Batch cooking

The most common reason people fall off carnivore is cook fatigue. The diet itself is forgiving, but cooking meat from scratch twice a day, every day, gets old by week three. Batch cooking solves this. One ninety-minute session on a Sunday produces six days of meals you can heat in three minutes.

The trick is choosing items that hold their texture and flavour after refrigeration or freezing. Some carnivore foods do this perfectly. Some do not. The workflow below stacks the deck towards what works.

The standard 90-minute Sunday cook

Three items, three pans running simultaneously. The total stove time is around 90 minutes if you have a four-burner cooktop and a competent multi-tasker, longer if you can only run two burners at a time.

Item 1: 2 kg seasoned beef mince

In the largest pan, on medium-high heat. Break the mince apart as it cooks. Salt aggressively (around 1 teaspoon per kg). When fully browned and rendered, transfer to a large bowl. Cooking time: 20-25 minutes.

Use: this is your most flexible building block. Heat a portion with butter and an egg in the morning. Mound it cold with sour cream in the evening. Mix with crispy bacon as a quick meal. Freezes well.

Item 2: 1 kg roasted pork belly

Score the skin, salt heavily, roast at 220C for 30 minutes then drop to 160C for 90 minutes. While that is in the oven, the other items happen on the stovetop. The belly comes out crispy on top, soft and rendered underneath.

Slice into portions when slightly cooled. Refrigerates well — texture is best on day 1 but acceptable through day 5. Reheat briefly in a hot dry pan for crispness.

Item 3: 12 hard-boiled or jammy eggs

A pot of water on the third burner. Bring to a hard boil, drop eggs in for exactly 7 minutes for soft yolks or 9 minutes for fully set. Ice bath immediately. Peel and store in an airtight container.

Hard-boiled eggs hold for a full week refrigerated. Best snack on the diet. Eat with salt.

What freezes well

• Cooked beef mince. Freezes in 500 g portions. Defrost overnight in the fridge or microwave from frozen.
• Cooked sausages and meatballs. Hold texture well.
• Slow-cooked beef (brisket, chuck roast). Improve in flavour with the freeze-thaw cycle.
• Bone broth. Freeze in muffin tins or ice cube trays for portion control, then bag.
• Liver chunks (pre-cooked, individually wrapped). Otherwise hard to use weekly.

What does not freeze well

• Cooked steaks. Texture changes. Better to cook steaks fresh.
• Eggs in any form. Whites get rubbery, yolks split.
• Raw bacon (already cured but the fat develops off-flavours after a month).
• Soft cheeses. Crumbly hard cheese is borderline.

The full weekly workflow

1. 01Sunday morning, 9-10am: shop. Mince, pork belly, eggs, plus 3-4 steaks for fresh-cooking later in the week.
2. 02Sunday 10:30am-12pm: cook. The three-item batch above. Portion immediately while still warm. Refrigerate flat in shallow containers so it cools fast.
3. 03Monday-Wednesday: grab and eat. Reheat mince and pork belly portions; cold-eat the eggs; round out with butter or fresh cream.
4. 04Thursday: cook one fresh steak meal. Breaks the pattern, restores the "this is real food" feel that pure batch can erode.
5. 05Friday: leftovers day. Whatever is left from the batch. Combine into one pan with eggs and finish it.
6. 06Saturday: cook fresh again. Steaks, ribs, or a roast. Builds anticipation for the next cook day.

Equipment that earns its bench space

• Cast iron skillet (30cm). Holds heat, gives a real sear, doubles as an oven-safe roasting pan. AUD 60-120 for a Lodge, lasts decades.
• Stainless steel pan (28cm). Faster cleanup than cast iron, good for mince and eggs. AUD 60-150 depending on brand.
• Heavy roasting pan. For pork belly, brisket, roasts. AUD 40-80.
• A real digital meat thermometer. AUD 15-30. Eliminates guesswork on roasts and steaks. The single most useful AUD 30 you can spend on the kitchen.
• Glass storage containers in three sizes. Shallow ones cool food faster than deep ones. Glass holds up to repeated reheating in a way plastic does not.
• Optional: chest freezer. AUD 400-600 one-off. Pays back inside a year if you also do bulk-buying. See Budget plan.

You do not need an Instant Pot, sous-vide circulator, or air fryer for this. They are nice. They are not necessary.

Common batch-cooking mistakes

• Cooking everything at once and forgetting to portion-and-cool fast. Bacterial growth happens between 60C and 4C. Get food through that zone quickly.
• Over-salting on the cook day. Salt amplifies on the next-day reheat. Aim slightly under-salted, finish with fresh salt on the plate.
• Cooking only ground meat. Variety prevents fatigue. Vary the protein source even if the cooking method is the same.
• Skipping the fresh-cook days. Pure batch becomes monotonous. The Thursday/Saturday breaks matter.

A note on safety

Cooked meat refrigerated below 4C is safe for 5-7 days. After that, freeze or eat. Smell is the most reliable indicator of spoilage; trust it more than the calendar date.

For freezer storage, ground meat lasts 3-4 months at -18C without quality loss. Whole cuts (steaks, roasts) hold for 6-12 months. Label everything with the cook date.

Where to go next

• Plan the actual week first: Seven-day beginner plan
• Keep the costs down: Budget plan
• The food list itself: Food list