A savvy grandma-of-two has revealed how her freezer is always stocked with home-cooked meals for her family costing less than £1 per head, thanks to her dedicatoin to batch cooking.
Zena Heath, 50, from Bermondsey, London, began meal prepping in 1992, prompted by a desire to know exactly what’s going on her plate.
Her freezer is filled with a variety of meals from chicken curry, cottage pie and spaghetti Bolognese, with each meal stretching to feed six people.
The mum-of-two said: “Frozen food has never appealed to me because you don’t know what is going in it.
Zena Heath, from Bermonsdey, in London, has mastered the art of bat-cooking for her family, and can whip up meals costing less than £1 per portion. Three cottage pies cooked by Zena straight out of the oven, costing 91p per portion for a meal for eight
The grandmother’s chicken curry, pictured, costs £4.8 in total, and a six-portions meal comes to 80p per person
‘I prefer to cook everything from scratch so I know where my ingredients are from and to avoid any E numbers for the grandchildren.
‘I don’t batch cook to save money but it definitely helps.
‘On average, I spent £5-7.50 on ingredients which will make six to eight portions – depending on the meal.
‘I cook for myself, my husband Tim, 70, parents in their 70s and my daughter who has two children.
Yorkshire puddings and chicken for a roast cost Zena only 78p per head, without the vegetables
Various sauces for Zena’s meal, which she freezes as well. The grandmother-of-two cooks for her husband, her parents, daughter and granddaughters
Zena said she spent between £5 and £7.50 on ingredients on average. She is mindful of which ingredients she buys in order to provide healthy meals for her grandchildren. Pictured: a Chicken Karma she cooked for eight last year
‘A chicken curry costs £5 for six portions meaning it costs just 83p per head.
‘I have a pressure cooker and a slow cooker so I am able to make multiple dishes at once.
‘I’m always in the kitchen so I may have a Bolognese, lamb stew and cottage pie cooking all at once.”
Zena freezes everything from roast dinners to macaroni cheese.
Her freezer is filled to the brim with homemade meals.
She said: “I cook every day whereas some people might decide to dedicate one day to batch cooking.
“But this way we have a variety of meals in the freezer which just need to go in the oven.
Zena dates and freezes all the meals at home, including these cottage pies, ready to heat them up when the family comes for dinner
Zena’s roast dinner with broccoli, root vegetables, peas, roast potatoes and meat ready to be frozen. Along with her chicken trimmings and Yorkshire puds, this is Zena’s priciest meal, coming at £1.30 per person
‘My husband is 70 so he doesn’t want to mess around cooking when I’m not in.
‘The cooking may be time-consuming but it is worth it. I encourage everyone to batch cook.
‘I think the world of today is going at such a fast pace and a lot of people opt for convenient processed food.
‘Nobody has time anymore.
‘It is such a small effort but you get so much for it.’
The 91p portions of Cottage Pie ready to be frozen up in Tupperware to be enjoyed by Zena’s family later
Pictured: Zena’s batch Spaghetti Bolognese for eight costs £7.60 in total and only 95p per portion
The grandmother-of-two never buys frozen food but instead cooks everything from scratch. She paid £5 for the ingredients to make a chicken pathia, which came down to 62p per head
Left: Zena’s mac n’ cheese costs 80p per person for six people. Her cottage pie, right, comes down to 91p per head