My Meal Prep Tips for an Easier Life

Meal prepping, or weekly food prep as I typically refer to it, is a fantastic way to prepare for the week ahead and make sure you have tasty and nutritious food ready. Instead of being too tired to cook anything healthy during the week, you know you already have your meals ready to go. I love using my spare time at the weekend to prepare my breakfasts and lunches, as well as some dinners. I know the thought of meal prepping can be intimidating, especially if cooking just one meal feels like a lot of effort. But there are things that you can do to make it easier.

Get Your Groceries Delivered

If you've decided that you want to start meal prepping, you need to get good at making shopping lists and checking what food you already have in the house. One way to make this easier is to shop online and get your groceries delivered. It means you can easily double check if you already have something that you need, and you get a clear idea of how much you're spending before you reach the checkout. You can even find specialist places to shop like Crab Dynasty so you can get super fresh ingredients. With the ingredients you need coming to your door, there's less to stress about. Almost everyone is in the grocery delivery game these days. I've personally used Peapod (Giant - this link is a personal referral code), ShopRite, Whole Foods via Instacart, Target via Shipt, and AmazonFresh when it was available in my area (still not over that loss). If you have any questions, hit me up. I lived by this but now only do it on occasion, doing most of my grocery shopping in person at Aldi, Redner's, or Target depending on what I need and what I'll be closest to during the week to maximize my efficiency.

Choose a Meal Prep Day

Meal prepping saves you time throughout the week, but you have to be willing and able to give up some of your time elsewhere. Fortunately, if you're preparing your meals at home, you can usually get other stuff done at the same time - you're not just tied to the kitchen. You can pick up the living room, remove your nail polish, cycle laundry, read a book, etc. So pick a day for meal prepping, or maybe two days where you do a couple of batches. Sunday is obviously perfect because you can get ready for the week ahead, but you don't have to choose Sunday. Whenever you have a couple of spare hours can work for you. When the shore house is closed, Sunday is my day. When the shore house is open, it is not. I grab an hour or two on Monday or Tuesday night instead.

Get Good Containers

Once you've prepared your food, you'll want to be able to freeze or refrigerate it to keep it fresh. You can use pretty much any containers for this, but if you're like me and a) don't like your food to touch and b) travel with food to work and want to cut down on the number of containers you have to carry, to have some that will allow you to make up separate portions for each meal. I use glass containers like these that are sectioned up, so there's space for something different in each section. With glass containers, you can easily see what's in them, and you don't have to worry about plastic containing BPA or any other nasty chemicals.

Make a Balanced Selection of Food

If you're not sure what to make or you think you might get bored of eating the same things, think about making something that hits the important food groups. You can make yourself some protein, veggies, and a grain or carbohydrate. This will help you to put meals together and also allow you to mix and match if you want to make sure you get to eat something slightly different every day. I can eat the same thing day in and day out but I know not everyone likes doing that.

Plan out not only what you are going to eat but what you will drink too. You may want to create natural juices, smoothies, or liquor such as wine or whiskey. 

Plan all of this ahead of time and make sure that the ingredients, equipment for creating juice as well as Dramson whiskey glasses are ready for use.

Meal prepping doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, it's pretty easy if you know how to make the most of your time. And the more you do it, the easier it gets. I promise.

Are you a weekly food prepper?