Preparing meals in advance

[CoolCat]

I've been packing leftovers in my lunch for years now, but I'm starting to work toward doing more Sunday meal prep. The basic concept is to do the majority of your cooking for the week on Sunday in order to save time during the week, as well as making it easier to stick to budget or nutrition goals.

A lot of the advice I've seen for doing Sunday meal prep is to either do all of the prep work on Monday (chopping vegetables and preparing seasonings) but only cook your meals through Wednesday, with a second smaller cooking session on Wednesday or to cook all of your food on Sunday but stick your meals for Thursday and later in the freezer.

Does anyone else here do a lot of advanced meal prep? What are your tricks for saving time and money without compromising food safety?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

That would sound about right. We will cook on a Monday and eat that meal for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but no further.
Cooking on Sunday would make the next cooking on a Wednesday. We rig it around what is happening that week, having a mixture of 2 day and 3 day meals. We can vary it to an extent, because what we eat on Sunday can be served with normal rice (which in this household is brown basmati), then on Monday it is served with say red rice which whilst it may not sound like a huge difference, actually does change the meal quite a bit. Also things like broccoli and cauliflower can be cooked in the same water as the rice or at the same time as the rice to change the dish or add fresh veg to the meal.

I'm not that keen on cutting up veg in advance unless it is then frozen, because I recall reading somewhere that it loses a lot of its nutrients once cut up, but how it is any different to leaving the veg cooked in a pan in your meal I have no idea.

So in this household on Sunday, a Mango & Tofu Curry was made up. It was served with brown basmati rice on Sunday along with some broccoli. Last night it was served with red rice and cauliflower and tonight it will be served with pasta and peas (I think!). Tomorrow I will cook again, Corn and Roasted Red Pepper soup and I will cook some bread to go with it (or put dumplings in). Fresh dumpling will go in each night, I will just make them once and put them in the freezer to keep them 'fresh' and cook from frozen as needed. They take a few minutes longer that's all. Varying the dumplings/cobbler or fresh bread varies the meal enough. I'm not certain if it serves 4 or 6, so if it is a 2 nighter or a 3 nighter... We usually make the more complicated/longer recipe on the night that has more time which is usually but not always a Sunday.

If I need an emergency 1 nighter to move us over 1 night to a night with more time, I will put some cashew nuts in to soak for a couple of hours and make a creamy dill or creamy garlic sauce for pasta which is a 10 minute job and usually takes less time than it takes to cook the pasta. The sauce will go over pasta and whatever veg is around that takes the same time as pasta to cook! I'll often just cook them in the same water.

 

[Diane Lane]

When I was working full time and going to school full time, I would do most of the meal preparations on the weekends. The fiance grilled a lot of the meat, and I'd cook some other in the house, as well as veggies, side dishes, and a dessert or two. Once everything was finished, I'd separate out meal portions and either refrigerate or freeze, depending on when it was to be eaten. There was also a night designated for sandwiches and salads, and another for pizza.

 

[missbishi]

I'll cook in advance too but I tend to batch cook and then freeze so we aren;t eating the same thing two nights running. I get easily bored with "food overkill" and I really don't want to lose the taste for my favourite cheap meals.

 

[CoolCat]

That would sound about right. We will cook on a Monday and eat that meal for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but no further.
Cooking on Sunday would make the next cooking on a Wednesday. We rig it around what is happening that week, having a mixture of 2 day and 3 day meals. We can vary it to an extent, because what we eat on Sunday can be served with normal rice (which in this household is brown basmati), then on Monday it is served with say red rice which whilst it may not sound like a huge difference, actually does change the meal quite a bit. Also things like broccoli and cauliflower can be cooked in the same water as the rice or at the same time as the rice to change the dish or add fresh veg to the meal.

I'm not that keen on cutting up veg in advance unless it is then frozen, because I recall reading somewhere that it loses a lot of its nutrients once cut up, but how it is any different to leaving the veg cooked in a pan in your meal I have no idea.

So in this household on Sunday, a Mango & Tofu Curry was made up. It was served with brown basmati rice on Sunday along with some broccoli. Last night it was served with red rice and cauliflower and tonight it will be served with pasta and peas (I think!). Tomorrow I will cook again, Corn and Roasted Red Pepper soup and I will cook some bread to go with it (or put dumplings in). Fresh dumpling will go in each night, I will just make them once and put them in the freezer to keep them 'fresh' and cook from frozen as needed. They take a few minutes longer that's all. Varying the dumplings/cobbler or fresh bread varies the meal enough. I'm not certain if it serves 4 or 6, so if it is a 2 nighter or a 3 nighter... We usually make the more complicated/longer recipe on the night that has more time which is usually but not always a Sunday.

If I need an emergency 1 nighter to move us over 1 night to a night with more time, I will put some cashew nuts in to soak for a couple of hours and make a creamy dill or creamy garlic sauce for pasta which is a 10 minute job and usually takes less time than it takes to cook the pasta. The sauce will go over pasta and whatever veg is around that takes the same time as pasta to cook! I'll often just cook them in the same water.

I've never heard of red rice before! I'm guessing it's more similar to brown rice than white?

I'll cook in advance too but I tend to batch cook and then freeze so we aren;t eating the same thing two nights running. I get easily bored with "food overkill" and I really don't want to lose the taste for my favourite cheap meals.

I hear you on that. My husband doesn't eat leftovers at all, so aside from one serving the first day I eat everything that I cook. It can definitely get tiresome to eat the same thing 3-4 days in a row. If I'm cooking anything in a really big batch like soups or stews, I always freeze it in individual servings so I can pull it out later when it's more of a novelty.

 

[welsh dragon]

If we do beef, lamb, pork, or any other meat cooked in gravy in a slow cooker, we tend to do extra and freeze it, to be eaten another time with say yorkshire puddings, or chips.

we also cook more chilli or bolognese, freeze it as well, and then we just have to do the spaghetti etc. Saves a lot of time.

 

[cupcakechef]

This is something that I've actually been wanting to look into more. I've got a 6 month old baby so I just don't have the daily prep time at my disposal that I used to - so getting everything organized on Sunday while my husband is home and can watch her would make sense. Also I definitely get the budget side of things (and again - that's definitely something I want to get under control!)

I find if I don't have some sort of meal plan in place, it's a last minute put together dinner - which often means grabbing a bunch of random stuff at the supermarket (ends up being pricey!) or takeout (not the healthiest option!)

I think I'll have to work out a game plan and give it a try!

 

[CoolCat]

This is something that I've actually been wanting to look into more. I've got a 6 month old baby so I just don't have the daily prep time at my disposal that I used to - so getting everything organized on Sunday while my husband is home and can watch her would make sense. Also I definitely get the budget side of things (and again - that's definitely something I want to get under control!)

I find if I don't have some sort of meal plan in place, it's a last minute put together dinner - which often means grabbing a bunch of random stuff at the supermarket (ends up being pricey!) or takeout (not the healthiest option!)

I think I'll have to work out a game plan and give it a try!

Let me know how you do with it! I've been reading up a lot on Sunday meal prep, and of course just as I'm getting excited to try it I'll be out of town for the next three weekends. I may still give it a shot this weekend, because all I need to do on Sunday is drive 6 hours home. The biggest trick for me is making food that my husband will eat. He generally won't eat leftovers at all, and I'm trying to cut down on our dining out spending without going in the other direction and cooking fresh every day after a full day of work.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I've never heard of red rice before! I'm guessing it's more similar to brown rice than white?

It is Camargue red rice which is an unmilled rice grown in France’s Camargue wetlands. http://cookingintongues.com/2011/06/27/camargue-red-rice-with-mushrooms/
However there are a number of other red rices as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rice

We also have black rice in the house which is also known as purple rice which is a much better name for it, but the packet says black rice so we call it black...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_rice Searching on what it is yields the usual 'the next super food' articles that I hate and detest with vengeance, but that said, it is lower calorie than standard rice and much more nutritious.

 

[Corzhens]

It's 11:30 pm now and I am cooking sauced chicken for tomorrow's meal. I have to cook now since I will be leaving early for the office tomorrow. It is not considered leftover since it has not been eaten yet. After the cooking, we just leave it on the stove and reheat tomorrow for lunch time. But for me, I would bring a pack for my lunch in the office. Sometimes we do that when time for cooking is not available.

 

[CoolCat]

It's 11:30 pm now and I am cooking sauced chicken for tomorrow's meal. I have to cook now since I will be leaving early for the office tomorrow. It is not considered leftover since it has not been eaten yet. After the cooking, we just leave it on the stove and reheat tomorrow for lunch time. But for me, I would bring a pack for my lunch in the office. Sometimes we do that when time for cooking is not available.

Aren't you worried about food safety leaving it out overnight? That's sitting in the Danger Zone for an awfully long time. Just because you reheat food doesn't make necessarily it safe again. Some bacteria make you sick themselves, while others produce toxins that make you sick. When you cook food, you kill most of the bacteria, but generally not all of it. (Food can also pick up new bacteria if utensils and storage vessels aren't properly clean, or if you use a spoon to taste your food and then use it to stir the pot, for instance.) When food is left out at room temperature, it's a great environment for the remaining bacteria to produce toxins at a really quick rate. The bacteria will be killed when you reheat it (assuming you get it hot enough for enough time), but the toxins will not be destroyed by the heat so they can make you very sick.

Info on the danger zone from the USDA:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal...food-handling/danger-zone-40-f-140-f/CT_Index

 

[Corzhens]

@CoolCat it is all right to leave the food outside of the refrigerator when the night is cool. What's not good is during the daytime when the weather is hot that is prevalent with bacteria. We do not put the newly cooked food in the fridge because it is still hot and we cannot wait for it to cool since we already need to sleep. That's the reason for it and that's the way we do it here.

But thanks for your concern.

 

[CoolCat]

@CoolCat it is all right to leave the food outside of the refrigerator when the night is cool. What's not good is during the daytime when the weather is hot that is prevalent with bacteria. We do not put the newly cooked food in the fridge because it is still hot and we cannot wait for it to cool since we already need to sleep. That's the reason for it and that's the way we do it here.

But thanks for your concern.

Just to be clear to anyone here who doesn't want food poisoning, it is not safe to leave your food out in the kitchen overnight unless your kitchen is below 40 degrees fahrenheit (about 4 degrees celsius). That is a breeding ground for bacteria, and a risk you don't need to be taking. It is safe to put hot food in the fridge before it comes down to room temperature. You will not raise the temperature of the fridge enough to put your other food in danger, though you may have some issues with texture due to steam condensing back into your dish.

 

[winterybella]

Quite an interesting thread and closely related to the Prep and Plan approach I spoke about in a thread so titled. Still I have not been able to consistently plan in advance consistently. CoolCat, I have been hearing the same things you mentioned in your last post about the breeding ground for bacteria we create sometimes leaving things out for too long a period of time.

 

[Pat]

I cook for 3 days in advance often I get up early in the morning and start my cooking so that no one is in my way. I may cook two different types of meat cut it up into tha amounts I want to use for the coming days and freeze the rest so that we are not eating the same thing several days in a row.