Batch cooking for people who hate batch cooking

2. A pot of Puy lentils

Puy lentils hold their shape, which is why they suit this job: they will not turn to mush on the second reheat. Rinse 400 g, cover with plenty of cold water, add a bay leaf and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until just tender. Drain, then dress while warm with olive oil, salt and a squeeze of lemon. Warm lentils absorb dressing far better than cold ones.

3. A slow tomato sauce

Halve a kilo and a half of Roma tomatoes, roast them cut side up with two red onions, a head of garlic and a generous pour of olive oil at 180 °C for an hour, then blend or crush. Roma tomatoes are meaty and less watery than salad varieties, so the sauce thickens quickly and freezes without separating.

Cool it, store it, keep it safe

This is the part that matters most, and the part most often skipped. Cooked food should be cooled and in the fridge within two hours. Spread the chicken on a cold plate, tip the lentils into a wide shallow dish and divide the sauce between containers rather than leaving it in the deep pan, where the middle stays warm for hours. Your fridge should run at 5 °C or below; a cheap fridge thermometer will tell you if it does.

Then split everything. Cooked chicken and lentils are best eaten within two days of cooking, so anything meant for Wednesday onwards goes straight into the freezer on Sunday night, labelled with what it is and the date. The freezer should hold −18 °C. Move each night's portion to the fridge the evening before, so it thaws slowly and safely.

Six dinners, none of them the same

1. 1Sunday: chicken, warm lentils and greens. Eat the chicken hot from the oven with a spoonful of lentils and a handful of baby spinach wilted into them. The easiest night, and the one that proves the plan works.
2. 2Monday: spaghetti with the tomato sauce. Bronze-die spaghetti has a rough surface that grips the sauce. Loosen the sauce with a ladle of pasta water and finish with grated mature cheddar or olive oil and black pepper.
3. 3Tuesday: a lentil salad with peppers and walnuts. Cold lentils, sliced mixed peppers, cucumber, toasted walnuts and a sharp lemon dressing. No reheating at all, which is exactly what a Tuesday needs.
4. 4Wednesday: eggs baked in tomato sauce. Warm sauce in a pan until bubbling, make four hollows, crack in the eggs, cover and cook until the whites set. Bread on the side. Ten minutes.
5. 5Thursday: chicken and tomato rice. Thawed chicken, sliced and fried hard until hot through, stirred into basmati rice with the last of the sauce and a few frozen peas. It tastes like a different kitchen made it.
6. 6Friday: lentil and tomato soup. Thawed lentils, any sauce left in the freezer, a litre of stock, simmered for ten minutes and finished with lemon. The week's scraps become the week's most comforting bowl.

Small habits that make it stick

The plan survives because it leaves room. A few habits help:

• Season lightly on Sunday, boldly on the night. Salt and oil at the batch stage; chilli, herbs, citrus and cheese at the plate.
• Keep one fresh thing per dinner. Spinach, peppers, cucumber, a lemon. It is what stops the week tasting reheated.
• Use shallow, clear containers. They cool faster, stack better and show you what is left.
• Swap freely. Salmon for chicken, chickpeas for lentils, a tray of roast vegetables for the sauce. The structure matters more than the ingredients.

If the idea of cooking for one makes the quantities feel daunting, halve everything; the same logic applies, and our guide to meal planning for a household of one covers portioning in more detail. For the freezer side, the freezer is not a graveyard has a labelling system that takes ten seconds.

Try it this Sunday

Pick just one component this week, the lentils are the easiest, and see how many different plates it becomes before Wednesday. Next week add the sauce. By the third week you will have your own three, and the Sunday session will feel less like a chore and more like buying yourself five quiet evenings. The chicken, lentils and tomatoes are in the meat, pantry and vegetables aisles.