Ingredient Stacking

Ingredient Stacking

Souper Hacks 

Have you seen the Souper cube videos that have blown up on the internet? It's blowing up as an easier way to meal prep. The originator of the trend, Sarah (@simplysarahhart) freezes large portions of common, interchangeable meals such as rice, mashed potato, chili, soup, even guacamole! Then she simply mixes and matches them, reheats them and enjoys a home cook meal with 0 effort. If you've been thinking about meal prepping, forget cooking and eating the same meal every day and getting bored of it by Wednesday, instead try these tips (including using Souper cubes to your advantage) 

Ingredient stacking 

Ingredient stacking is a part of the pre-prep prep that comes with organising dinners for the week. It happens before you even step into the grocery store and, in just half an hour, can save you time, stress and money.

Stacking fresh produce is one great way to save money and reduce food waste. When you buy a bag of spinach, a head of lettuce and a half head of cabbage, the chances of getting through all of that before it goes bad is nearly impossible, unless you plan to eat the same recipe multiple times a week (how boring!). Instead, you could substitute and stack. Both spinach and cabbage (as well as kale, collard and brussel sprouts) are great raw in salads, as well as cooked in stir frys and casseroles. Using cabbage in replace of lettuce for a cobb salad, and sautéed in chow mein, and as filler for tacos, means you can use up a whole head in a week (if you also use it in wraps for school, and in coleslaws, in scrambled eggs — really, a cabbage head is like the magic pudding, it just keeps giving). 

This way, you save money and reduce food waste by not having to buy multiples of ingredients you won’t use up.  Pre-flavoured sausages like our Lamb, Mint and Rosemary signature sausages don’t only make great bangers, they also make a delicious filling for shepherd pie, rissoles for elevated cheeseburgers and mince for tacos. With a little dedication, chicken breasts can become schnitzels for an at-home parmy, strips for honey soy garlic stir fry and cubed for one-pan vegetable and chicken bakes. Fish is great grilled for tacos, tenderly cooked in Indian curry and crumbed for classic fish and chips. We could go on and on, but you get it, right?  As we mentioned, meal prep is not necessary for ingredient stacking but it can be helpful to batch cook ingredients that’ll appear in a similar form in multiple dishes. 


Mix and Match

When dinnertime comes around, we feel pressured to make a 'proper' meal. It's the classic meat, veg, and carb, plus a delicious sauce, and the perfect sear on that steak. If you've been struggling to keep up with this pressure, it's time to redefine what makes a proper meal - and no I'm not talking about toasted sandwiches (though that's valid, too). Consider mixing and matching ingredients you already had prepared at home. It means getting out the leftover bolognese sauce and serving it over the leftover roast vegetables you'd stashed in the fridge but figured you wouldn't eat. And try laying a fried egg over leftover soup, or roasting extra rice you had and mixing it into some salad stuff that's wilting in your fridge. Break the boundaries of what a meal means, divorce classic pairs like spaghetti and meatballs and free yourself to use up your leftovers in a brand new way. This leads into...


Soupercubes 

Say you're making a delicious coriander rice to serve with homemade curry. Make and freeze extra portions of this rice in a silicone 1 cup or 1/2 cup mould. The next night is taco bowl night, so combine mince, salsa and beans in a soupercube mould and freeze. The next night is steak, mashed potato and green beans. Freeze some of that extra mash. The next day, when there's soccer and dance and a P&C meeting, no toasted sandwiches or quick KFC trip for you! That coriander rice and mince-beans mix can be defrosted together in the oven, stovetop or microwave and you can have dinner in ten minutes! For more ideas about what can be soupercubed, check out @simplysarahhart on Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok. 

Sometimes convenience wins...

Sometimes even the soupercubes can't help you. Maybe you're feeding a family of six and 'leftovers' just don't exist. That's why we've got ready meals. You can purchase a variety of already prepared, chef made meals from us and have them delivered to your door ASAP. Whether it's lasagne, shepherds pie, gyoza, dahl or pizza dough, you can find a meal for your family.

Will any of these hacks help your family?