Cooking is not worth it if you live alone; limited fridge/freezer space and stuff being sold in larger quantities than I need means most of the ingredients won’t get used fully and I end up throwing away something anyway or have to eat it for three days straight.
Do the same thing every Saturday and Sunday with a different dish each time. Viola now you have a rotating menu. The food will be good in the freezer for quite a while.
I haven’t found many dishes I enjoy eating after they’ve been frozen. I end up cooking the same dish again before I’ve finished the frozen ones as it tastes so much better fresh.
I’ve kept up the habit of prepping for a few months but I gave up as I started ordering in unhealthy food a lot more rather than eating the frozen stuff.
It may not be an option if you’re severely restricted on space but it helps if you make enough to freeze a couple extra portions of food and eat them weeks later. Generally when you are cooking for yourself it’s healthier than processed or restaurant food and it’s cheaper. I tend to gravitate to international markets where they have bulk bins of vegetables so you are able to just buy a single carrot, single potato etc. Cooking in slightly larger portions and shopping that way really helps to reduce waste for myself.
A small format chest freezer doesn’t take up much space and holds a ton of food. A 5 cu. ft. one will hold a month’s worth of food ( about 175 pounds) for one person in a 2 ft. by 2 ft. footprint while sipping electricity.
That’s the thing: it’s a choice with pros and cons. On one hand there’s an up front expense, you need to invest time in planning, shopping, cooking, and you need to find/make space to store food.
On the other it quickly pays for itself, it’ll bring your food costs way down, and you can make better tasting/healthier meals in lieu of exclusively eating out or ready to eat meals. You can still use the later for more variety: you’re just saving money by doing it less.
They said they didn’t want to eat the same thing for 3 days straight, much less a week. So it sounds to be like that plus their limited storage space really makes their situation different from yours.
I have like a “babys first playschool refrigerator/freezer” thing that basically belongs in a camper, but I make it work. The key for me is to cook things kinda “basic” as in limited, generic, seasoning and then spice it up how I want when I’m ready to eat it so it doesn’t get boring. Then as others mentioned you cook all in one day. I make a chicken dish in the slow cooker that lasts a week in the fridge, so you shouldn’t need a freezer for your weeks worth of food.
I buy a family pack of chicken and separate a few breasts to stick in my tiny ass freezer that doesn’t even have room for a normal size ice cream tub, I freeze a few rolls, and anything else like vegetables is generally canned so I don’t need to worry about waste.
Cooking is not worth it if you live alone; limited fridge/freezer space and stuff being sold in larger quantities than I need means most of the ingredients won’t get used fully and I end up throwing away something anyway or have to eat it for three days straight.
Cook 4 or 5 chicken filets on Sunday, 2 cups of brown rice in the rice cooker, bag of frozen veggies.
Lay out 6 containers in each put about 100g of Chicken into each, 100g cooked rice in each, and about half a cup of frozen veggies in each.
Put all the containers in the freezer. Take one each day for lunch, microwave for about 2 to 3 mins.
All up that’s like $15-$20 for lunches or morning tea for the week.
Yeah but then I gotta eat the same thing every day, and I prefer to have a varied diet.
Do the same thing every Saturday and Sunday with a different dish each time. Viola now you have a rotating menu. The food will be good in the freezer for quite a while.
I haven’t found many dishes I enjoy eating after they’ve been frozen. I end up cooking the same dish again before I’ve finished the frozen ones as it tastes so much better fresh.
I’ve kept up the habit of prepping for a few months but I gave up as I started ordering in unhealthy food a lot more rather than eating the frozen stuff.
That’s 3 weeks of prep in individual containers. OP said they didn’t have a lot of storage space.
It may not be an option if you’re severely restricted on space but it helps if you make enough to freeze a couple extra portions of food and eat them weeks later. Generally when you are cooking for yourself it’s healthier than processed or restaurant food and it’s cheaper. I tend to gravitate to international markets where they have bulk bins of vegetables so you are able to just buy a single carrot, single potato etc. Cooking in slightly larger portions and shopping that way really helps to reduce waste for myself.
It’s worth it if pick a day each week to make a couple recipes, then portion out and freeze them.
Even better is getting together with a friend or family member to meal prep.
A small format chest freezer doesn’t take up much space and holds a ton of food. A 5 cu. ft. one will hold a month’s worth of food ( about 175 pounds) for one person in a 2 ft. by 2 ft. footprint while sipping electricity.
That’s the thing: it’s a choice with pros and cons. On one hand there’s an up front expense, you need to invest time in planning, shopping, cooking, and you need to find/make space to store food.
On the other it quickly pays for itself, it’ll bring your food costs way down, and you can make better tasting/healthier meals in lieu of exclusively eating out or ready to eat meals. You can still use the later for more variety: you’re just saving money by doing it less.
One mini fridge should be plenty of space to fit about a weeks worth of meal prep for one person. I know this for a fact.
They said they didn’t want to eat the same thing for 3 days straight, much less a week. So it sounds to be like that plus their limited storage space really makes their situation different from yours.
It sounds like a bunch of excuses lol
I have like a “babys first playschool refrigerator/freezer” thing that basically belongs in a camper, but I make it work. The key for me is to cook things kinda “basic” as in limited, generic, seasoning and then spice it up how I want when I’m ready to eat it so it doesn’t get boring. Then as others mentioned you cook all in one day. I make a chicken dish in the slow cooker that lasts a week in the fridge, so you shouldn’t need a freezer for your weeks worth of food.
I buy a family pack of chicken and separate a few breasts to stick in my tiny ass freezer that doesn’t even have room for a normal size ice cream tub, I freeze a few rolls, and anything else like vegetables is generally canned so I don’t need to worry about waste.
You save so much money when cooking for yourself!