What’s Meal Prepping?
Meal Prepping vs. Meal Planning
The Benefits of Meal Prepping
How to Begin Meal Prepping
Meal Prepping Resources: Tips, Tricks, Tools, and More
Helping you balance your nutritional goals
Helping you stick to your dietary lifestyle
Reducing your food waste
Saving time
Saving money
Like we just covered, there are tons of benefits to meal prepping. For example, prepping your food ahead of time helps with portion control and allows you to have better control over your nutrition. It’s also a great tool when trying to stick to a particular diet because having everything planned out and ready to go before you start cooking significantly simplifies otherwise lofty-seeming goals, such as losing weight or cutting carbs.
Like balancing nutrition, meal prepping is also a great strategy for staying on track with whatever dietary lifestyle you follow. It makes getting all your required nutrients super-simple and also allows you to have better control over your food and what goes into it. If you have the time and want to be more rigid, you can prep out every meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks. Having everything you need at the ready makes following any diet feel totally manageable.
Prepping ingredients in advance also helps to reduce food waste—no more sad, unused veggies wasting away in the back of your fridge! Plus, you eliminate multiple trips to the store for ingredients you may have missed the first time around when you plan, gather, and prepare a week’s worth of meals ahead of time. Even better, you can prepare for leftovers by prepping double what you normally would, or prepping ingredients that can be used to repurpose leftovers into a completely different dish. All of this helps you reduce food waste and create a much greener footprint.
Meal prepping comes with an obvious plus: saving a ton of time. First of all, prepping for meals gives you a head start on the week, and who doesn’t need that? Plus, the process will help you feel more in control of what you’re eating and take the stress out of (read: put the joy back into!) mealtime. As a whole, meal prepping is great for people who are super-busy during the week (but have at least a day or two on which they can prep) and those who simply want to have better control over what they eat. It’s also perfect for students who have more free time on certain days over others.
It’s easy to meal prep on a budget. In fact, the process will end up saving you money! Instead of aimlessly wandering aisle after aisle multiple times a week, meal prepping gives you what you need to shop like a pro: a purpose. Plus, since you’ll be taking inventory of what you have at home beforehand, you can feel good knowing that everything you buy will be used in the upcoming week. (This also helps to eliminate a ton of food waste!) Finally, the more experience you have with prepping, the more you will be able to identify items you can buy in bulk for much cheaper.
Hint: Check out our recipe archive with 2,500+ delicious, chef-crafted recipes paired with picture-guided step-by-step instructions to make prepping a breeze! You can also use filters to find just what you’re interested in cooking— popular recipes , gourmet recipes , quick meals , vegetarian and pescatarian recipes , and on and on.
Plan out your meals for the upcoming week. We prefer to do this on a Friday, but you should do what works best for you. On whichever day you choose, you’ll select recipes and create a meal prepping grocery list so you only buy what you need and avoid unnecessary spending on a vegetable that’ll end up wilting in your produce drawer anyway. Likewise, be sure to always take inventory of your fridge, freezer, and pantry first so you don’t end up buying items that you already have.
Pick a day of the week that you’ll devote to grocery shopping. Considering that we planned on Friday, we suggest doing this on Saturday.
First, we highly recommend combining meal prepping with meal planning. Thinking ahead about what you’re going to cook, then shopping and preparing ingredients (or whole meals) in advance will make mealtime a snap.
Additionally, consider creating a game plan before you prep—essentially, a list of what you’d like to accomplish. This’ll help you stay super-organized and make prepping feel a lot less overwhelming. Plus, is there anything better than crossing items off your to-do list? (We say no.)
Try choosing simple recipes rather than ones that require a lot of attention and hands-on cooking (we’re looking at you, risotto!). Stick to foods that can mostly cook unattended, like soups and stews, grains, and roasted veggies. Psst—even better, plan for and prep meals with similar main ingredients. You’ll thank us later!
In order to really set you up for meal prep success (and help you avoid common mistakes), make sure the process is completely personalized to you and your schedule so you don’t end up doing some last minute scrambling. Remember to carve out enough time to prep so you won’t feel rushed.
Another thing to keep in mind: Make food you actually can and want to eat! It may sound simple, but trust us. Meal prep inspiration can look super-glamorized on Instagram and Pinterest, but it can also be very intimidating. Be sure to choose balanced recipes that look delicious to you.
Prepping the exact same meal for every day of the week may save you a lot of time, but it can also get…well, boring. If you can, plan for switching things up! Exchanging sauces, garnishes, or even proteins will keep your meals interesting.
Employ a good set of storage containers. Having good storage containers for all that delicious food you prepped is key to staying organized and on top of the process. The containers don’t have to be fancy or expensive, but since meal prepping will look different week to week, it’s best to get a variety of sizes. Also, consider buying a few containers that are microwave-safe and freezer-safe.
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