How To Guide Meal Prep For Beginners
As a society we're getting busier and busier, rushing between work, family and relationship commitments, a social life, and everything else we try to squeeze in-between. My favourite for meal prep is chicken recipes with soup or gravy because it will be more delicious even after you store it for one week. Besides, frying an egg takes practically zero time and is the perfect addition to a prepped grain bowl. I try to use meals that I can have for dinner one night, but left-overs for lunch.
Don't meal plan and meal prep on the same day because that makes it feel huge. Into each of 4 containers, scoop about 2 cups of chicken and vegetables. The same goes for cooked food like soups and stews, so this can be a great investment if you're worried about changing plans leading to wasted meals.
Meal prepping is one of those things you know would make your life ten times easier—like keeping three rolls of toilet paper by the toilet even though you only need one—yet for some reason, there's always something that stops you from doing it. Compartmentalized containers work well for meals which have side dishes (like chicken with rice and veggies), and containers without dividers are perfect for salads or one-pot meals.
One suggestion is, 2-3 days before your meal prep day, email yourself a list of meals that you will want to eat the next week. I rotate this week to week for variety but I find it easier this way then try to and prep elaborate meals with too much variety. If you are curious about freezer meals… well then, you've come to the right place.
2 - We typically bake chicken, but the key for cooking chicken is to have it cook through consistently. Try making one of these instant oatmeal mason jars with freeze-dried (read: no sugar added) fruit, which are much more nutritious than buying prepackaged Intro to Meal Prep instant oatmeal from the grocery store.
In the meantime I am able to cook 5 different meals for 7 days within 1.5 hours and afterwards my kitchen is tidied up again. Some people fail at meal prepping simply because they do not know how to maintain the freshness of their food. Or maybe you have meal-prepped before but became uninspired with eating bland food all the time.
So without further ado, here are even more of my favorite tips for beginners getting started with freezer meal cooking. You could whip up a giant garden salad or coleslaw to keep in the fridge for lunches and dinners the following few days. In this guide to meal prep for beginners, we break it down into a few simple steps to help make meal planning and prepping easy.
And check out the graphic below for an easy way visualize your day-to-night meal-prep timeline. Do some research and find out what type of container is going to suit your meal prepping needs. And then about two years ago, I started my blog, where I began sharing my meal plans for that week.
You will save time in the long run by making a bunch of meals in advance. Remember that it is not always possible to prepare all of your meals, so it is important to adapt them to your needs and to suit how busy you are. Now, instead of picking up take-out or grabbing a fast food lunch, you've got a pre-portioned meal ready to go. Packing your meals in containers prevents you from being able to reach for more.
At lunch time, when they are getting hungry, they start to think about what in Jesus' name they could eat now and they are jealously looking at my huge salad with chicken. Preparing meals for the week also makes it easier to make healthy choices, taking all the willpower out of resisting a phone call to the local takeaway at the end of a long day.