If you have little to no time to make meals for yourself or your family daily, then you know how helpful meal prepping can be. It allows you to shop and cook once to make meals for the whole week’s consumption.
Having said this, meal prep can also become time-consuming if not done correctly and may even take longer than creating single-day meals. Luckily there are ways to streamline this process without compromising nutrition or spending hours in the kitchen or grocery.
Here are five healthy meal-prepping tips for busy people:
1. Plan Your Grocery Shopping List
One of the essential aspects of meal prepping is planning your grocery shopping list. Once you master your shopping list, half your meal prep work is done, and it won’t take up as much of your time to continuously shop for a few items every couple of days. Thus, once you’ve decided on the meals you want to prepare, write down a list of the ingredients and food you’ll need to buy for the week.
Then when you have time, shop for as many items as you can find at once. If you’re too busy or aren’t keen to grocery shop in person, you can order food packages from stores, such as The Meat Box for online meats and other items from local stores that offer home deliveries. This can help you stay organized and ensure that you always have the proper ingredients on hand when you need them.
2. Start Simple
Starting simple is an effective way to get into the habit and maintain a meal-preparation routine. You can accomplish this by making quick and simple meals to cook or assemble and by starting with what you already have. This implies that if you run out of ingredients, you may begin organizing the food items in your cupboard into meal ideas for an entire week or a half.
These may include breakfast smoothies, microwaveable vegetarian tacos, spaghetti salad lunches, and mac and cheese dinners. Basically, once you become used to preparing food in larger quantities, you can incorporate more complex meals with numerous ingredients, such as homemade pies that can serve as dinner for three nights or lunchboxes of cooked rice, diced vegetables, meat strips, and fruits.
3. Use Frequently Used Ingredients
To prevent overspending on new recipes, try to find specific ingredients that are versatile staples and can be used in various dishes. Most of these are carbs like grains, bread, pasta, meats, and vegetables such as carrots that can be added raw to a breakfast meal or steamed for lunch or dinner.
As part of your meal prep, check that your food cupboard always has these ingredients in stock and immediately add them to your grocery list when they run out. Another important aspect of meal prepping is food storage, so try not to buy food that only comes in small quantities and can’t be stored for more than two days. Additionally, ensure that you have airtight containers and the right food packaging to keep your dry, wet, and cooked ingredients fresh.
4. Cook Parts Of Your Meal At Once
Cooking will undoubtedly consume most of your meal prepping time; therefore, you can cook portions of your meal simultaneously to expedite the process. This is where having larger kitchenware comes in handy, as a large pan can hold multiple eggs and slices of bacon at once.
However, if you don’t have limited tool sizes, you can still create space with your cookware by creating a makeshift divide using foil to keep food separate on one side while another cooks on the other. You can do this by baking meat and potatoes on two sides. When you’re pressed for time, you can also opt for a slow cooker for meals where all the ingredients can be mixed together, such as beef and vegetable stews.
5. Prepare A Meal Calendar
The last thing you want is to get tired of eating the same meals and give up your meal prepping for any convenient food you can find. To avoid this, it is recommended to create a meal calendar as part of your preparation process, which will allow you to plan your dishes for up to a month in advance.
This will help you stay ahead of your prepping time and plan a month’s worth of groceries to save time. It’s also a fantastic way to see if you’re getting all the necessary nutrients in your diet and what missing nutritional components need to be incorporated.
Conclusion:
You can maximize your meal prepping time by planning ahead of time with a meal calendar that includes all your meals for at least a month. From there, you can write down a list of ingredients you’ll need to make all your meals and shop for them all at once.
Once your food is in your kitchen, you can start with cooking simple meals and ideally with recipes where food can be cooked together or by dividing the space in your cookware. By doing this, you can enjoy healthy meals and peace of mind without worrying about what to eat daily.
