Two hours on Sunday, and you eat home-cooked every single night — no more standing at the fridge at seven in the evening wondering what to make. Batch cooking is the method used in professional kitchens, adapted for everyday life. And according to ADEME data, it also reduces food waste by thirty percent on average. Here are the five exact steps.

01 / 05Choose 3 bases one grain, one legume, one protein

Step one: choose your three bases for the week.

Grain: rice, quinoa or cooked pasta — 200g dry → 5 portions

The grain base: rice, quinoa, or cooked pasta. Two hundred grams of dry rice gives five portions, and they keep four days in the fridge without losing texture if you store them still warm in a sealed container. Quinoa has the advantage of also providing complete proteins — which gives you more flexibility with the week's protein choice. For pasta, cook it slightly al dente: it will finish cooking when you reheat it.

Legume + protein: lentils or chickpeas + hard-boiled eggs or roasted chicken

The legume base: green lentils or canned chickpeas, rinsed. They need no cooking if you use canned ones, and they pair with everything. The protein base: hard-boiled eggs — six eggs cooked at once, seven minutes at a rolling boil — or a chicken breast roasted in the oven with a tablespoon of olive oil and herbs. These three bases — grain, legume, protein — are the building blocks for all your meals of the week. You vary the sauces and vegetables so that every meal feels different.

02 / 05Plan the week 2 cold, 2 warm, 1 soup — simple rotation

Step two: plan the five meals of the week.

Monday–Tuesday: cold salad (grain base + legume + raw veg)

The five-meal plan works in three types. Monday and Tuesday: cold meals — a composed salad with your grain, your legumes, seasonal raw vegetables and a vinaigrette. Prep time at lunch or dinner: two minutes — just assemble. This is the type of meal that absorbs vegetable surplus and requires no equipment. You can take it in a container with no reheating.

Wednesday–Thursday: warm stir-fry — Friday: homemade soup in 15 min

Wednesday and Thursday: warm stir-fry. You reheat your grain and protein in a pan with a tablespoon of oil, add a diced seasonal vegetable — courgette, pepper, spinach — and a sauce of your choice. Five minutes flat. Friday: homemade soup. You chop the remaining vegetables from the week, cook them twenty minutes in water or stock, then blend. Friday's soup uses whatever is left — it is the anti-waste safety net of the plan. According to ADEME data, this single habit reduces weekly food waste by thirty percent.

03 / 05Shop in 1 trip aisle-organised list — zero forgotten items

Step three: shopping in one single trip.

Dry aisle: grain (200g) + legume (1 can) + stock cube

The batch cooking shopping list is organised by aisle, not by recipe. That prevents back-and-forth and speeds up checkout. Dry goods aisle: two hundred grams of grain, one can of legume, one stock cube. Fresh aisle: your protein for the week — six eggs or a chicken breast. Fruit and vegetable aisle: five varied seasonal vegetables — one for each meal type. The golden rule: buy what is in season — it costs two to three times less and you will be certain to use it before the end of the week.

Estimated budget: €15–20 for 5 meals (€3 / meal)

This basket costs between fifteen and twenty euros depending on the season and market. That is three euros per meal on average — half the cost of a supermarket ready meal, four times less than a home delivery. And it is one single trip per week. No emergency run on Wednesday evening because you are missing an ingredient — everything is there, planned, accounted for. It is this cumulative time saved — ADEME estimates two hours per week avoided in shopping and decision-making — that gives the method its name.

04 / 05Stack it in 2h start the longest first — run everything in parallel

Step four: stacking the cooking in two hours.

T+0 min: rice in oven + chicken in oven — T+20: vegetables in steamer

The secret to the two hours is parallelisation. You never cook one thing at a time — you start everything that needs a long cook first. At T zero minutes: rice in absorption mode in a covered saucepan on low heat, and chicken roasting in the oven at two hundred degrees. While that cooks, you chop your vegetables. At T twenty minutes: vegetables go in the steamer or a second pot of boiling water. At T forty minutes: eggs go in the boiling water for seven minutes. While you wait, you prepare your vinaigrette and sauce. At T fifty: everything finishes at the same time.

T+60 min: portion into labelled containers — T+90: fridge

At T sixty minutes, everything is cooked. You let it cool for ten minutes — never put something boiling directly in the fridge, it raises the internal temperature and accelerates the deterioration of other food. Meanwhile, label your containers with the contents and the date. At T ninety: everything is in the fridge. Count portions in advance: one box per meal, or large bulk containers to pick from as you like. The single constraint: separate wet bases — soup, sauce — from dry bases — grains, legumes — so nothing gets soggy.

05 / 05Store through day 5+ fridge 4 days, freezer for the rest

Step five: storage — the ANSES guideline.

Fridge: 3–4 days max (ANSES) — airtight containers, never metal

The ANSES guideline for home-cooked dishes: three to four days maximum in the refrigerator between zero and four degrees. No more. Beyond that, the risk of bacterial growth is unacceptable even if the dish still looks fine. Use glass airtight containers or food-grade plastic — never metal, which reacts with acidic foods. And never cling film alone: it does not protect sufficiently against cross-odours in the fridge. The four-day rule means concretely: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Friday, it is either the end-of-week soup, or it goes in the freezer.

Freezer: up to 3 months — label date + contents

To go beyond four days, the freezer. Cooked grains freeze very well — rice, quinoa, even pasta. Legumes too. Cooked proteins lose slightly in texture when defrosted, but remain perfectly good in a stir-fry or a soup. Maximum freezer time: three months for cooked meat and fish, six months for grains and legumes. The labelling rule remains mandatory: freezing date and contents. Without a label, you end up with white mysteries in your freezer that you will never dare defrost. And you will waste them anyway. The label is the simplest anti-waste tool in existence.

This advice is general information and does not replace a professional's opinion. When in doubt (health, electricity, chemicals), ask a specialist.

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