Tips and Tricks | Coworker Cooking Co-op
There will come a time in your life that you need to cook for a crowd. It may be Thanksgiving dinner, a church gathering, or get together at your house. It can seem daunting to make enough for for 8-10 people. But it does not have to be! My proof? My coworkers and I have spent the last six months cooking for one another.
One person cooks one meal for the week to feed the group, we usually do our meal on Wednesdays. Then someone else volunteers for the week after that and someone else for the week after that. So for once a week during 10 weeks of lunches, I had to cook only one of the meals and then my 9 other coworkers were responsible for another week. So I was able to have 10 delicious and different meals but only have to cook one of them!
The idea for this started when it began to get cold this past winter, which meant it was officially casserole and Crock pot season. Don't get me wrong, I love a hearty meal but I don't enjoy that heavy meal for 8 meals in a row. But if I made a large meal for my coworkers, then I wouldn't have so many leftovers. So we tested the idea out of starting a "lunch bunch" at work, and we are now on our third round of meals!
There have been so many benefits to starting this up with my coworkers:
The obvious socializing aspect
Getting to try out new recipes
I was not stuck with lots of leftovers
For 9 of the 10 weeks I didn't have to make lunch on Wednesday
I spent $20-$30 to make one big meal, instead of going out and spending $10 a meal for myself
You could do this with any number of coworkers, but I will say any more than 10 gets difficult to cook for all at once. It also doesn't have to be with coworkers. You could do this for a church group, moms group or any other kind of group that meets regularly.
I've made some resources so you can start this with a group of your friends or coworkers. When I started doing this it was hard for me to find resources online, so I want to pay it forward for the next person who wants to do this!
Suggestions on meals
make sure to have enough protein
provide a vegetable
make more than enough
email out the day before with plan for meal
Samples of past meals
jambalaya and rice
chicken salad
nachos
mac n cheese
salad bar
taco bar
brunch
lettuce wraps
baked ziti
Italian beef sandwiches
Ways to Customize
This could be done for every day of the work week if you wanted! That would mean over 10 work days, you would cook for one of those days and for the rest of the two weeks, other people would bring the meal.
Could be done as meal prepping - everyone makes one meal and divides into leftover containers. Then share the containers and you have a week of different meals to take home.
Could be a team effort each week. If you wanted to do a salad bar and someone was responsible for different ingredients. A taco bar also works really well for this.
During my most recent meal that I was responsible for I made chicken salad sandwiches and fruit salad. This was something I was able to make the night before and then bring to work and put in the fridge. Super simple and budget friendly!
If you have questions or want to learn more about how we do this, send me an email! samanthainthemidst@gmail.com
Happy Lunching!
-Samantha
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