Cooking nutritious and balanced meals takes time, energy, and care — There’s a reason people say that cooking is a love language!
However, our lives are busy and unpredictable, meaning there often isn’t enough time to cook from scratch at every meal. That’s where meal prepping comes in.
What Is Meal Prepping?
If someone says they meal prep, what they mean is that they prepare entire meals or dishes in advance. These pre-made meals can be prepared, semi-cooked, or fully cooked and will need to be stored in your fridge or freezer until you’re ready to eat.
Meal prep has become increasingly popular over the last few decades. People have become busier and busier, and meal prepping ensures that they don’t have to look very far for something healthy come mealtime.
When To Meal Prep
Deciding when to meal prep is one of the first hurdles you’ll need to overcome. Most people picture dedicating their entire Sunday to preparing dishes for the upcoming week, but there is no single right way to meal prep. Do it when it works best for you!
You’ll want to think about your goals and daily routine, check your calendar, and consider when you’re likely to eat out before deciding which meals to prepare. For example, if you know you’re constantly running late or skipping breakfasts, consider make-ahead breakfasts. If you never have the energy to cook on Friday evenings, make sure you have a meal ready to go in your fridge or freezer.
Once you know how many meals you need to prepare in advance, you have a few options.
Make-ahead meals: These are great for dinner, though they can also be useful for breakfast and lunch. These full meals are cooked in advance before being refrigerated. Then, when it’s time to eat, all you have to do is throw them in the microwave, in the oven, or on the stove to reheat! It’s fast and easy!
Individually portioned meals: By preparing fresh meals and portioning them into individual portions that you take to work, you can save plenty of time and stress.
Batch cooking: You can also make large batches of a recipe and split them into individual portions. Then, you can freeze and eat these individual helpings over a few months.
Ready-to-cook ingredients: Cooking a meal can be a time-consuming process, and prepping ingredients only adds to your time in the kitchen. By preparing the ingredients in advance, you can split up and reduce time spent in the kitchen.
How To Start Meal Prepping
Buy some sort of Tupperware or glass Pyrex glassware for each meal of the week - for most people it will be lunch and dinner (2x a day).
Decide 1-2 recipes you want to cook for the week.
Cook all the meals for the whole week on the Sunday prior for the week.
Divide into the small containers for each meal and each day.
Store in your fridge for easy to grab each meal!
Clearly this is not rocket science and just takes a little advanced planning. It can be as easy as baking a large batch of roasted veggies and chicken in the oven. Or a large soup recipe that you can easily prep for the week by dumping all into one pot.
The Benefits Of Meal Prepping
Meal prepping takes a little time and effort upfront, but it’s more than worth it! Not only can meal prepping help save you time, but it can also boost your mental health and emotional well-being. After all, you won’t have to deal with the last-minute stress of figuring out what to make before each meal. It may not seem like much, but dealing with that brief panic three times a day, seven days a week is mentally exhausting!
Want to save money? Meal prepping can help with that, too. For one, more meal prepping means less takeout or eating out. It also means less food waste, as you’ll be able to buy exactly what you need. Plus, planning ahead allows you to buy ingredients in bulk for freezing, resulting in even more savings.
What’s more, meal prepping can help you reach your nutrition goals and improve your relationship with food. It is one of the best strategies for a healthy weight loss and also help you figure out what foods to eat to lose fat.
After all, preparing everything in advance can help reduce your portion size and means you won’t have to resort to takeout or TV dinners at the end of a long day. Since you have to think about what to eat ahead of time, you’ll be more likely to choose nutritious meals instead of whatever happens to be closest and easiest to make. This can also improve the variety in your diet, making meals more interesting.
Feeling a little overwhelmed by meal prepping? That’s okay! It’s a lot to take in. I help my clients meal prep by coming up with recipes and even helping them cook! If you need a little help, reach out to me at happyhelen@gmail.com!