How to Cook for a Whole Week Over the Weekend

By chopping all vegetables at once, considerable time will be saved.

Cooking everyday is not only time consuming, but also can become monotonous. By cooking everything for the week on the same occasion, time spent chopping, preparing and cleaning dishes is considerably reduced. For example, rather than cutting up vegetables and cleaning the chopping board five times, you will only need to chop and clean it once. With a little planning and creatively, all your meals for the entire week can be made in just a few hours over the weekend.

Instructions

1. Make a creative plan. Write out meals for the entire week, reusing many of the same ingredients such as meats, vegetables and grains in various meals throughout the week. For example, chicken breasts, rice, pasta, beans and chopped vegetables can be used to make chicken stir-fry, Mexican casserole, chicken pesto pasta, quiche and burritos.

2. Buy all the ingredients. Making a list of all ingredients and buy them all on the same trip to save time going to the store during the week. If using the example plan in step 1, buy boneless chicken breasts, rice, pasta, black beans, various vegetables, tortillas, pesto sauce, eggs, sour cream, salsa, onions, soy sauce, garlic, pie crust and spices. The amount of these ingredients to buy will vary according to the size of your family.

3. Chop everything at once. Chop all the onions, vegetables and garlic for all meals at the same time. If you have a food processor, make use of it. This will save considerable time chopping.

4. Assemble and cook everything in your meal plan. Store the meals in the refrigerator using plastic containers with a tight lid or covering with aluminum foil. The meals can also be frozen and eaten at a later time.

5. Eat leftover dinner for lunch. Creativity can help if you don't like eating leftovers. For example, put the stir fry in a tortilla to create a stir-fry wrap or put the stir-fry on a pizza crust to make a stir-fry pizza.

References

• The Thrifty Wife; Cook All Your Week's Meals on the Weekend, and Yes, on a Budget; Ashley Eneriz; April 2011
• Weight Watchers; Cook Once Eat All Week- Weeknight Dinners; Melissa Sperl