Sarah Rossi, author of What’s for Dinner? shares her favourite kitchen tips to help save you time and money
Juggling young children while cooking dinner is tricky enough, but trying to stick to a food budget too? It’s enough to put pressure on even the calmest of parents.
My name’s Sarah Rossi and I’m mum to 11-year-old twins. I’ve spent the last 10 years working out how to cook family-friendly meals that make our lives easier and sharing them on my blog and Instagram, Taming Twins.
I’ve learned lots of tricks along the way, but meal planning and batch cooking come top, with heaps of benefits!
Cook Sarah Rossi from Taming Twins
Save money with meal planning
Meal planning for the week ahead means that you can shop for exactly what you need. You’ll reduce top-up shops, impulse buys and takeaways, helping to saving you time and money.
Having a plan also reduces that 5pm panic about what you’re going to make for dinner, which in turn reduces the general evening stress, which we could all benefit from!
Getting started with meal planning
When you sit down to make a meal plan for the week ahead, think about the following things:
What you already have in the cupboards/fridge/freezer
What everyone likes to eat
Your budget and time available
Once you narrow down the meals for the week ahead, think about whether you can double up some recipes to do a batch cook and freeze for another day. Then make a shopping list and you’re good to go!
Batch cooking: the busy parent’s secret weapon
Batch cooking just means cooking once so you can eat twice or more. This might mean that when you’re making a cottage pie, doubling up and making two at once and popping one in the freezer for a busy day next month.
Or it might mean cooking a big batch of Bolognese and using it from the fridge the same week: with spaghetti one night, baked potatoes the next, and in a pasta bake the next.
Some tips for freezer batch cooking:
Check that the recipe you’re making can be frozen.
Freeze some portions for the whole family and some in single servings to give you flexibility.
Keep a list in your kitchen of all the meals in your freezer so nothing gets forgotten.
Label everything well!
Batch cooking for your freezer doesn’t need to take lots of time and be a special mission, you can just double up whenever you’re cooking something suitable for freezing. Before you know it, you’ll have a stash of extra meals for when life gets busy.
Batch cooking recipes
With stews and casseroles, you can use save money by using cheaper meat cuts that work particularly well in a slow cooker (you can pick one up from George at Asda for under £20). As a bonus, slow-cooked food becomes fast food when you cook it straight from the freezer!
I also like to keep some homemade soups in the freezer for weekend lunches or late dinners. I pair them with crunchy bread, croutons and a pile of cheese on top to make them feel like a complete meal.
Here are some of my favourite recipes that are affordable, easy to make and work well for batch cooking.
Slow cooker beef stew
Satisfaction in a bowl, packed with flavour, chunky vegetables and rich gravy.
Slow cooker chicken curry
This no-prep curry is deliciously creamy but light with a coconut milk flavour. Kids love it!
To avoid wasting food (and money), always try to use up the ingredients you already have. Sad-looking vegetables in the fridge drawer? Make soup. Squishy bananas? Make banana cake! (Did you know you can freeze unpeeled, very brown bananas ready to make banana cake on another day?)
Before heading to Asda, check online for deals currently in store and adjust your meal plan to take advantage of any special offers.
Storage hacks for batch-cooked meals
If you’re batch cooking and freezing, my favourite way to store meals (having tried many, many options!) is to use good quality freezer bags, which I wash and reuse. Label the front of the bag while it’s empty with the meal name, portion size and date. Allow the food to cool, fill the bag, then seal it and lay it flat in the freezer. This method has two main benefits: you can fit the flat bags easily and neatly into the freezer, and because the frozen bags are quite thin, they defrost quickly ready for reheating.
Go for it!
Finally, remember that meal planning and batch cooking don’t need to be daunting. Start small: you could plan just a few days ahead and double a recipe just once in the week. I hope you enjoy the money and time savings!
