A Simple Way To Meal Prep

If you’re trying to eat healthier, meal prep can make a big difference. Planning and preparing your meals ahead of time can seem overwhelming, but with a little practice it can be simple and easy, even if you’re not a great cook.

Here’s a simple way to plan and prep your meals.

Step 1: Decide What You Will Meal Plan and Prep

You don’t have to plan and prep every meal, especially not at the beginning. It’s best to start by working on one thing at a time until you get comfortable with your process.

You might decide to start with just one weekly meal or snack, or even just prep certain ingredients or side dishes.

Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are often important to prep if you don’t have a lot of time during the week. If you’re always rushing around in the morning before work, having elements of breakfast and lunch prepared and ready to be combined (or completed and in a container, ready to “grab-and-go”) can make a big difference.

Step 2: Schedule Your Meal Planning and Prepping Time

When you’re first starting out with prepping, I find that doing the majority of your planning and prep on one day is easier to manage, especially if you're starting with just one meal at a time or doing a limited amount of prepping.

If it works better for you, though, you could spread your prepping out across the week. This is a good strategy for ingredients that you know you’ll use all the time, like garlic. Every few days, you could peel and mince a few heads of garlic so you always have it ready.

You may want to invest in a pressure cooker, food processor, or other kitchen gadget to cut down on time and effort. These tools can make food prepping much quicker and easier.

Decide when you will plan and prep, and schedule those activities like you would any other appointment. Make grocery lists, go shopping or order your groceries to be delivered, and plan exactly what you need to do for each meal or ingredient.

Step 3: Prep and Cook the Foods That You’ll Need for Your Meals

You can cook full recipes in large batches (double or triple the recipe so you have leftovers for the week), or you can divide up ingredients and cook them separately. I prefer to cook ingredients separately and combine them into meals because it gives you flexibility.

You can combine ingredients in many ways: you might do chicken with veggies in tomato sauce over whole grain pasta one day, use that chicken to top a salad the next day, then bring the pasta and veggies back the following day but add ground beef or beans instead of chicken, and use that beef to make burgers for another meal.

Proteins: Make your proteins "simple" so they can be used in a variety of ways throughout the week. Season with spices, salt and pepper. Cut and portion your meat, then cook in large batches. Cook non-meat proteins such as beans in large batches.

Whole grains: Cook large batches of brown rice, wholegrain pasta, or quinoa.

Vegetables: Chop raw vegetables to add to salads or have as a snack. Roast, steam, or cook other vegetables, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc., in large batches.

Fruits: Chop fruits to add to salads or have as a snack.

Dairy and healthy fats: Make sure you have one or two options available, such as a tub of Greek yogurt and a bottle of olive oil.

Once you have cooked or prepared the ingredients for your meals, divide them into containers. It’s a good idea to invest in a lunch box or bag and good quality containers.

Step 4: Put Ingredients Together and Enjoy!

When it’s time to prepare your meals, you will have the major components ready to go. Then, all that’s left to do is cook some of the ingredients and combine others. This makes cooking a complete, nutritious meal much quicker and more efficient.

If You Need Help

Want to make healthy eating choices but not sure what healthy eating really means? You're not alone. These days there's so much information about nutrition that it's hard to know what to do. To get started, download my FREE Guide To Healthy Eating. This comprehensive eBook will teach you the simple but powerful basic guidelines to creating a healthy and sustainable eating plan.

If you need personalized help getting motivated to eat healthy or staying accountable with your healthy eating goals, contact me. I’d be happy to help you get on track!