Batch cooking basics: six recipes, one oven, two hours

Most meal-prep advice fails because it’s a diet in disguise. This isn’t that. Batch cooking is a scheduling trick: you move seven small, tired decisions into one deliberate block while you still have the energy to make them well.

The whole system is six recipes, one grouped shopping list, and a single two-hour window with the oven running the entire time. Do it once and Tuesday night stops being a question.

Cook things that overlap, not things you like

Pick recipes by their equipment, not your cravings. One thing roasts, one simmers, one is no-cook. The oven, the hob and the fridge each carry a job, and none of them waits on the others.

• Roast: sheet-pan salmon, chicken thighs — same oven, same 200°C.
• Simmer: red lentil curry, a pot of grains — unattended, 25 minutes.
• No-cook: overnight oats, energy bites — assembled while the timers run.

Label everything, trust nothing

A container with no date is a science experiment. Write the recipe and the day it was cooked on tape. The point of the whole exercise is to make the week a lookup, not a guess.