Batching for Busy Weeks

A few hours on the weekend buys me a whole week of easy, no-excuses meals.

Cook ahead, meal prep, batching—whatever you call it, having a fridge full of ready-to-go nourishment is essential for those of us with busy schedules. How many times have you just been too busy or too tired to cook, and ended up with high-calorie takeout, or mindlessly snacking on junk food? For me, more times than I can count.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to batching: batching meals, and batching ingredients. I mostly batch ingredients, with a few batched meals thrown in here and there. You have more options with ingredients, mixing and matching a little differently every day, adjusting as needed for fiber or protein goals. And although this is a quick option for a busy weeknight, having a few complete meals ready to go is even faster and easier.

If you batch, for example, a huge pot of chili—enough for a week—then your options are to eat chili every day (before it goes bad), or freeze several portions. Unfortunately, I don't have much freezer space, so when I batch meals I only batch a few portions—enough to store in the fridge and eat within the week. Of course, if you have room to freeze four out of your seven portions of chili, you're ahead of the game!

I usually do my batching on the weekends, so I can grab a quick breakfast or lunch during work (I work from home). It takes maybe a few hours to have food ready to go all week long.