Plan my cook day

Use the whole bag

Most food gets binned a bit at a time: the second half of the bag, the end of the loaf, the stalk. Batch cooking is when you can use all of it, because the oven’s on and the kettle’s boiled anyway.

Plan my cook day
A 2kg bag of potatoes
  1. Roast potatoes 1kg. Sunday’s roast, for 4 Cooking anyway
  2. Mash 1kg. For the freezer, 4 portions +10 min
  3. Potato peel crisps The peelings. A snack, 4 small bowls +5 min

How does batch cooking reduce food waste?

On a cook day you buy for the recipes you’re about to cook and cook them all at once, so the half bag of potatoes and the broccoli stalk each have a recipe in the same session.

What food waste costs a family

WRAP, the UK’s waste charity, puts the food a family of four throws away that could have been eaten at about £1,000 a year (WRAP, 23 Nov 2023, from 2021 figures). How much of that is in your bin?

  • Fewer shop-bought snacks Crisps from the peelings, oat bites from brown bananas, made from the ingredients on the list.
  • Less money in the bin One shop for the session, and the food you’ve paid for gets eaten.

The extra recipes fit into the waits of a cook day you’re already doing, and each one says how many minutes it adds.

Five foods, and what to make from each

In a WRAP survey in June 2024, these were the five foods people said they threw away the most of (Resource Media, reporting WRAP).

  1. Potatoes Use the whole bag of potatoes Roast potatoes, mash for the freezer and crisps from the peelings, all from one 2kg bag. Number 1 on WRAP’s list +15 min in one session
  2. Bread Use the whole loaf Breadcrumbs for the freezer and croutons for soup, from the ends of the loaf. Number 2 on WRAP’s list +10 min in one session
  3. Broccoli Use the whole head of broccoli Florets for tonight’s side, half the stalk into a soup for the freezer and half into sticks for dips. Number 3 on WRAP’s list +5 min in one session
  4. Bananas Use the whole bunch of bananas Banana bread and banana oat bites, baked side by side in the same oven. Number 4 on WRAP’s list +11 min in one session
  5. Carrots Use the whole bag of carrots Honey roast carrots, a soup for the freezer and the peelings saved for stock. Number 5 on WRAP’s list +11 min in one session

How we count the minutes

The minutes on each page are the hands-on time a recipe adds to a session you’re already cooking: peeling a second kilo while the kettle boils, a tray on the shelf below. They’re our estimate, not a stopwatch. The waiting time, when something’s in the oven, isn’t counted.

Every claim on this page, and where it comes from, is on our claims page.

Sources

  1. Resource Media, reporting WRAP’s June 2024 survey Food waste in UK homes has climbed 21 per cent in 2024 (19 Mar 2025) resourcemedia.eco
  2. WRAP Urgent action needed at scale to tackle food waste in our homes (23 Nov 2023) wrap.ngo

Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.

All batch-cooking guides

Plan a cook day that uses the whole bag.

Nomstash puts every recipe on one shopping list, so you buy one bag of potatoes and use all of it.

Plan my cook day I already have an account