# Cooking ahead for the week

> What reheats well gets made double: sauces, soups, stews, rice, pasta, roasted vegetables. What does not reheat gets prepared, but not cooked ahead: salad, pan-fried fish, omelette.

## The essentials

Cooking ahead does not mean spending your Sunday in the kitchen. It means cooking once to eat twice: doubling a sauce, cooking a kilo of rice instead of 400 g, cutting tomorrow's vegetables while today's are cooking. Three moves, and weeknight evenings go from forty minutes to fifteen.

## The one thing to know

What reheats well gets made double: sauces, soups, stews, rice, pasta, roasted vegetables. What does not reheat gets prepared, but not cooked ahead: salad, pan-fried fish, omelette.

## The landmarks

- Sauces and stews, bolognese, tomato sauce, curry, meatballs: four days in the fridge, three months in the freezer. Often better the next day.
- Cooked rice and pasta: three days in the fridge, with a drizzle of oil so they do not stick. Rice, in the fridge within the hour.
- Raw vegetables washed and cut: two to three days in a container, except avocado and potato, which turn brown.
- Roasted vegetables and soup: four days, and they go into a quiche, an omelette, a salad.
- Meat in its marinade: up to twenty-four hours in the fridge, and it will only be better for it.
- Crêpe batter: one day in the fridge. Quiche and yogurt cake: they are eaten cold or warm, the next day without any problem.
- A gratin assembled but not baked: it waits a day in the fridge, and goes in the oven the next day, with ten more minutes.

## How long it takes

Nothing more on the day: it is the same pot, bigger. Ten minutes to cut tomorrow's vegetables while it simmers.

## If it goes wrong

You made too much and will not eat it in time: the freezer, the same evening, in portions. Tuesday's rice is dry on Thursday: a spoon of water, lid on, three minutes. You do not feel like eating the same thing twice: the same sauce on pasta on Monday and in a gratin on Thursday is not the same dish.

## Make it tonight

The grandma-style bolognese sauce, with a kilo of meat instead of 500 g. Tonight pasta, Thursday quick lasagne or a gratin, and two containers in the freezer.

_See first : [Storing leftovers and cooling them fast](https://disheazy.com/bases/storing-leftovers-and-cooling-them-fast), [Reheating leftovers without drying them out](https://disheazy.com/bases/reheating-leftovers-without-drying-them-out)_

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Source : disheazy, https://disheazy.com/bases/cooking-ahead-for-the-week