A weeknight from the freezer
Tuesday, after bath time, you move Wednesday’s bolognese to the fridge. On Wednesday you get in from nursery pick-up and put the pasta on.
Nomstash reminds you the night before. The Food Standards Agency’s defrosting rules are in the safety basics below and in freezing, defrosting and reheating safely.
Cook the dinners they already eat
Make a bigger pot of what goes down well at your table. All of these are in Nomstash.
- Lentil bolognese Sauce from the freezer, pasta on the night
- Cottage pie Mince under mash, in small trays
- Mac and cheese Pasta in a cheese sauce, in small trays
- Fish pie Fish in a creamy sauce under mash, with peas
- Katsu curry Sauce from the freezer, crispy chicken and rice on the night
Leave carbonara for a night you’re cooking anyway.
Sized for your family
One container is one family dinner, and as the children grow, so do their portions. Freeze a few singles too, for a late shift or a lunch on your day off. For school lunchboxes, bake banana oat bites from the brown bananas in the fruit bowl.
One afternoon, done by teatime
Chilli and bolognese share onions, garlic and chopped tomatoes and both cook on the hob, so the oven doesn’t hold you up.
An example cook day. How to plan a cook day walks through it by the clock.
You don’t need to buy kit first. What you need to start batch cooking is mostly what you already have.
Labels the whole house can read
When you’re out, whoever is home can find dinner. Put the dish in big letters and the date it was made on every container. A Nomstash label also says who it feeds, like the two above.
The safety basics
For you and anyone else who cooks for the children. Each rule comes from the Food Standards Agency.
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Cool cooked food at room temperature and put it in the fridge within one to two hours.
cool cooked food at room temperature and place in the fridge within one to two hours
Food Standards Agency -
Defrost in the fridge overnight. If you can’t, use the microwave’s defrost setting directly before cooking.
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
use a microwave on the defrost setting directly before cooking
Food Standards Agency -
Once it’s fully defrosted, eat it within 24 hours.
use food within 24 hours after it’s been fully defrosted
Food Standards Agency -
Food that’s been cooked and frozen is reheated once, not again after that.
you can freeze food again once cooked, but you’ll only be able to reheat it once after that
Food Standards Agency
Last checked against the Food Standards Agency page linked here.
Every rule, with all its sources: freezing, defrosting and reheating safely.
If you cook for a parent as well, batch cooking for someone you care for covers one cook day for two homes.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.