batch cooking
/bætʃ ˈkʊkɪŋ/
Very CommonCooking large quantities of food in a single session to eat across multiple days or weeks.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | batch cooking sunday: roasted veggies, two grains, a big pot of soup. set for the week | One cooking session produced enough food to cover most of the week. | tiktok, 2024 |
| 02 | batch cooking is the only reason i don't eat cereal for dinner three nights a week | Having prepped food available prevents resorting to minimal-effort meals. | x, 2023 |
| 03 | started batch cooking beans from scratch instead of buying canned. saving a lot | Batch cooking dried beans in bulk is cheaper than buying individual cans. | reddit, 2024 |
| 04 | batch cooking for one is still worth it. future me is very grateful | Cooking in bulk benefits single-person households too. | instagram, 2023 |
Use it when
- Cooking a large quantity of one recipe to eat over multiple days.
- Describing a dedicated cooking session that produces multiple portions.
- Planning a cooking day to reduce daily effort during the week.
Do not use it when
- You made a double batch of one dinner with no intent to prep for the week.
Variations and related forms
Batch cooking vs meal planning
batch cooking
Batch cooking is the act of making food in bulk. It is physical preparation.
VS
meal-planning
Meal planning is deciding what to eat and when. It is scheduling and logistics.
Origin and context
A mainstream cooking technique that became a named content genre through meal prep communities on YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok. The term 'batch' comes from manufacturing, applied to food to describe production-scale quantities at home.
- First seen
- pre-2010s
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/batch-cookingUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0