- 84 portions of food from The Healthy Mix IV made in the Thermomix ready for the freezer stash.
- $190 spent on shopping from the butchers & Woolworths (inc. containers) for all ingredients except Skinnymixers Chicken Stock Concentrate & Spices.
- 6 hours meal prep cooking including a lunch break, serving up, cleaning the kitchen, testing team duties & an extra trip to the shops – you should easily be able to do it in 5hrs. This was using a TM5 & TM31.
- You will need The Healthy Mix Cookbook Collection from Skinnymixers to cook these recipes.
Our amazing Brooke is back again with another Thermomix Meal Prep Cook Up, this time it is from The Healthy Mix IV cookbook.
Once again Brooke has gone above and beyond, by providing the Skinnymixers Community with a step-by-step how to meal prep guide of what she did and a printable shopping list spreadsheet.
Thank you Brooke! (please make sure you show your appreciation by sharing it with everyone that you think would benefit)
Love Nik xx
P.S. If you need a Thermomix Travel Bag – I highly recommend checking out Brooke’s website Whole Home & her fantastic Travel bags for TM31 & TM5 that she designed.
Now over to Brooke…
You may have seen my first blog post ‘Healthy Thermomix Meal Prep – 75 freezable dinners for $2.80 per serve’ earlier in the year where I had a bulk cook up day for my 80 year old grandparents to make mealtimes easier for them.
5 months later Nan had a bare freezer again, it was school holidays and I had lots of cooking to do but no freezer space at my own home. So it was the perfect opportunity for another bulk cook.
84 portions of food later ready for freezer stash, my grandmother will be set for a few months or so.
We spent just under $200 on shopping from the butchers and Woolies (inc containers) for all ingredients except for some Skinnymixers Chicken Stock Concentrate (THM1) and spices (I bagged these up from my house before going on holidays).
This worked out to a mere $2.25 per portion.
As I am a Skinnymixers development team tester I had plenty of dishes I need to test so it was a perfect opportunity to re-stock Nan’s freezer and get my testing duties completed.
I choose the following meals with a couple protein subs to suit Nan’s likes and we added some sides as individual serves ready to go are best for Nan so she can just grab, heat and eat on the fly. We made 9 different dishes as I needed to get some testing recipes done but ideally I’d stick to 6 and double up some instead. I have bulked out these dishes with additional sides to increase the vegetable intake and stretch them further to save money.
This cook up took around 6 hours including cleaning, serving, labelling and lunch. I was measuring, taking process photos, other testing duties along the way plus a quick trip to get some more containers so should knock it over in less than 5 hours.
Meal Planning
Caprese Stew
Served individual meals with pasta and veg.
I used the chicken variation for this dish.
Served individual meals topped up with some stirfry veg.
Served individual meals topped up with some additional veg.
I changed the beef to chicken for this. Chicken can be subbed and cooked for 8 minutes. Do not increase the quantity of chicken or it will shred and cook inconsistent. I cut in medium-large slices.
Served individual meals served with rice and stirfry veg.
We split this meal into foil containers (double serves). We didn’t bake at so they popped into the oven to finish off and serve with a fresh salad or vegetables.
Chow Mein – Mince variation
Served individual meals served with rice and stirfry veg.
Hungarian Goulash – slow cooker variation
Doubled and cooked on high to start off so that it would finish in the cook time I had.
Served individual meals served with rice or pasta and veg.
Shepherd’s Pie with Hidden Veg – Vegetarian variation topped with Silky Sweet Potato Mash
We split this meal into foil containers (double serves). We didn’t bake at so they can be popped into the oven to finish off and serve with a fresh salad or vegetables.
I choose to replace the potato with sweet potato. I double the amount and cooked in the varoma, then mash 2 batches of mash using the sweet potato mash method.
Lemon Ginger Chicken – slow cooker variation
Doubled & cooked on high to start off so that it would finish in the cook time I had.
Served individual meals served with rice and stirfryveg.
Sides
- Rice – cooked on the stovetop
Penne – cooked on the stovetop - Sweet potato mash
- Steamed veg (frozen vegetable mix and some excess vegetables from the recipes)
- Stir fry veg (excess vegetables from recipes plus a few others purchased)
Planning
- The Healthy Mix 4 cookbook for meal choices.
- Prepared all the spices required for each recipe and a fresh batch of chicken stock concentrate as I was travelling.
- Prepared a shopping list.
- Reviewed fridge, pantry and freezer contents (which was pretty much zip).
- Ordered online shopping with Woolworths for click and collect the day before and picked up the meat from the local butcher.
- Planned the order of what to cook in what thermomix/slow cookers/appliances to best utilise the time
Also don’t forget the freezer space needed to store the meals, so clean out prior to cook up day.
Cooking Day
Get the slow cooker recipes on first then move onto the Thermomix recipes.
Prep as much as you can as most of these recipes are quick cooks, ie. Peel that bag of onions, those couple cloves of garlic at once.
Use all leftover vegies as sides.
Shopping List
Download your printable Shopping List spreadsheet when you subscribe to our Skinnymixers Mailing List – click here or the image below.
Cooking
Slow Cooker 1
- Hungarian Goulash
Slow Cooker 2
- Lemon Ginger Chicken
Thermomix 1
- Swedish Meatballs
- Chow Mein
- Tuna Mornay
- Steamed Vegetables
Thermomix 2
- Shepherds Pie
- Mongolian Chicken
- Sweet & Sour Chicken
- Caprese Stew
- Sweet Potato Mash
Non thermie jobs in between
- Cut up chicken
- Prep all vegetables
- Roll meatballs
- Cook penne
- Cook rice
- Cook stirfry vegetables
- Dishes
- Serve up & label
Tips for Freezing
- Allow meals to cool slightly before serving into dishes.
- Allow to completely stop steaming before putting on lids.
- Further cool in the fridge before freezing (day/over night).
- Use appropriate sized containers so they are full.
- You can use glass or higher quality plastic containers should you wish and the budget allows.
Tips for Reheating
- Ideally defrost in the fridge first then can microwave heating evenly.
- Yes everything freezes and reheats well.
Other FAQS
Q: Do you have more than 1 thermomix?
- Yes, I used 2 Thermomixes with 2 jugs each, 2 slow cookers, stovetop and an electric fry pan. 2 Jugs are a luxury, you could empty a jug into a container and continue on.
Q: Wow must have a huge freezer?
- No, they stacked really well and only took 4 drawers of space in a side by side french fridge/freezer.
Other resources that you might find helpful for meal planning:
- Top 12 Thermomix Recipes to Freeze
- Meal Plan: Freezer Stash for Quick Meals
- Top 10 Skinnymixers Recipes for 2018
- Coeliac for Beginners Guide + Gluten Free Thermomix Recipes
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