# Batch cooking for people who hate batch cooking > Two hours on a Sunday, four lunches handled, and no eating the same container four days straight. Component cooking is batch cooking for normal people. _Sanne de Vries · 15 May 2026 · 7 min read_ Batch cooking has an image problem, and honestly, the image is accurate. Four identical containers of chicken, rice and broccoli, each one a little sadder than the last, until Thursday's lunch goes in the bin and you're back in the sandwich line. If that's the version you hate, good news: that version deserves it. There's a better one. ## The mistake: cooking four finished meals Classic meal prep fails because it locks in your decisions too early. On Sunday afternoon, eating the same bowl four times sounds efficient. By Wednesday your appetite disagrees, and appetite always wins in the end. The fix is not more discipline. The fix is to stop deciding on Sunday what Wednesday-you will want to eat. ## Cook components, not meals Instead of four finished meals, cook parts: - **One protein:** a tray of chicken thighs, or marinated tofu for a meat-free week - **One carb:** a pot of rice, quinoa or small potatoes - **Two vegetables:** one roasted tray (whatever was on offer), one raw (cucumber, tomato, carrot) - **Two sauces:** something creamy (yogurt, garlic, lemon) and something with heat (chili, soy, honey) Nothing here is a meal yet. That's the point. Meals get assembled on the day itself, in two minutes, based on what you actually feel like. ## The two-hour Sunday The script is short. Oven on, protein tray and vegetable tray in. While they roast, the carb simmers on the stove and you stir together two sauces, which takes ten minutes including tasting. Chop the raw vegetables, line up the containers, done. All in, it's about two hours including cleanup, and most of that is the oven working while you do something else. ## Same parts, four different lunches - **Monday:** a bowl: rice, chicken, roasted vegetables, creamy sauce - **Tuesday:** a wrap: chicken, raw vegetables, the spicy sauce - **Wednesday:** rice salad: rice, both vegetables, sauce, whatever protein is left - **Thursday:** fried rice from everything that remains, one pan, five minutes Four lunches from one cooking session, and you never eat the same meal twice. The components stay interesting because the combinations keep changing. ## Let Routine do the remembering Here's the tracking bonus. Scan Monday's bowl once, then add that lunch to your Routine tab, pinned to the weekdays you eat it. MealSnap places it onto the coming days automatically, so your batch-cooked lunches essentially log themselves. Went off-script on Wednesday? Adjust that day, scan what you actually ate, and the routine carries on unbothered. Batch cooking was never supposed to be a personality. It's two hours that buy you a calmer week, better lunches than the sandwich line, and a food log that fills itself in. Hate it a little less. That's all it asks.