How to make Christmas stress-free by preparing food in November – according to ‘The Batch Lady’

Suzanne Mulholland once declared she ‘hated’ Christmas Day – she was the person who ended up organising the entire event, from presents, to decorations and, of course, the food.

“When the kids were little, I actually didn’t like Christmas. I didn’t feel it was my day. I felt like it was everybody else’s day,” the 49-year-old says. “I look back on it now and think I really did miss some key moments where I would have loved being the one sitting just helping build Lego, or whatever it was, but I felt tied to the kitchen.”

To make a busy life with children easier Mulholland started batch cooking, and after sharing videos on YouTube and Instagram, ‘The Batch Lady’ Instagram account was born. With it, the mum-of-two was able to transform Christmas so she wasn’t cooking all day.

“I started to change gradually. I would make sure my roast potatoes were done, but I always felt like there was quite a lot that maybe I couldn’t do in advance. And then over the years, I’ve actually managed to do it all in advance. Everything.

“If you happen to have a Friday morning or a Tuesday evening in November where you’re not doing anything, you can think, actually, I might get four recipes done for Christmas.”

November is the perfect time to start, she says, and buying a lot of your Christmas food in November can help spread the cost.

“You can do it all in November, when you don’t have every other activity going on, like the Christmas fete at school, your kids Carol concert and your work night out. December becomes really busy for us.”

So, getting ahead for the festive period isn’t just about prepping the Christmas Day meal, Mulholland also batch cooks plenty of one-pot meals to freeze and reheat during December.

Mulholland has two types of recipes – “Either you ‘cook ahead’ – which means cooking it and putting it in the freezer, or ‘grab and cook’ which means you’re making it up raw, and then you’re putting it in the freezer,” she explains.

Here’s how to make it work for you this Christmas…

‘Cook ahead’: What to cook, freeze and reheat on the day

Mulholland says accompaniments like bread sauce and cranberry sauce, as well as sides like roast potatoes and Brussel sprouts, can be fully cooked and frozen – far in advance. “I do a lovely shredded Brussels sprout with pancetta, and you actually make that in advance, because it shreds, it lasts.”

Homemade Yorkshire puddings make well in advance to freeze, or try Mulholland’s recipe for mulled wine red cabbage. While the method works well for starters too, think parsnip and apple soup, or desserts like panettone bread and butter pudding.

“The whole point of freezer cooking is that you use recipes that are meant to be frozen. Those recipes are specifically created to make sure that they’re going to be delicious.”

And freezing doesn’t take away from the flavour. “People would be so surprised to know that in the absolute top-end restaurants [chefs] prep in advance. A lot of that will come out of freezers and fridges that have been prepped in advance. A lot of things actually taste better if you’ve cooked them in advance.”

‘Grab and cook’: What to prepare ahead, freeze but cook on the day

While some parts of Christmas can be completely made and frozen, her methods aren’t about doing that for the entire meal. “We’re still cooking Christmas dinner. We’re just not prepping everything from scratch,” explains Mulholland.

“Prepping ahead is really that you’re getting it ready, but you’re not necessarily cooking it. You’re just getting all the ingredients ready together,” she says, for example, mixing the stuffing ingredients and putting into balls, before freezing uncooked, or wrapping the bacon around sausages for pigs in blankets.

“In November, I will make the herby butter [to use under the turkey skin] and wrap it up. I’ll get the pack of streaky bacon and put it beside the herby butter. I’ll make my stuffing mix. Then I’ll get my frozen turkey from the shops and I’ll put it next to it. So I’ve really created this meal prep kit that when I bring it out, it’s defrosting, and I know that everything’s there.

“Roast veg – you parboil them, cover them in oil, put your lovely seasoning over it, and then you flash freeze it [putting it in the freezer for two hours]. You’ve part cooked them. You haven’t cooked [them] to the end and then re-cooked. It’s about prepping everything so it’s ready to come out and be cooked from frozen, but it is being cooked on the day.”

Do this for starters and nibbles too, like pork and stilton sausage rolls, and cheese and chutney straws.

Cold starters, such as chicken liver pate or mushroom and tarragon pate, make easy freezer items too.

Batch cook some additional ‘December dinners’

Make December extra easy by making and freezing some nutritious meals you can take out of the freezer whenever life gets a bit busy. Think pork, parsnip and mustard traybake, Cajun-spiced chicken, or coconut and butternut squash curry.

“[If you know] ‘I’ve got a fish pie in the freezer, and I’m going to put it in the oven tonight’ – that is the easiest thing ever, because you can make a fish pie in three minutes. But if you haven’t done that, your headspace is ‘I don’t know what I’ve got in the house, I don’t know who’s in or who wants to eat. I’ll stop at the shops, I’ll grab whatever, or I’ll grab a takeaway’

“It’s automatically going to cost you more money – and that’s a normal work day. So you take that tenfold into the busiest December, and you are racking up a lot of money and a lot of stress.”

The Batch Lady Saves Christmas by Suzanne Mulholland is published by Ebury Press, priced £25. Photography by Andrew Hayes-Watkins, available now