Homely Food Without Cooking Everyday - The Indian Nest (2024)

How we have homely food without cooking everyday?

You may be fascinated by this! How is it possible to have homely food every day without cooking every day? Isn’t it?

Do you know why home cooking beats ordering takeaways?

Restaurant meals can contain lots of unhealthy ingredients.

As a busy mom, the situation makes us buy from outside. After this lockdown, seriously, I was bored with my self-cooked foods. But, all these below reasons caused me to cook for my family and me.

Benefits of homely food (home cooking)

1. Healthy Living

In some studies, it’s proven that home-cooked foods are healthier. These studies have also shown that restaurant meals typically contain higher amounts of sodium, saturated fat, total fat, etc.

When you are aware of every ingredient of your food, it will be more enjoyable.

2. Money-saving

Home cooking is a money-saver process. Yes! It saves your life and money. You may probably know how much you cost for your grocery shopping and your food parcels.

Here in Bengaluru, a decent biriyani cost Rs 250 per plate (it may vary according to your city). Then how much it cost for a four-member family OMG! Rs 1000.

Using these 1000 rupees, I can easily buy groceries for my four-member Indian family for two weeks (vegetarian meals). Yes, That is the power of home cooking. You can save lots of your money.

3. Healthy family bonding

I believe that cooking, eating is the prominent family reconnecting time for everyone.

Every time I’m the chef of our kitchen, my husband takes the in-charge (only dinner if he has a good mood to cook?). Then I get the charge of washing dishes with lots of chit-chats. Thus home cooking benefits a lot for the entire family.

Now let me say that the secret tip of everyday homely food is freezer cooking.

Freezer cooked meals

Photo by Kim Deachul on Unsplash

When you have some meals already prepared in the freezer, you don’t need to stress about your food. As I told you before, you don’t need to feel bad about ordering unhealthy.

Thus the most stress-less process I love. I don’t know how to explain to you how this made my life so easier.

The essential tip for freezer cooking is bulk cooking. If you make sambar or dal fry, cook them in bulk. Then make it into 1 to 2 parts, which goes directly into the freezer after cooling.

Why I love freezer cooking?

1. It helps me when an emergency comes.
2. It makes my day so relaxed if I feel like having a break from the kitchen without takeaways.
3. Freeze food would not lose any nutritional value.
4. I can stoke food for one month without any tension.

You may like this

• Refrigerator rules and Food Storage Guidelines.
• The Ultimate guide for proper and safe home food storage.

Now let’s go through freezing instructions for Indian food.

Indian foods you can freeze

1. Curries made without coconut milk or fresh cream.
2. Sambar
3. Non-veg items
4. Chutney
5. Chapati/ Roti
6. Rice
7. Cooked fish, chicken, or meat
8. Cooked lentils
9. I always freeze leftover dosa and idli or store the idli batter for future use.

You can freeze most of the Indian food. Always make sure you are correctly freezing it with an air-tight container or bag.

Things you can’t freeze.

1. Cooked egg whites
2. Fried foods
3. Hard-boiled egg
4. Cooked rice
5. Mayonnaise based salads
6. Potatoes
7. Creamy soups
8. Milk

Leftover cooked meals

Do you know leftovers are used to make different varieties of other dishes with just a little thought and planning? I think your cooking skills help you to discover more about it.

Seriously leftover food is a blessing for both our time and money. It’s my other favourite way of no-cook day. Yes! a great way to reduce food waste.

It’s safe to use leftover within 3-4 days.

How do I decide my leftover day?

As I mentioned above, I used to keep food for 3-4 days in the refrigerator.

Every time, I have bulk cooked food that goes into the refrigerator. If I have a safe curry on the first day, I make a dry item that again goes into the fridge the second day. On the third day again, anything comes out as leftover.

Now, the fourth day it’s a leftover day, no-cook day.

You can adjust with freezer-cooked meals.

Let’s see the type of leftover foods,

Types of leftover foods

You can safely have your leftover foods depending upon three factors.

1. Safe food preparation
2. Proper storage
3. Type of food

If you are unsure about the food, it’s safe to toss leftovers within three days.

Lower risk foods

1. Fruits and vegetables

• Thoroughly washed and cut fruits can be kept for about 2-5 days.
• Fruits and vegetables with high water content, such as tomatoes, cucumber, and strawberries, lose freshness quickly.

You may like this: The ultimate guide to store fruits and vegetables.

2. Dry foods

• Roti can be safe to eat for about 5-7 days.
• Slices of bread in the fridge will help extend their shelf life by about 3-5 days.

Medium risk food

• Cooked rice, wheat, or any other grains will keep for up to 3days when properly stored.
• Always store cooked rice without water content in it.

Higher risk food

Non-veg food

Egg, chicken, and meat that has been cooked last in the fridge for about 1-3 days. Always make sure about proper food storage before consumption.

Home-cooked leftovers and restaurant leftovers

You can eat home-cooked leftovers sooner than within 3-4 days. While in the case of restaurant foods, you don’t know how fresh ingredients were.

Consume restaurant leftover as soon as possible.

At restaurants, don’t forget to take your leftover food to the table when you leave. And you don’t want to be shame about it, why do you want to waste your hard-earned money, right!

After a home-cooked meal, pack up the leftovers and get them into the fridge after everyone has filled up. Label the leftover food containers and store them in a refrigerator where you won’t forget about them.

Making sure we eat all of the food we prepare is a critical way to reduce waste and save money. Now you will start to show leftovers some love, so grab them in a clean safe container and store.

How can you tell whether food has gone wrong?

Signs of spoilage

• Firstly you can spot the signs of food spoilage by smelling it.
• Look for a change in texture, variety of colors, or appearance of mold.
• Toss your leftover immediately if its flavor is off.

These are my no-cook day secrets and, I hope you got some idea about freezer cooking and leftover meals for hectic days. And these are some of the frugal living ideas.

Let me know how your days come up with these no cooking tips. I hope you like these tips to have homely food without cooking everyday.

If you have such ideas, let me know in the comment section down below.

with

❤️

Nasreen

Please don’t forget to pin this for later!