Batch Cooking for Breakfast

Spring has finally sprung and it’s time to bring some batch cooking to our kitchens now that we’ll (hopefully!) be spending most of our free time outdoors watching the kids play, grooming our gardens, going for bike rides, or (if we’re lucky) all of the above.

This is the time of year when I spend the least amount of time in front of the stove, but the reality is that I still have a lot of hungry people to feed. Instead, I batch cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and rely on those pre-made foods to help me through our many weekly meals.

Most people focus on batch cooking for dinner. But you can totally batch cook breakfast because of course you can make big batches of food for your morning meal just as easily as any other.

For starters, you can never go wrong with keeping large jars of homemade granola on hand. Serve it in bowls topped with a splash of cold milk, or spoon over yogurt and cover with berries for a quick and healthy cold breakfast. If you like a hot meal in the morning, premade pancake mix is a huge helper when you’re hurried, and so are frozen waffles, a popular breakfast menu item with the kids.

While it may be tempting to fill your freezer with frozen waffles from the supermarket, homemade versions are much healthier and definitely more economical. They also happen to be a cinch to make and freeze beautifully, guaranteeing you a good breakfast on your busiest weekday morning.

I like to make a single or double batch of these vanilla orange yogurt waffles, and freeze the ones we don’t eat for another day. To do so, just allow the cooked waffles to cool completely, then place them in a Ziploc bag, label with the date, and pop in the freezer. When you’re ready to finally eat them, place the waffles in a toaster or toaster oven and toast until heated through. Alternatively, they can also be reheated in a 300°F oven for approximately 10 minutes.

Tell us, what are your favourite foods to batch-cook for busy weekday mornings?