Batching more efficiently

Plant-based kitchen mojo is something you nurture and develop. This is true even for those with lots of omni cooking experience. You will get faster if you keep batching, so be patient with yourself and know every minute is worth it! 

What causes longer batch times?

Let’s talk about what sorts of things contribute to longer batch times. Here are some factors that can lengthen your batch time:

• Using a more complex Gourmet meal plan or Magic Meal Plan
• Limited cooking experience
• An inefficient kitchen setup or extreme space limitations
• Low physical mobility or chronic pain
• Batching multiple meals for several people without assistance
• Interruptions from kids, pets, partners, work, fire alarms (just kidding…we hope), etc.

If one or two or all of these describe your reality, don’t give up!

Try to think of these as normal life challenges. If you keep going, you’ll nurture your resilience and your health. You deserve delicious, vibrant food that fills you with joy.

Keep reading (and batching), we’re here to help.

Practical tips

We have tons of batchers in our Facebook community, each with unique challenges and experiences. We’ve sourced the following tips from the community as well as the experts on Team Dirty. Take what works and leave the rest. There’s no wrong way to batch.

Let’s get to it:

Batch a Simple meal plan!

• These plans are designed to be quick and easy. You know that the batching will be fast and the meals will be tasty before you even start.

Do your grocery shopping one day and your batch cooking the next day.

• This will decrease fatigue on your batch day.

As soon as you get home from the grocery store, wash, dry, and store your produce.

• You’ll be one step ahead on batch day.

Wear comfortable shoes.

• Seriously. Batching barefoot can increase pain and fatigue. It can also be dangerous with sharp knives and hot food flying around. Reducing pain and fatigue will keep you moving quickly without losing motivation. Nothing makes you want to quit like being uncomfortable. Here are some more tips on reducing fatigue. If you don’t typically wear shoes inside your house, dedicate a pair just to batching so they won’t track dirt in from outside.
• We recommend shoes with thick, cushiony soles like trainers or kitchen clogs. You don’t need something expensive, just make sure that you can stand comfortably in them for hours. 

Batch cook right after you wake up.

• Batching first thing will ensure you’re alert and refreshed, and it’s less likely that you’ll feel the desire to put it off. Deciding to do it later is the first step in not doing it at all.

Read all the recipes all the way through and gather all ingredients before you start prepping.

• Reading through everything first will ensure you don’t get caught by surprise. If space permits, pull out everything you’re gonna need and have it nearby, ready to go. Pre-measuring the spices for each recipe into small bowls (and labeling them!) can be super helpful for recipes with lots of spices. 

Prep your ingredients before starting (mise en place).

• We provide a pre-batching Mise en Place (prep) list for you on the Batching tab. “Mise en place” is a French culinary term that means getting everything ready for a recipe before beginning to cook. Following the list will put everything on hand as you need it, decreasing the time each recipe takes to finish. Some fast batchers don’t follow the list while others do. Try it and find what works for you. Just remember to label your ingredients to avoid time-wasting confusion! Take a look at our Ingredient Prep Tutorials to find short demonstrations on the best way to slice and dice. 

Use your food processor to chop, slice, dice, and shred your veggies.

• It ain’t always pretty, but it’s fast and worth the clean-up. If you prioritize speed over how uniform your chopped veggies look, this is the tip for you. There’s usually no need to rinse the processor between veggies (just do onions and spicy peppers last). Don’t sweat processing things too small. Smaller pieces cook faster (keep this in mind when setting your timers, you may want to check your roasted items a few minutes early) but they can also change the overall texture of your dish, so find what works for you. 

If you’re batching a meal plan, cook in the order the recipes are written.

• The batching order is designed for maximum efficiency and typically won’t have two back-to-back recipes that use the same kitchen appliance.

When you reach downtime in a recipe, move on.

• After putting your veggies in the oven for x minutes or starting your Instant Pot, check your recipe to see if there’s anything after the current step that you can do ahead of time. After that, move on to the next recipe and do what you can for that one. Doing this consistently can cut down on your total batch time. But be mindful. If you have trouble multitasking, it may be better to only move forward a step or two rather than getting confused and frustrated. Being diligent about checking off steps as you move through recipes and multiple timers with labels can help.

Keep a clean workspace.

• If space permits, fill your sink with soapy water before you begin and wash dishes as you go. Keep a clean, damp rag handy to wipe down surfaces and clear clutter as you work. How helpful this is will depend on you and your kitchen setup. Some of our fast batchers don’t wash anything unless they need to use it again. Others swear keeping their space clean helps them work better. If you’re not into doing dishes throughout your batch, we recommend at least getting into the habit of rinsing out messy items as soon as you put them in the sink to make clean up easier later.

Keep a scrap bowl on the counter.

• This is a small change that can make a big difference. Having a place to put your carrot tops and onion skins within arm's reach while chopping reduces trips to the trash can or compost bucket and adds up to more time saved than you’d think. When your bowl is full, empty it, and keep going. We like to use our biggest big-ass salad bowls for this.

Listen to something stimulating.

• Whether that’s music that makes you want to move, a podcast that inspires you, or an audiobook that transports you, let your ears keep your brain engaged so your body can take care of the rest.

Sharpen your knives regularly.

• You don’t need fancy knives, but you do need them to be sharp. #TrustTeamDirty. Sharp knives will reduce the amount of time you spend chopping, mincing, and dicing. If you’re not sure if your knife is sharp, then it’s probably not. You can buy a cheap DIY sharpener or take your knives/mail them in to a professional knife sharpening service. You won’t regret it. 
• On a related note, if you don’t know anything about safe knife techniques, watch some videos online, check out our Ingredient Prep Tutorials, and practice every time you cook. The proper cutting technique will allow you to work faster safely. Your fingers will thank you.

Organize your kitchen.

• Even if your kitchen is already in pretty good shape, you may want to take a look around with an eye to batching efficiency. Alphabetizing your spices, keeping a clear shelf in the fridge for batched food, or labeling all of your bulk ingredients are good places to start. There are lots of resources and ideas for kitchen organization online. Dive in and see what tickles your fancy.

Get inspired.

• Chazz, one of our legendarily fast test batchers, recorded a batch cooking session and included lots of her tips and tricks for a quick batch.

Helpful tools

We like to keep things simple and we’ll never tell you that you must spend tons of money on expensive kitchen tools. However, there are a few items that many of our expert batchers wouldn’t want to do without. None of these are necessary to batch, but if you’re in a position to invest in some tools and you want to maximize your batching efficiency, then we encourage you to check these out.

We love our Instant Pots.

• We include Instant Pot (IP) instructions for many of our recipes in addition to stove top directions. The real benefit to using an Instant Pot isn’t just faster cooking, it’s that you don’t have to think about it. Pop on the lid, seal the steam valve, set your timer, and move on. There’s no stirring, watching, or remembering. You can focus completely on something else. Your busy brain will thank you. If you can swing it, buying an extra inner pot will allow you to prep for a second Instant Pot recipe while one is currently cooking.

Get a pair of kitchen shears.

• These are scissors that you only use for food. You can use them to snip herbs right over the pot or to quickly chop greens directly in the salad bowl. You’ll find dozens of uses for them that will delight and surprise you. But, seriously, don’t use them on non-food items, especially paper. Nothing blunts sharp scissors like paper. We like the ones that come apart for easy cleaning and drying.

Multiple sets of measuring cups and spoons keep things clean.

• We like to dedicate one set to dry ingredients and the other to wet ingredients. Less rinsing and drying between steps is a win.

Silicone baking mats are sort of amazing.

• Using a silicone baking mat instead of parchment paper is more sustainable and offers you better protection against sticking. They’re also super easy to clean because our oil-free recipes wipe right off. Depending on which items you’re making, you can often reuse the mats from one batching recipe to the next without rinsing at all. They come in all the same sizes as standard sheet pans.

Multiple timers save your sanity.

• When you’ve got tofu in the oven, a soup that needs to cool for ten minutes before blending, a sauce thickening on the stove, and you’re chopping garlic for the next recipe, a multi-timer will keep you from losing your cool. There are lots of multi-timer apps available for your phone or tablet, you can purchase a few individual timers, or you can invest in one fancy timer that supports multiple simultaneous countdowns. It’s up to you. Find one with labels you can change or assign each area in your kitchen a number that corresponds with a specific timer (oven is 1, stove top is 2, counter is 3, etc) to keep you from staring blankly at a beeping timer wondering what the hell it was for. Work smarter not harder, fam!