There are few things more enjoyable than coming home from work, flipping on the oven or stovetop and having a home-cooked meal heated up in just a few minutes. It’s so much less expensive and even more convenient than going to a restaurant or ordering takeout or delivery.
The problem, of course, is figuring out how to get an actual homemade meal cooking that quickly, and the solution is to simply move as much of the work as possible to a single weekend day when you can complete all of the steps at once. Plan one big cooking day and, at the end of it, you will have a month’s worth of meals in the freezer, ready to be pulled out at your convenience.
Here’s how to cook once to make home-cooked meals for the entire month.
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Find several recipes that your family really likes. You’ll find that casseroles, like lasagna or enchiladas, work really well, as do soups and stews, but you can make many different kinds of meals work for this project. When you’ve identified six or seven recipes, quadruple them. Yep, you’re going to make each one four times. You’ll want to slightly modify the recipes, too, by cutting out about 20 percent of the liquid in casseroles and 10 percent of the liquid in soups, as the freezing process will cause the final product to have a bit more water than you expect.
Head out to the grocery store. If you’re new to this, you’ll need to buy some casserole dishes and soup containers that are both freezer- and oven-ready. Glad offers several low-cost options that work really well. You’ll also need all of the ingredients for the recipes you selected before heading to the grocery store.
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Go home and start cooking. Your goal is to fill up each container with a meal that’s prepared to the point that it can be taken from the freezer or the refrigerator and moved directly to the stovetop or oven. Soups, for example, should be fully prepared and put into freezer bags or containers. Casseroles should be prepared up to the point of being put in the freezer.
Synergize the tasks. Chop all of your onions at once. Chop all of your celery at once. Cook all of your pasta noodles at the same time for all of your pans of lasagna. If you’re using beans in several recipes, cook all of them at once, too. This will significantly reduce your overall cooking time.
Before you put casseroles into freezer-safe dishes, be sure to coat the pan in olive oil — or your preferred coating — to prevent sticking when you cook them.
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Label your meals. When you’ve finished a meal and it’s ready to go in the freezer, label it with a piece of masking tape. Mark down what the item is and when you made it. If you count calories, write down the approximate calorie counts in a serving. Masking tape makes for a great label for freezer dishes.
Fill up your freezer with these meals and clean up your kitchen. You’re done, for now.
When you decide to start using these meals, it’s a good idea to put the meal in the refrigerator at least one or two days before you finish cooking it. This allows the meal to fully thaw, which means it will take less time to actually cook.
When you get home from work and are ready to finish the cooking, note that cold casseroles will take about 50 percent more time to cook than the recipe suggests if the recipe expects hot ingredients, and it’ll take double the time of the recipe if the item is frozen (and that might not even be accurate). Plan accordingly, and be sure to check the middle of the casserole for warmth when it’s getting close. If there’s cheese on top, it’s a good idea to cover the casserole with foil while it’s baking during the first portion of the baking process to prevent the surface from becoming charred.
Soups and stews are easy — just empty the container into a pot and raise the heat until the soup is nice and warm.
When a casserole or other oven meal is done cooking, allow it to rest for several minutes on the table before serving. This allows the heat to more evenly distribute throughout the food and allows some of the water inside the casserole to reabsorb, making it a bit less wet inside.
Now, sit down with your family and enjoy a home-cooked meal, and be proud of the knowledge that this meal saved you a ton of money and was amazingly convenient for a busy weeknight.
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Once-a-Month Cooking: Whip Up Batch Recipes to Save Money and Time originally appeared on usnews.com
