Meal prep gets sold as five identical containers of chicken and broccoli, which nobody wants to eat by Wednesday. The version that actually works is cooking two or three components and combining them differently each night.
Cook components, not meals
On Sunday, make these three things. It takes about an hour of mostly waiting.
- A pot of rice or grains. Double batch, four cups cooked.
- A pot of something saucy. Chickpea curry, lentil soup, or a big pot of beans.
- A sheet pan of roasted vegetables. Whatever is cheap, plus a bag of frozen broccoli. 425 degrees, 25 minutes.
That is your week's foundation. Now:
Monday: rice bowl with the saucy thing over it and roasted vegetables on the side.
Tuesday: the saucy thing on its own as soup, with bread.
Wednesday: fried rice using the cold rice and the leftover roasted vegetables.
Thursday: wrap the rice, vegetables, and beans in a tortilla with cheese and pan fry it.
Same three components, four dinners, and none of them taste like the same meal.
The three things worth batching
Rice or grains. Reheats well, required cold for fried rice, and takes the same 25 minutes whether you make one cup or four.
Beans or lentils. Cheap protein, freeze perfectly, and go with everything.
Roasted vegetables. They are good hot, fine cold, and they are the fastest way to make a bowl feel like a meal instead of a pile of starch.
The things not worth batching
Anything crispy. Fried tofu, roasted potatoes, and quesadillas all go soft in the fridge. Make those to order.
Salad with dressing on it. Dress it in the bowl you are eating from.
Pasta with sauce mixed in. Store them separately or the pasta drinks all the sauce.
Freeze in single portions
The mistake is freezing a big container. You then have to thaw the whole thing to eat one serving.
Use quart freezer bags, fill each with one portion, press the air out, lay them flat to freeze, then stand them up like files once solid. They thaw in 20 minutes in a bowl of warm water and they take up almost no room, which matters in a shared freezer.
Label with the name and the date in marker. You will not remember.
What actually keeps how long
- Cooked rice and grains: 4 days in the fridge, 3 months frozen
- Beans and lentils, cooked: 5 days, 4 months frozen
- Soup and curry: 5 days, 4 months frozen
- Roasted vegetables: 4 days, and they do not freeze well
- Cooked pasta, undressed: 4 days
- Cut raw vegetables: 3 days
The real point
The goal is not to eat prepped food every night. It is to make sure that on the night you get home at 8pm and are too tired to cook, there is something in the fridge that is faster than opening a delivery app. That is the entire game. You only have to beat delivery on speed once or twice a week for the savings to be significant.