Expert freezer tips for stress-free batch cooking

Aneeqah Emeran — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:42:29 +0000

Your freezer is about to become your batch-cooking superhero with these great tips from MK Editor-in-Chief, Liezl Vermeulen. Both clever and handy, her tips will help you chill out (literally) and keep delicious dinners just a defrost away.

Here are our top 4 tips to avoiding freezer fails.

Tips to frozen meal prep success

Consider when to under-cook when freezing: If you’re planning to simmer, boil, bake or roast your food when reheating, slightly undercook to compensate for this and to avoid dry or overcooked ingredients later.
Add whole beans after defrosting: Most food will change slightly in texture after frozen. This is because ingredients contain water or liquid, which will expand during freezing, which in turn will break the fibers containing it.
Some ingredients don’t want to be frozen alone: Already coating your cooked pasta in sauce, or oil if you don’t have the sauce ready, will avoid it mushing together when defrosted.
Add cream after defrosting: Most dairy ingredients is an emulsion (a stable mixture of water and fat that usually would usually separate into two parts). When it is frozen, it splits, returning to its natural state where fat droplets separate out. While this is very much still useable, the texture changes. By adding cream to sauces after defrosting, you can avoid this and end up with a silky-smooth sauce.

Safety first

Cool it! Food should always be cooled down completely before chilling or freezing. If you’re in a pickle where you can’t leave food out, it’s best to let it chill uncovered in the fridge. (Covering it will create a hot air vacuum above the food, which can cause it to spoil.)

Once-off deal: Don’t use previously frozen meat to make these recipes, as meat shouldn’t be refrozen.

Plan to defrost: Take your food out ahead of time to defrost at room temperature to retain best texture (and avoid unplanned cooking in the microwave). To speed things along, you can submerge food in tepid water (not hot water) and continuously drain and refill as water gets cold.

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Batch cook! Your budget will thank you

johnbrown — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 16:00:16 +0000

As January rolls around, it’s not only our clothes that seem a bit tighter, but our budgets too. Don’t let the holiday spending and Christmas gift-buying get in the way of your weekly food shopping – plan your meals cleverly and you’ll be saving as you cook.

I like big batches
‘Batch cooking’ is a term you need to become familiar with. This means cooking big batches of food that you can keep in the fridge or freezer and simply portion out as you’re putting together your meal. Think starches such as rice, barley, couscous or pasta; steamed or roasted vegetables; and proteins such as stewed meat, cooked beans or grilled chicken.

Get organised
Have a variety of food prepped, so that each meal can easily be assembled to ensure a balanced meal. Having one or two sources of carbohydrates, a few veg options and two meats on hand is best. After the cooking has been done, either divide the batches into individual portions that can be frozen or stored in the fridge, or store each food item in a big bowl for easy dishing up when mealtimes roll around.

Keep it interesting
No one wants to be eating the same meal for lunch and dinner the whole week long. Aim to mix up your food pairings and add in other flavours as you feel like it. Maybe have some leafy greens on the side, or top your meat with a minty yoghurt sauce. Don’t be afraid to complement the preprepared food with other ingredients you already have in your pantry.

Best before
Having dinner already cooked by the time you come home is great, but opening up a container of meat that has gone bad is never a fun experience. Label each container with the date when the food was cooked, so you can keep track of what to eat before it goes off. As a rule of thumb, starches can be kept up to one week in the fridge, cooked veg for up to five days and meat for no longer than three days.

The post Batch cook! Your budget will thank you appeared first on MyKitchen.

batch cooking - MyKitchen

Expert freezer tips for stress-free batch cooking

Tips to frozen meal prep success

Safety first

Batch cook! Your budget will thank you