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Any good meal prepping recipes or advice?
We have a multi-cooker (Ninja Foodie Max) which gets most of its usage as an air frier or pressure cooker.
We want to start meal prepping as with two kids time in the kitchen is getting increasingly difficult. Our go to big reusable meals are Bolognese or curries which we are getting a bit bored of, so what's your go to meal prep recipes?
First off, I'd suggest involving the kids with the meal prep. Yes, they'll make a mess, but they'll get better at it as they get more practice, it'll give them skills for later on, and they'll be able to help more as they get older. I'm not suggesting that you plan to eventually offload all the cooking on to them, but make it a family activity. Think your kids are too young? Think again.
My second suggestion is to maybe move some of the prep work away from the kitchen counters, maybe to the kitchen table where you can all sit down and work together. When I first started cooking, I'd try to fit in the chopping and dicing and stuff into the small periods where nothing was happening. But I'd have to slow down or stop something cooking because an ingredient wasn't fully ready, I'd get to the end and be exhausted with tired feet, the food wasn't as good as it should be, and I'd have a sink of dirty dishes. I tried mise en place and that changed things: I can breeze through the recipes without stopping, the food is good, and I do the dishes in those small periods when nothing happens so at the end I have a dish happily cooking away, the kitchen is clean and I can rest. Nowadays I do almost all the prep beforehand.
And by beforehand, I mean the night before. I do my prep sitting in front of the TV, and for like 90 minutes I'll chop, dice, slice, etc, and put everything into bowls or ziplock. I'll even mix together whatever spices or dry ingredients or wet ingredients I need, or set things up to marinade overnight. Depending on the age of your kids, maybe they're chopping stuff, or mixing ingredients in bowls, or bringing things to and fro, or clearing scraps away. [Have two piles for scraps: one for the garbage/compost, and the other for stuff you're not using but which is still good - tops and skins and leaves of carrots, stubs of celery, ends of onions and peppers, etc. Freeze that second lot until you have enough, then use it to make soup stock.]
My actual meal prep falls into four phases. First is getting the ingredients: this could be whatever your farm share is giving you that week, or looking over the sales, or however it is that you get your regular ingredients. Then figure out what you can cook from them, and buy any necessary additional ingredients. Phase 2 is Friday night prep, phase 3 is cooking for about two hours on Saturday.
And phase 4 is Sunday evening, again in front of the TV (or for you, the kitchen table). You know how you get ingredients but they're almost never evenly worked out to the recipe? You need three carrots but have to buy a bunch, you needed two onions but a bag was cheaper? Everything that I didn't use making a dish on Saturday, gets pulled out on Sunday. I'll take some of it and put it into snack-sized ziplock; if applicable, I'll include an old pill bottle of dressing or dip. But most of the rest of it I'll put into salads. I try to vary the salads a lot so I don't get bored, so they'll be maybe half or one-third lettuce and the rest is everything else - bits of leftover veggies, cheese, chicken, eggs, olives, fruits, nuts, beans, tortilla chips - pretty much anything is fair game. Lettuce goes on top so it doesn't get crushed, dressing in a pill bottle on the side so things don't get soggy, and croutons, tortilla chips or anything else in the "crisp and bready" category goes in a Ziploc on the side. Anything that I still haven't used up goes into the freezer to be used as an ingredient later on. My goal every week is to have just meals, salads and ready-made snacks in the fridge.
Now, like you, I also noticed that I was getting bored with my food, but I decided that the issue was that I was eating everything until it got used up and I got bored before that happened (with 4 people, you probably go through stuff faster than I do, so this may not be as applicable to your family). So every Saturday I make two big batches of food, and I put it into serving-size containers, and I freeze half of them. The first half of the week, I eat the fresh stuff, the second half of the week I eat out of the freezer - I usually have like 45 portions of 10-15 meals in there, so there's always some variety.
What do I make? Currently in my freezer, I have French onion soup, a broccoli-cheese casserole, cheese pizza, vegetarian chili, lasagna, mac and cheese, veggie pot pies, a really thick vegetable stew, stuffed peppers and stuffed tomatoes, zucchini boats, eggplant parmesan, pot stickers, jambalaya, meatloaf, 15 bean soup, shepherd's pie, tamales, meatballs (for spaghetti, or for meatball sandwiches), roasted tomato quiche, and stuffed shells. I also have homemade pesto, marinara, tomato paste, garlic confit and some other things frozen in ice cube trays and then decanted into ziplocs - things that are either seasonal or I'll make a big batch of and then freeze. I do the same thing with common leftover ingredients, where I'll make cubes of diced onions, and diced pepper, and small cubes of minced garlic and then they're easily on hand the next time I need half an onion or one clove of garlic.
Not sure how much of this you can use, but that's how I handle things.
What an amazing response, thank you so much for taking the time!
We actually already do this, our oldest is only 2.5 years old ( the little one is 2 months) but she is already quite helpful in the kitchen and has a small one of her own. She can chop soft ingredients, likes to watch and get involved (she has a tower in the kitchen that keeps her at counter level), has a routine of making morning smoothies and cappuccini (we have an espresso machine which she loves)
Am going to try your suggestion in about two weeks, we'll have an extra pair of hands here and will be easier for me mentally
The frozen cubes + bags is a great one; it was perfect during the baby puree stage.
What kind of containers are you using to store and freeze the main components? Do you store things separately (if so, individual portions or bulk) or as complete meals ready to go?
I like the idea of stackable, reusable containers instead of ziploc bags, but buying enough decent ones starts to get pricey.
I'm single, so big multi-serving meals don't make a lot of sense for me. Single servings also makes it easier to include an extra guest - or exclude someone, when the kids are old enough to start missing meals.
I store things seperately so that I can mix and match. I like the concept of reusable containers, but I run into problems. Like the stuffed peppers - they're round, so if I put them in Tupperware, they'll get frost-bit. Plus there's only so much room in my freezer and I don't want to waste it by deliberately storing air. I can stuff extra material in some of the containers to fill them up - say, add on extra layers of lasagna, but that can get messy and I end up with an Italian casserole thing instead of actual lasagna. Which isn't bad but it can be kinda depressing. I tried getting single-serve things I could both cook and freeze in but, as you said, it got pricy, and eventually the lids broke along the edges.
Anyway, I end up using a lot of ziplocs (though I do wash and re-use them where I can). I can put in a layer of casserole or shells or whatever, squeeze all the air out, and freeze it. I have little wire bins that I'll stack them in once they're fully frozen, that way I don't have a bunch of random baggies floating around the freezer.
That said, I do use single serving containers for some things. I use them a lot with this like soups, stews, chilis, mac and cheese, etc - stuff where I can spoon in close to the lid, cover with some saran wrap to minimize freezer burn, and put an actual lid on it.
Maybe you can check out how other people are using the Ninja Foodi’s different cooking functions. There are blog and video posts online as well as the brand’s meal prep cookbook. When it comes to meal prepping, you can make almost anything as long as you consider the effects of freezing. I often make 2 dishes (so different meals for lunch and dinner) with enough portions of each for 4-7 days. Some meals keep longer than others, but most of it hangs out in my fridge. Anything that I can’t finish goes in the freezer. Since you have a family, you might aim to make more portions to freeze.
With experience, you’ll learn how freezing affects your preparation and menu. It also depends on your family’s preferences and what you guys like. For example, I cook my pasta just under al dente and cover it with slightly more sauce so that it reheats al dente and not dry. When plating in containers, I keep sauces/stews away from the rice, so the rice won't suck up all the liquid. I put veggies with high water content (such as spinach) in pastas and soups, but not as a veggie side.
I prefer glass storage containers for anything that needs to go in the microwave. Even though glass is more expensive, I don't like how plastic containers warp and get stained over time. A downside is that glass containers can crack if you microwave directly from the freezer, so I put what I want to eat in the fridge the night before. I've also had success placing the frozen container in water for 15 mins before microwaving on reduced power.
My go-to meal preps are a combination of from-scratch and "semi-homemade":
Adding a side can help combat the fatigue of one-pot meals. My go-to cold sides are:
I also like roasting veggies on baking trays in the oven. There is more prep work involved, but it helps with meal variety. Be sure to use an oil with a high smoke point, since most recipes call for roasting at high temps (400F and up). I use parchment paper to reduce the amount of oil needed, but I have to trim down the sides to make sure they don't burn in the oven. Oil also seeps through the parchment, so I have to wash the pans. Heavy duty aluminum foil is probably be faster for prep and cleanup. I season my typical rotation of roasted veggies with salt and pepper by default:
Food prep often involves cooking a large batch of food, chilling it, and freezing it, and then re-heating it later to eat it.
Food safety is really important. Correct storage, handling, and preparation will reduce risk.
This means you're taking the ingredients through the danger zone temperatures. In Canada and the US this is 40F to 140F. In Australia and the UK it's 5C to 60C.) You take the ingredients up through the danger zone when cooking; you take them back down through the danger zone when chilling the food, and you take them back up through the danger zone when re-heating.
Many but not all bacteria are killed by heat. Sometimes bacteria are not killed by the heat that's used in cooking - it's not hot enough for long enough to destroy the bacteria. As well as this, some bacteria create a toxin, and the toxin will be heat stable. (It's important to remember this because some people think that as long as they get the food piping hot when re-heating they'll be fine. ) So, you need to get the food chilled rapidly after cooking it. Use ice baths or cold water baths, spread the food out in a thin layer on a tray, portion the food out, don't cover the container while cooling the food, portion the food into single serving sizes. In the past the advice was to wait until the food was cold before putting it in the fridge. Modern fridges can cope with warm food, and it'll help chill the food more rapidly.
Your government probably has an agency that deals with food safety for the home, and they can provide advice.
Huh, I didn’t realize the no-hot-food-in-fridge was no longer sound. Just the other day I advised someone against doing so.
Here’s an article from Epicurious with a bit more info and history.
This is super good advice, thanks!
Take that Bolognese and make Lasagna! Make a huge pot, make a couple lasagna, and then freeze another. Great for a few days of eating.
Pressure cooker: Stews and great in those. These are great through the winter as you can use warm spices and cheap root veggies and cuts of meat.
Chicken thighs(bone in, skin on!) , sauteed in the pan, skin side first with favourite spices. Then when its done deglaze the pan with some wine, or neutral alcohol (or just water) . Add in some butter and salt and scrape all the goodness off the pan. Simmer and reduce and pour over chicken. Great with a side salad or roasted veggies. Easy to make a lot of, and keeps in the fridge for a few days. If doing salad, make your own dressing too. 1:1 oil-vinegar, bit of mustard and fresh garlic. Salt and pepper to test. Shake in a jar. Keeps in the fridge really well for like a week! Get fancy and add other flavours too.
Those are some of my go-to easy meals through the week!
That's exactly what we do with Bolognese, also a variation of chili con carne so it's awesome to make a huge batch of Bolognese.
Thanks for the other tips they sound great will give it a try
Being from Finland, here are two casseroles that are relatively easy to make decent batch:
I haven't done exactly as those recipes but they seem to season them more than versions I do.
For Ham and potato casserole we have ready made frozen potato-onion mixes here making it even easier/faster. Then it takes around ~5minutes of active cooking and then just having it in oven.
Hernekeitto, läskisoosi and klimppisoppa is all you need.
(/j)
I do the same except quinoa instead of rice.
My protein is usually chicken. Put some BBQ, salsa, or teriyaki sauce on that bad boy. Crock pot that on a Sunday night. Golden for the rest of the week!