We read about why we might want to try meal prepping in Meal Prep. Now how do we actually get started? Meal prepping doesn’t have to be a long or stressful process. Here are some tips to get you started:
- Pick a meal prepping day that works best for your family’s schedule. Choose a day that you have a good amount of free time and a day that comes before your busy week starts.
- Decide ahead of time which meals you are going to prepare. You can start with just preparing dinner meals and then maybe start prepping lunch meals as well. Check out this Breakfast on the Go post to see how you can prep your breakfasts.
- Find recipes that use similar ingredients. This will limit how many items you have to buy each week and can help save a few extra dollars.
- Pick a key ingredient. Organize your meals for the week around an ingredient that is in season or on sale and use it in each day’s meal. See how many creative recipes you can come up with for the key ingredient!
The great thing about preparing your own meals is that you don’t need a recipe – you can make it however you want! Spice things up with your favorite flavors to add some variety to your meals throughout the week. I like to keep things fresh by tossing some of my veggies in garlic and some with lemon pepper.
For now, let’s just try prepping our lunch!
- Decide what you want to try: For lunch this week, I want to keep it simple with some rice, chicken and vegetables. I already have a sweet potato that I want to use before it spoils.
- Put together a list of what you need: 2 bags rice (or 1 large), family pack of chicken, 2 zucchini, 1 head of broccoli, 1 tomato, olive oil
- Head to the store to get your ingredients!
- Come home and get to cooking:
- I’ll start by getting my rice cooking.
- While that’s going, I will wash and cut all my veggies to roast in the oven. If you have a large cookie sheet, you can possibly roast them all at once!
- As those roast, I’ll start cooking my chicken. When it’s done, I’ll slice it up on my clean meat cutting board.
- Once everything is finished, it’s time to put it all together in containers. Start by scooping in rice for each day. Sprinkle over some slices of chicken. Then load up the veggies. I like to mix mine up from day to day so I’ll pair zucchini with tomatoes in one, broccoli with sweet potato in another, zucchini with sweet potato in the third, and broccoli and tomatoes in a fourth. Whatever is left I combine all in one for my fifth container.
- Store containers in fridge and you’re all set on lunch for the week!
Keep in mind! When working with foods in large quantities:
- Use containers with tight-fitting lids
- Refrigerate or freeze prepped meals as soon as possible
- Refrigerated foods can last three to four days
- Frozen foods can last weeks
- Check out these posts that talk about food safety and storage: Fours of Food Storage and Caution! Don’t Cross: Preventing Cross-Contamination
How do you prep your meals for the week? When is your #mealprepday?
