Meal plan for a self-catered ski chalet

A self-catered ski week is catering for a hungry group after a hard day on the mountain — on a tight evening schedule. Plan it around big, warming, make-ahead dinners and you spend the evenings by the fire, not the stove.

Match the food to the ski day

Skiers burn a lot, on a fixed rhythm: a big breakfast before the lifts, a cheap packed lunch on the slopes (restaurant lunches wreck the budget), and a hearty dinner back at the chalet. Plan all three around that rhythm rather than improvising each day.

Breakfasts that fuel a morning

• •Porridge, eggs, bacon, bread and good coffee — slow-release energy before first lifts.
• •Set out fruit, yoghurt and pastries for whoever wants a lighter start.
• •Rotate who makes breakfast so one early riser is not doing it every morning.

Packed lunches beat mountain restaurants

On-mountain restaurants are the single biggest hidden cost of a ski week. Baguettes, cured meats, cheese, fruit and a flask of soup packed each morning save a fortune across the group over a week — build the ingredients into the weekly shop.

Big make-ahead dinners

• •One-pot classics scale well: tartiflette, chilli, bourguignon, big pasta bakes, curry.
• •A raclette or fondue night needs almost no cooking and doubles as the group social.
• •Prep what you can the night before or in the morning — nobody wants to start chopping at 8pm.

Split the shopping and the cooking

Do one big supermarket shop in the valley on arrival — it is far cheaper than resort shops. Assign a cooking pair per night so the work is shared, and track who paid for the shop, the wine and the lift-side extras so the final split is fair.