A week for whoever is on shifts.
When you are not eating dinner at dinner time, the plan has to work backwards from a day off, not from a clock. This week cooks big when there is time, and reheats when there is not.
The week
Long cooks on days off. Soups and curries for the days between shifts.
- Day off
Pork cheeks
- 150 min
- 4 portions
- 59 g protein / portion
A long braise, worth doing on a day there is actually time. Four portions to draw on across the days that follow.
Ingredients & method - Day off
Oven-roasted pork ribs with roast potatoes
- 150 min
- 4 portions
- 59 g protein / portion
Another slow oven day. Ribs and potatoes reheat cleanly, unlike almost anything fried.
Ingredients & method - Between shifts
Jardineira (meat and vegetable stew)
- 60 min
- 4 portions
- 50 g protein / portion
A stew that is happy to wait in the fridge for whichever day you are actually home to eat it.
Ingredients & method - Between shifts
Chickpea and spinach soup
- 30 min
- 4 portions
- 18 g protein / portion
Thirty minutes, and a soup that reheats to the same bowl every time.
Ingredients & method - Between shifts
Tofu and vegetable curry
- 30 min
- 4 portions
- 30 g protein / portion
A quick curry, one of the few thirty-minute dishes that still holds up a day later.
Ingredients & method - Quiet day
Mushroom soup
- 30 min
- 4 portions
- 8 g protein / portion
A light soup for a day the rest of the batch cooking has already covered dinner.
Ingredients & method - Quiet day
Lentil soup
- 35 min
- 4 portions
- 16 g protein / portion
Another soup built to sit, for whichever day the schedule actually needs it.
Ingredients & method
Cook times, portions and protein come from each recipe as written, and update with it. They are the author's figures, not lab measurements. A leftover night shows the reheat, not the original cook.
Photographs are AI illustrations of the dishes.
The idea
Shift work breaks the assumption most meal plans make: that dinner happens once, at roughly the same hour, for everyone. The dishes that work here are the ones that were always going to sit: braises, stews, soups, curries, oven roasts. Cook once, eat across more than one sitting.
The pattern below puts the long cooks on days there is time to be in the kitchen, and keeps faster soups and curries for the days in between.
How PlanMyMeals works
Limits
This is not a food-safety guide. How long something can wait in the fridge, and how you reheat it, is your kitchen's call.
Holds well only applies to braises, stews, soups, curries and oven roasts, the same rule as the different-schedules page.
Our editorial standardsPlan around your actual hours
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