[lizard]

> If you are time-sensitive, then cook more at a once to amortize your time investment. Your freezer isn't just for holding the crap that comes frozen at the grocery store. You can accumulate weeks worth of high-quality DIY rations with proper discipline. Think about how big a pot you could actually put on your stove. How many cubic feet is your oven? Do you have the ability to run a propane burner outside? You can make a month's worth of lunch in 3 hours. Think about the economics of that at scale. Sure, you would spend a solid week cooking, but then you would have several amazing meal options to choose from for an entire financial quarter.

Do you, or others, have any advice or references for this? I cook at home, and I generally enjoy it, but I'm not very good with the meal planning part and knowing what will save, for how long, and how to store it, so I'm mostly making meals a day or two at a time and at the grocery every week.

I may not be able to get away from that entirely, but I'd love to scale the daily food prep back and limit the weekly shopping to only the stuff I need fresh.

[rho138]

My favorite for this is bulk batching anything that could freeze well and owning a chest freezer - if thats an option. Chili, burritos, spaghetti, curry, etc. Anything that goes on rice is a prime target, just make 2-3 cups per person at the start of the week and fiend off of that. If you’re feeling froggy then fried rice at the mid-end of the week is also a super keen way of getting rid of fridge waste.

[bob1029]

Start simple. Things that are trivial to store for long term and easy to reheat would be soup, chili, taco prep, pasta.

Meal prep doesn't necessarily mean 100% completed ahead of time either. For me, I have a perpetual frozen store of taco meat (1 frozen portion per meal), but I still have to toast up the shells fresh each time and occasionally cycle in a new bowl of beans, which lasts 2-3 days per in the fridge. Frozen portions you can bet on for ~90 days minimum in a typical consumer side-by-side before freezer burn and defrost cycle starts to take hold. If you have a proper deep freeze arrangement, many things will last indefinitely.

[vidanay]

> I have a perpetual frozen store of taco meat

Now I'm fantasizing about taco starter that works just like sourdough starter. Take out a couple scoops for dinner, add back a few oz of your meat choice and a shake of seasoning, repeat.

[bastian]

Great way to get started: Feed Your People: Big-Batch, Big-Hearted Cooking and Recipes to Gather Around https://a.co/d/bzk1f8u