How to Cook Once a Month and Save Time and Money

Member

By Carol McKenzie
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(6 Ratings)

You can save time and money, and eat well too, by employing once a month cooking.

It's not as daunting as it seems. With a little planning, some savvy shopping, and maybe some help from family members, you can reap the benefits of once a month cooking.

And those benefits are: you'll always have meals on hand, saving time at the end of a rushed work day, and you'll avoid the temptation, and expense, of carryout or fast food when everyone's hungry.

The following article gives you the steps you need to succeed. Give once a month cooking a try and see if you too can save time and money.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Calendar
Recipes
Freezer containers, labels and permanent markers

Step 1

Plan your menus.
Get a calendar, a notepad, and recipes your family enjoys and you enjoy cooking. Stick to simple fare to start; this isn't the time to try a complicated new recipe with 20 ingredients.

Plan for one main dish, and also as many side dishes as your family usually eats, per meal. You won't need 30 different recipes; you can plan with as few as five to seven recipes, which can give you a different meal each night.

Take into account that not all recipes freeze successfully; eggs, mayonnaise or cream based sauces usually do not freeze well, nor do potatoes, which can get mushy.

Start this process several days before you plan to shop and cook.
Step 2

Make a shopping list using your recipes as a guide.
Look for similar ingredients - onions, for example, are used in many recipes - and organize your list so you can look for bulk items at the store. If your family enjoys Italian dishes, you may find buying one industrial size can of tomatoes a greater savings than many small cans. The same for chicken, beef or vegetable stock; sometimes larger sizes offer more value than many smaller cans.

Also add disposal foil pans, freezer paper and aluminum foil to your list, along with disposable freezer containers and zippered freezer storage bags, if you are in need.

Don't plan to do your grocery shopping on the same day you plan to cook; it's too much to accomplish. If you plan ahead, you can check several different markets for sales on non-perishables and shop for perishable items the day before.

You can also gather sales fliers for your stores and adjust your recipes if you find items that are on sale.
Step 3

Get organized.
Make sure all the dirty dishes are washed and put away before you start, the pots and pans you need are clean and ready to go and you have no other plans for the day. Do this the night before so you're ready to start fresh in the morning.

Take some time to sit down with your recipes and decide in what order they need to be prepared. If you plan to make a beef roast or roast a chicken or two, preheat the oven and get that going. If something needs to be made in the crockpot, plan to start that early in the day so it has time to finish.

Set out the spices and seasonings you need in one central location so they're ready to grab as you need them.

Fill the sink with hot soapy water. You may need to wash knives or cutting boards in between preparing ingredients.

Finally, dress for comfort and in shoes you are comfortable standing in. Find some music to motivate you and get started. And don't forget to make yourself a lunch and a snack or two.
Step 4

Start cooking.
Organize your cooking day by combining tasks. If you need onions or celery for several recipes, chop them all at once. Portion them out and grab what you need for each recipe. The same goes for browned ground beef, or cooked chicken.

To keep some semblance of order, work on assembling one dish at a time. If you find two or more dishes need to be baked at the same temperature for about the same length of time, assemble them one after another, and put them in the oven together.

As you start to finish cooking dishes, set them aside to cool completely before you attempt to portion and freeze them.
Step 5

Freezing the meals.
Consider how you plan to reheat the dishes as you get ready to freeze them. Individual portions freeze more quickly than a whole casserole. However, if you plan to reheat an entire casserole for dinner, you can line the casserole dish with heavy duty foil before assembling and baking the dish, freeze the finished casserole in the pan and then lift out the frozen meal by the foil, re-wrap the frozen casserole, and return it to the freezer. When it's time to reheat, you can unwrap the frozen casserole and just pop the entire thing back in the pan it was originally baked in.

The only drawback is you may find the pan you need to bake your next dish in is in the freezer.

As you package your meals, write the name of the meal on the package, the date it's going in the freezer, and any instructions for reheating. It's also a good idea to make a chart with the same information to post on the freezer or keep in the kitchen, so you can see at a glance what exactly is in the freezer.

Comments

nanamusicgirl said

Flag This Comment

on 11/11/2009 This is a great job!!! I think it's a good idea to cook ahead and have many meals in the freezer! I probably only get time to cook once or twice a month!!!! Great idea! 5 stars.*****

Elizabethknows said

on 11/5/2009 Well shared thanks

shaly01 said

on 11/4/2009 Great article! Thought I didn't cook for a whole month, 4 kids kind of prevent that, I did manage to get over a weeks worth of good meals out of it. I found freezable plastic containers at the local Dollar Tree and made a casserole, lasagna some hamburger helper and stuffed shells, all of which reheated perfectly the next week. Thanks for the tips^^