Vast vat of vittles: recipes with many servings
September 17, 2021 10:59 AM   Subscribe

What are your favorite recipes, pots & pans, and secrets for making a lot of food at once? Share with me your giant casseroles, swimming pools of stew, buckets of beans. What enormous caldron of plenty or just-use-frozen-instead-and-this-recipe-is-in-the-oven-in-ten-minutes secrets help you make a lot of food at once?

I want to make two or three large meals at the start of the week and serve them for the rest of the week. I’m looking for 8- or 10- or 12-serving recipes. I’m a competent cook with decent knife skills and access to a range of groceries and specialty markets. I have a standard 4-burner stove and oven. The only gadget I have is a stovetop pressure cooker (NOT an instant pot style thing--it cooks hotter and faster and every time I use an instant pot recipe it goes badly).

Simple or easy recipes or recipes with shorter prep time preferred. Long cooking time is fine. Reheats well is a must.

Food restrictions: no meat and dairy in the same meal, no pork, no shrimp, no shellfish

What should I cook? What tips do you have for making larger quantities? Is there a cooking pot/pan/implement or gadget that you find absolutely essential for making large amounts of food at once?
posted by carrioncomfort to Food & Drink (22 answers total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is not the exact recipe I have for the French soupe au pistou, but it is very similar. Double that recipe and you have about the quantity I would get. Most recipes for soupe au pistou have you DIY the pesto, but I frequently just got a premade jar or tub of pesto and dumped that in instead. You can even go without a recipe - basically soupe au pistou is soup flavored with a big glob of pesto and crammed with a fuckton of vegetables. The recipe I have doesn't even use broth, it just uses plain water. So you could just hit up the produce section in your supermarket for a bunch each of each of the vegetables on that list (carrots, celery, leeks, green beans, a tomato, zucchini and summer squash) and maybe a couple other things that seem like they'd be good to add (peas, a can of beans, a potato or two) and then get a jar of pesto. Then chop everything up, dump it in your biggest pot with enough water to turn it all into a soup, and simmer away. You can even throw in like half a box of elbow macaroni during the last 10 minutes.

When I was doing theater, I would make a big batch of this and pre-freeze single-serving portions, because I knew that after a rehearsal I would be too brain-fried to actually cook. So I would have that on hand so I could just pick up a roll at the corner store on my way home, pull a container out of the freezer and sling it in the microwave, and then eat it with the roll on the side.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:27 AM on September 17, 2021 [1 favorite]


We like big pans of breakfast casserole (essentially layer of tater tots, layer of seasoned veg + optional sausage, layer of cheese, dump on egg/milk mix, bake in oven for an hour ish). I make a double batch and freeze the second one in a disposable half-tray pan - a friend instead freezes in a well greased regular pan then pops out and wraps tightly in plastic wrap.

Sample recipe but very forgiving of substitutions, use what you like.
posted by february at 11:34 AM on September 17, 2021 [1 favorite]


The classic here is to cook a chicken (or two) in your pressure cooker with some vegetables and herbs of your choice. First day eat the breast parts, with a lovely lemony velouté sauce with capers, and potatoes or rice and a green salad on the side. Then pick off all the meat and cook the bones in the cooking liquid to make an even more delicious and gelatinous stock. Refrigerate the chicken meat in at least two containers, pouring a little of the stock over to avoid drying out.
Make a chicken noodle soup the next day and serve it with a good sourdough bread and fruit for dessert, but don't use all the stock, because you'll need a little for making chicken pie* with peas the third day to be served with a fresh Middle Eastern salad of cucumber, tomatoes, onions and olives. If your chicken is a good fat free range chicken, you will have plenty of chicken fat as a base for the two completely different velouté sauces. And then make a mayo based salad with asparagus and whatever else you like for the fourth day, served with toast made from leftover sourdough from day two, and perhaps some store bought hummus as an other option for topping the toast. Or a make stir-fry with the rice left over from the first day. Depending on the sides, one large chicken can feed a wolf, or a family of four. Have lots of pickles and other preserves in the fridge for little appetizers that make the whole meal seem luxurious.
Now the dog wants to go out, I'll be back with another option

*use store bought vegan pie dough, whichever type you prefer
posted by mumimor at 11:36 AM on September 17, 2021 [3 favorites]


Chili season is coming right up too! One of those amazing foods that gets better as leftovers, and you can change it up a little by pairing with cornbread/squash/baked potato/rice etc.
posted by february at 11:37 AM on September 17, 2021 [2 favorites]


Above I mentioned two different velouté sauces. You can make a big batch on your cooking day, and just season them differently for the two different servings.
posted by mumimor at 11:41 AM on September 17, 2021


Manjula's butter paneer scales up almost infinitely, freezes well, and and re-heats well. You'll need a blender or hand blender, though.
posted by Kreiger at 11:43 AM on September 17, 2021 [2 favorites]


This Smitten Kitchen black bean chicken chili is very easy, very flexible, and delicious. As written, it makes a ton of food - I think about ~16c, so something like 8 moderate sized servings, but you could easily double (or 1.5x) it if you have a pot big enough. It keeps well in the fridge, and freezes decently too. I usually make it in an Instant Pot, but there are stovetop instructions at the link.

I usually make it with all chicken thighs (sometimes I use frozen ones, turns out fine) and all black beans, rather than mixed breasts/thighs or mixed beans. I often use frozen prechopped onion and frozen prechopped garlic to make prep even easier. The recipe calls for adding heat via chopped jalapeños or ground chili power - I usually use canned chiopotle in adobo instead.

(The photos in the blog post show it with sour cream on top, but it’s an optional garnish - the base recipe is dairy free.)
posted by insectosaurus at 11:53 AM on September 17, 2021


I make instant pot beef babacoa, but have done the same dish in the oven in a dutch oven and a slow cooker with no problems just a longer cook time, but it's set and forget and very forgiving Then dinner that week is everything from an dip type sandwich to tacos or burrito bowls or put it on a tray under the grill to heat up and crisp up and I have carnita style dish. I've mixed the meat with tinned tomato sauce even to make a pasta dish. Change up the herbs and spices and you've got Italian style beef if that's more your jam.

Curries are my other go to for feeding large numbers, avoid the ghee and use premixed spiceblends to save time. I've quadrupled that recipe and throw in a pile of veggies including zucchini and sweet potato and it made a huge amount of food. Curries are great as you can throw in a bunch of veggies to stretch things, make lots of sauce and serve with rice and it goes far. Curry tastes so much better the next day and freezes well.

Equipment wise, get a nice big rice cooker if you're feeding a lot of people regularly, being able to set and forget the side dish is a life saver, it doesn't have to be a fancy one though they're nice. Cooked rice freezes and reheats well too. Instant mash is also in my OMG I have to feed a lot of people playbook. You can buy bags of preprepared and flavored frozen veg at the supermarket designed to cook in the oven. Throw a couple of trays of veg in the oven while you're working on the main.
posted by wwax at 11:55 AM on September 17, 2021


Tip: If you have a soup recipe that calls for pasta (chicken noodle, minestrone, etc) make the soup and then freeze it / refrigerate it before you add the pasta. Just cook a little pasta on the night you're having it. Noodles in soup don't store quite as well well, and it's pretty easy to heat up a few noodles in water while you're reheating the soup - you can even pull them out a little underdone and finish in the soup as it warms up.
posted by true at 12:08 PM on September 17, 2021 [3 favorites]


I often do a big pot of rice, beans, sausage, and greens. Here's what I did last night, which probably made at least 8 servings:
Chop an onion and cook it in some oil in a big dutch oven.
Add three cups of uncooked rice and stir, cook for about a minute. Add some salt and pepper.
Add five cups of broth and one can of diced tomato, (you could also add some seasoning here - I usually add some here and some at the end to taste) bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and let sit about 20 minutes.
In another pan, cook up some sausages.
You could add fresh greens here and cook until they wilt, or frozen spinach and warm it up.
I added two cans of pinto beans to the sausage/greens, then added all of it to the rice when it was almost cooked.
Stir everything together, add whatever seasoning you like (I did a Cajun seasoning blend this time,) and cook a few more minutes.
posted by tangosnail at 12:19 PM on September 17, 2021 [2 favorites]


The vegetarian option is to cook a large batch of sturdy lentils in your pressure cooker: Puy, or Beluga or similar. The cooking liquid should be simple: a whole onion, a carrot, a few cloves of garlic, some bay leaves, salt and pepper. It is really fast cooking.
If you want to go even faster, lentils from a tin is one of the tinned foods that are absolutely fine.
They can be eaten as they are, as a lentil stew to be served with bread. In that case I'd make a sofritto/mirepoix/whatever you want to call it, of finely diced vegetables that I fry gently in oil or butter. When they are soft, add the amount of lentils you need, some crushed tomatoes from a can, a bit of vegetable stock -- from a cube is just fine -- and simmer till the lentils are cooked through. Serve with chopped parsley and croutons from a box, and/or bread.
You can make a lentil salad. Remember, your lentils are already cooked! The linked recipe is for inspiration, you just need to prepare the fixins. For me, this doesn't have to be a side, I love lentils. But if you want it is a good companion to any type of omelette -- from the classic French over frittata to a Spanish Tortilla served cold. A Spanish Tortilla is not fast food, but it is good make-ahead food. Though here they are in every supermarket fridge.
And finally, in our house lentil stew as described above is the preferred stew for a gardeners pie, the vegetarian or vegan version of a shepherds pie, depending on wether you use butter or vegan butter for the mashed potatoes.
posted by mumimor at 12:39 PM on September 17, 2021


I am always a big fan of a tortilla casserole, which is both easier to make and easier to play around with than lasagna. I am vegetarian so I don't do the chicken, and frankly I think the rice in that recipe is just taking up space, but you do you!

If you're short on time, you can go the all-canned-or-frozen route and just chuck some cheese, beans, corn, enchilada sauce, tortillas, and spices in a casserole and bake. Or you can make any or all portions of the fillings from scratch -- usually I will at very least saute some onions and garlic with the corn and spices, but I have also made the enchilada sauce from scratch and cooked dried beans which lets you spice them better.
posted by goingonit at 1:27 PM on September 17, 2021


Pot pie! You could use veggie broth and load up on veggie filling instead of chicken and it would still be good.

I love this recipe because 1) I love pot pie and 2) you can make it as simple or involved as you like. I usually use pillsbury crusts rather than making my own but like to make the stock from scratch if I have the time, but it’s delicious either way. The recipe makes enough filling for two pies, but I like to make a lil’ more filling than the recipe calls for. It freezes great too!
posted by cakelite at 4:22 PM on September 17, 2021


While I have a decent stock pot, a while back I treated myself to the Corelle Visions set with the 5L stewpot, and that and a cheap well-worn 5qt enamel-over-cast-iron brasier (pretty close in shape and quality to Crock Pot's 5qt braiser) are my go-to meal prep pots. I also have a number of commercial half-sheet and quarter-sheet baking pans that do a lot of roasting duty, and I also use them (the quarters, usually) to make sheets of egg-sausage-and-cheese (use frozen cooked sausage patties) to cut up for breakfast sandwiches.

I have a couple of fast-as-possible meal preps that I tend to pick one from while I'm doing maybe something more elaborate on another burner/oven shelf. One of our favorites is just to kind of par-cook frozen grocery store meatballs on a sheet pan while making a basic tomato sauce on the stovetop, drop a package of frozen cauliflower into the sauce, and do a finishing simmer with that and the meatballs. If you want pasta in it, you can soak that for 15 minutes in warm water and then put it in the sauce after you turn off the heat so it finishes cooking on reheat. You can shoehorn just about any produce that's about to go bad into this too - I often do zucchini or even aged brussels sprouts or cabbage.

I also really like to make a lentil soup that starts by braising a lot of chopped cabbage (I like it with butter, but you could use margarine or oil of choice) and any other produce that needs to get used plus aromatics, and then I add whatever protein I'm going with, which for optimal laziness can be ground beef/chicken/turkey though I can usually be convinced to cut up chicken thighs (or turkey smoked sausage) for this, let that get about half-cooked and then add stock or broth and the lentils to cook until about al dente - again, they'll get softer just sitting there and softer still on reheat. You can season to your mood, but I do always like fennel seed with lentils, and celery seed if I don't use celery. Sometimes I will include rice in the soup, or serve it with cooked rice or pasta later, but it's also good just as soup with some nice bread or toast.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:14 PM on September 17, 2021


If you haven’t got one a largeish stainless steel pot would be essential for those large batches of stew, chili etc.

I prefer stainless steel over cast iron or non stick because I use it to sauté or brown things and then add liquids, often tomato based/acidic and unless you really forget the dish/never stir and allow all the liquids to evaporate I don’t burn anything. And the pot goes in the dishwasher. So if you haven’t got anything like that, find one you like.

If in doubt pick the widest your stove and cupboards will accommodate, not the tallest. Larger is always better than smaller because it gives you the option to make a larger batch but you don’t have to fill it to the top if you’re making less. And lower is easier to stir and thus more suitable for things like stews and chili as opposed to making stock.

I have no opinion about the linked pot, it’s just an example.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:36 PM on September 17, 2021




It's not exactly a recipe, but periodically I'll make a big pot of chana dal and freeze it in 2-portion servings. That plus basmati in the rice cooker plus a dish of whatever veg we have on hand cooked with some garlic and maybe ginger makes a tasty and satisfying meal.

(There are many dals; chana dal is our household favorite due to its rich, almost buttery nature.)
posted by Lexica at 6:21 PM on September 17, 2021


I make a chickpea and kidney bean chili, which can be scaled up or down.

- Start by sautéing an onion (I use sweet onion, or your preference);
- Add grated garlic and ginger and cook for 1-2 minutes;
- Add 1-2 TBS cumin and half that of mild chili powder, stir to bloom spices;
- Dump in a can of diced tomatoes, cook for a few minutes to cook out raw taste;
- Add 2 cans each of chickpeas and kidney beans, and enough water to barely cover;
- Cook for 20 minutes or so, adjust seasoning (I usually add more cumin, plus salt and pepper);
- Mash a few chickpeas against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon, to thicken.

This keeps very well in the fridge, and just increase the number of canned beans and tomatoes if you want a larger batch. If you want meat, add some ground beef or chicken toward the start, but I like it without meat. Very tasty and comforting. You can also top with cilantro, if you like that.

I also do something similar with dried red lentils, sometimes adding curry powder for a different flavor profile. Sometimes add rice to the pot. Red lentils do get thicker when stored over time, and can be loosened with a bit of water upon reheating. But they cook up very quickly.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:50 AM on September 18, 2021


I make big batches of Messy Rice: fry chopped onions, fry up a pile of whatever miscellaneous mince/liver/kidney/sausage is cheap where you live, add a can of beans, two cans of tomatoes, a load of rice and some jerk seasoning (or whatever other seasoning you fancy). Add enough water to get the rice cooked, and then leave it all on a low heat until it looks like dinner.

Pressure cooker lamb and prunes would also be good!
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:00 AM on September 18, 2021


Veganomicon’s Leek and white bean cassoulet is a good fall or winter dish, kind of a vegan pot pie.

Any soup, stew, chilli, and most curries would work - being tastier after the flavours sit and thus making good leftovers is basically what stews are best at.

On the non-vegetarian end of things, you could also cook up a chicken (or other small fowl) as muminor described and combine some of it with Moroccan or other North African spice blends and serve over cous cous (which cooks in five minutes).

An additional use for lentils if you make a batch of minimally flavoured lentils at the start of the week is to mix them with a marinade/dressing of your choice and serve over toast (from a toaster, or the sort where you butter both sides and broil the in the oven, flipping halfway through, which I had thought were called crouottes but google returns me no results on that word / asks me if I mean croquettes or croutons or culottes instead (no on all counts)). This will taste better if the lentils were able to sit and soak up the flavour overnight, but you can vary the flavourings, or split the batch of lentils into daily portions and add a different marinade/dressing to each, to have variety despite batch cooking.

Oven-caramelizing a large batch of onions to have on hand to top rice or lentils or similar staple with is also good, and much easier than regular caramelized onions. Heat the oven to anywhere in the 350-415 degree range (if you’re cooking something else in the oven, this can be done at the same time; though not a good idea to combine with baking, since the onions will require you to open the oven and give them a stir periodically). Thinly slice a bunch of onions into rings. Coat them well with cooking oil (anything that has a high enough smoke point for whatever temperature you have your oven set for. I use grape seed oil as my general cooking oil, and that’s been fine for this application too) and distribute around a glass baking dish (you want a thick enough layer to fully cover the bottom of the baking dish, but not too thick that the onion slices won’t all cook relatively evenly). Cook for about an hour and a half, or until browned (but mostly not crispy), stirring about ever half hour (the ones on the edges and corners will cook faster, and so might get crispy before others are fully cooked if you don’t stir them). (Oven caramelized onion technique also from the Veganomicon.)
posted by eviemath at 8:31 AM on September 18, 2021


Simple jambalaya. Skip the slow cooker and make it on the stovetop. I swap barley for rice sometimes and usually omit the chicken.
posted by Red Desk at 2:06 AM on September 19, 2021


A version of Wendy's chili recipe. I usually make a half recipe with ground turkey instead of beef. The full recipe fills my biggest pot. It's always good.
posted by Lookinguppy at 9:26 AM on September 20, 2021


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