Prepping a week’s meals can significantly streamline the demands of everyday life. By having simple yet satisfying meal prep ideas on hand, one can enjoy nutritious and balanced meals every day. Moreover, this practice can lead to substantial savings, sparing one from frequent takeouts on busy weeknights. For beginners, meal prepping may initially seem like an uphill task. Implementing a few practical and time-saving meal-prepping tips can create a rewarding routine.
Plan menu and grocery lists for the week
The first step to meal prepping for beginners is to plan the menu for each day and create a list of groceries and ingredients required to prepare all the dishes. Initially, making a weekly plan may seem like a lot of effort for little reward. But, after a few weekends of consistent planning, it can become an easy yet sustainable habit. The plans can be quickly made over the weekend in less than an hour. Making a list of the groceries while planning the menu is a good idea. Besides, having a solid grocery list helps prevent impulse purchases of random food items at the supermarket.
Use apps for efficient meal planning
Using good old notebooks is the easiest way to plan meals and make grocery lists. But to make the process more efficient and convenient, consider using an application available online. Download any note-taking or list-making app and use its features to plan meals throughout the week. In addition, there are several meal planning apps that offer a range of useful features, such as directly connecting to the corresponding grocery list for a specific meal. Some apps even provide links to recipes and tips for preparing certain dishes. Apps like Yummly, Mealime, and Anylist allow users to create grocery lists, find related recipes, and organize their meals according to their preferences, making meal planning and prepping quite seamless and stress-free.
Start with single-recipe meals
For beginners, meal prepping and planning is usually challenging in the first few weeks. To make the process less overwhelming, start by planning meals that rely on a single recipe. Instead of attempting meals that require two or more recipes, focus on just one. Consider one-pot meals and casseroles that contain enough protein, vegetables, and grains all in one dish. This eliminates the need for additional side dishes. If one becomes comfortable with prepping one recipe, one can expand to planning two meals, such as dinners and lunches. As a new meal prepper, it can also be helpful to start by prepping for just three days instead of all five weekdays.
Utilize the kitchen tools and appliances to their full capacity
When considering ways to save time with weekly meal prepping, take a look at the tools and appliances that may be collecting dust on the kitchen counter. Many people purchase fancy kitchen appliances but end up using only a few trusted pots and pans. But to make meal prepping more efficient, it is time to clear off the dust of those unused appliances. Incorporate all the available tools and appliances into the prepping and cooking process. Food processors, with their multiple blades, crock pots, slow cookers, multi-air fryers, and more, can be used to quickly prepare sauces, gravy bases, roasted veggies, and more for the entire week.
Learn to use leftovers for multiple meals
Many meal prep recipes for busy people focus on using ingredients in large quantities. This is because cooking these meals in bulk allows one to have enough leftovers to last for more than a single meal. Having leftovers does not mean that one has to have the same dish repeatedly. Get creative and learn how to repurpose a single meal into different ones. For example, leftovers from a roast chicken made on Sunday can be used for making sandwiches, salads, pasta, or even tacos for the week. When planning your weekly meals, be sure to consider how one can incorporate the leftovers creatively.
Opt for convenience food items
A helpful tip for organizing meals for the upcoming week is to purchase as many convenience foods as possible from the grocery store. Canned items like beans, corn, tomatoes, or packaged sauces, like marinara and pesto, can significantly reduce the time needed for meal prepping. Using these convenience foods means there is less chopping and cooking involved, which translates to less time and effort spent on prepping meals.
While convenience foods can sometimes be more expensive, the time spent is often worth the extra cost, especially when one needs to get food on the table without much hassle. Be sure to include a variety of frozen and convenient alternatives in the grocery list for the week.
Freeze extra meals
Meals like one-pot dishes and casserole recipes are known to freeze for two weeks or more. Making double or even triple batches of these meals can save a lot of time for dinner and lunch during busy weekdays.
To do this effectively, make sure to use airtight and durable meal prep containers to store the food. Pack each serving in separate containers and place them in the freezer to avoid cross-contamination. Remember to label each container with the dates the meal was made. This way, if one has multiple frozen meals made over time, one will know which one to eat first based on the dates.
Before having any of the frozen meals later in the week, make sure to heat them up thoroughly.