Batch cooking is a wonderful way to set yourself up for success with healthy meals ready-to-go for your week. Spending a weekend afternoon preparing meal staples that can be combined into a variety of tasty, nutritious meals throughout the week is key to making a Paleo or AIP (Autoimmune Paleo) diet sustainable even when life gets busy.
When planning your meal prep day, think about making recipes that fall into the categories of proteins, veggies, carbs, breakfast, and snacks. Then, when it comes time to make your meals each day, it’s easy to go to the fridge and combine your meal-prepped components into quick meals. Having these versatile protein, veggie, and carbohydrate sources ready-to-go means it is easy to create a macro-balanced meal, which reduces blood sugar spikes and promotes stable energy.
This article guides you through the process of planning, preparing for, and executing a productive batch cooking session. The sample menu of AIP-friendly batch cooking recipes demonstrates what the process looks like in action. There are also ideas for meals you can make using the components.
I’ve also compiled 20 of my go-to batch cooking recipes and organized them in this easy to use eBook. Inside you’ll find recipes according to the categories of Proteins, Veggies, Carbs, Breakfasts, and Snacks, so you can mix and match recipes on different weeks. The possibilities are endless! All the recipes are Paleo-friendly and most can be made AIP-compliant.
20 Free AIP & Paleo Batch Cooking Recipes
Along with simple tips to make meal prepping and batch cooking work for you, this book will also give you 20 recipes to mix and match for endless meal possibilities.
Inside, you’ll find delicious favorites your whole family will love, including:
- Creamy Mushroom Pasta
- Pesto Veggie Noodles
- Date Protein Bars
- and more!
Here’s How You Can Get Started With Batch Cooking
Preparation
Before your batch cooking day, you’ll want to get several things ready:
- Plan what you’ll be making
- Choose the recipes (protein, veggies, etc.)
- Decide on quantity: How many servings do you want to make? Do you need to double recipes?
- Make a shopping list based on the recipes, quantities, and what you already have on hand
- Go grocery shopping
- Get your kitchen set up:
- Clean your kitchen work surfaces
- Lay out the dishes, kitchen tools, and ingredients
- Finally, cue up a fun podcast or playlist!
Sample Menu:
- Roast Chicken (protein)
- Cottage Pie (protein, veggie)
- Salad veggies (veggie)
- Steamed veggies (veggie)
- Baked apples and sweet potatoes (carb)
- Carob Sweet Potato Protein Pudding (breakfast)
- Plantain Crackers (snack)
Sample Shopping List:
- 1 whole organic pasture raised chicken
- 1 lb grass-fed ground beef
- 2 onions
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 2 carrots
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 head cauliflower
- 4 parsnips
- 4-6 sweet potatoes
- 2-4 apples
- 2 green plantains
- 1 head lettuce (1 box prewashed)
- Assorted salad veggies: cucumber, radish, fennel, carrots, celery, sprouts, fermented veggies/sauerkraut
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- Carob powder
- RootFix Paleo Protein powder
- Coconut oil
Prep Day
Maximize efficiency by starting the recipes that will take the longest to cook first, using the oven for multiple dishes at once, and preparing others while those are baking. For this sample batch cooking session, start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
- Step 1: Bake the chicken, sweet potatoes, and apples
- Step 2: Chop and steam parsnips and cauliflower
- Step 3: Chop and sauté onions/garlic/carrots/celery and ground beef
- Step 4: Make the Plantain Crackers; bake
- Step 5: Assemble the Cottage Pie and bake
- Step 6: Wash and cut salad veggies
- Step 7: Blend the Carob Sweet Potato Protein Pudding
- Step 8 (optional): After removing the meat from the Roast Chicken, make bone broth
Now that you have made all of these components, you are ready to create a variety of tasty meals throughout the week that come together quickly.
Sample Meal Ideas
Breakfasts:
- Carob Sweet Potato Protein Pudding topped with blueberries
- Ground beef with sautéed veggies and baked apples
Lunches:
- Chicken Salad: chopped chicken on top of lettuce with baked apples, diced sweet potato, cucumbers, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing
- Chicken Stir-Fry: chicken, sautéed onions, carrots, broccoli, garlic, ginger, coconut aminos
Dinners:
- Chicken Soup: chicken meat and broth plus carrot/onion/celery, thyme, cassava pasta or parsnips, kale or cauliflower
- Cottage Pie with arugula salad, cucumber, radish, fennel, olive lemon dressing
Snacks:
- Plantain Crackers topped with mashed avocado
- Baked apples with coconut yogurt
Pantry Staples
Keep an assortment of staples on hand that you can combine with your meal-prepped dishes to create complete, balanced meals.
For example:
- Olives
- Avocados
- Coconut yogurt
- Frozen berries
- Baked sweet potatoes, winter squash, and apples
- Lacto fermmented sauerkraut, etc.
- Canned salmon, sardines
I hope this has been helpful and you’ve gotten some new ideas for Paleo and AIP batch cooking. Have fun creating nourishing, delicious meals!
About the Author: Lili Hanft is a certified Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner. She is passionate about the power of real food to support the body’s innate ability to heal, and she believes that nourishing ourselves with nutrient-dense foods can be a profound source of joy and empowerment.
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