My 9 favorite recipes for batch cooking!

Oven fajitas are a favorite!

To help save money on groceries and eating out, we cook a lot at home but cooking every night is a bummer. It is hard to come home every night from work and make something for dinner and think about what we’re both having for lunch the next day. To make it easier, I will sometimes (not always) cook in large batches so we can eat 6+ meals (3+ for each of us) from one cooking effort (and one batch of dirty dishes).

Do you get tired of eating the same thing for 2-3 days in a row? Yeah, I do too. To combat this, I usually will make two dishes and we alternate them. If I make one big batch on Sunday and another on Monday night then we can have some variety and that will basically take us through the whole work week for lunches and dinners. It also helps if I make things that can be repackaged and eaten a few different ways (ie in a wrap one day; over rice the next day). To help with the Monday meal, often I will make something in the crock pot.

Since there are only two of us, my suggested batch is enough for 6+ meals usually but if your household is bigger, you can do larger batches, but you might need a bigger pan.

These are my favorite dishes for big batch cooking!

1. Oven chicken fajitas (4-5 chicken thighs sliced in strips and with 3-5 bell peppers cut in strips, onions, tossed in olive oil and a packet of taco seasoning; cook @350 for 40 minutes. We eat this in fajita shells or over rice with cheese on top.)
2. Crock pot chicken (you can literally throw all the ingredients in your slow cooker and it comes out amazing! I like this over rice my fiancé likes it in a taco shell also. We also had it over egg noodles but I like rice better.)
3. Crock pot potato bacon soup (I don’t include the cream of chicken soup and cut the cream cheese in half and throw in some shredded cheddar. Really good and cheesy! You can also use cubes of ham instead of bacon)
4. Crock pot beef stew or beef vegetable soup
5. Pulled pork in the crock pot (we can have this on buns, plain with a veggie side or in a quesadilla – lots of options)
6. Roasted potatoes (cube potatoes, toss in olive oil with some seasoned salt and bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. I make these a lot when I’m using the oven already and then we have them as a side all week.)
7. Lasagna
8. Spaghetti and meat sauce (this is only like 4-5 meals if I use a whole box of pasta and a pound of ground turkey or beef)
9. Pesto pasta with veggies (again probably more like 4-5 meals but super quick to whip up).

There is nothing better than coming home from work and not having to think about dinner. Reducing cooking to a few times a week saves a lot of time and really helps with reducing eating out because there is nothing readily available and you’re tired.

What are your favorite batch recipes? I’d love to give them a try!