The Ultimate Guide! Easy Meal Prep Hacks for Busy Weeknights
My wife and I have very different tendencies when it comes to meal planning.
I am very rigid about our plans. Once we agree on the menu, I promise you I will die trying to make sure that it happens. If we get behind, my stress goes through the roof!
My wife on the other hand comes from a family that was much more relaxed on meal planning. They go with the flow with the mentality that, although they might not know what’s for dinner, trust that something will be ready by the time they want to eat.
Our tendencies towards food prep have swayed back and forth on this spectrum for years and I can say that I think this has been one of those disagreements that has caused us to both grow from it. I’ve become less obsessive over the details of our weekly planning (which has been crucial since we had a baby), and my wife has gotten more proactive towards grocery lists and meal prep nights.
The key to this for us has come from learning how to meal prep effectively.
You may need to hear this, and if so, I am willing to volunteer to say it: Meal planning is worth it. Effective meal planning can help you save money, eat higher-quality foods, and have peace-of-mind each day as you figure out what’s on the menu.
I believe that life functions smoother if there’s a plan, process, or system to help take the “sticky” points in our lives and makes the simpler.
In this article, I unpack how we have learned to love meal-prep, and hopefully it can help you share the love as well.
Meal Prep Essentials: Getting Started
Meal prep doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, I bet if you really lean into it for a couple weeks, you’ll find that your food prep has actually gotten a lot simpler. With that said, there are two essential things you need to get moving and grooving on your meal plan: a plan, and containers.
You Need a Plan
This is the most important, and often most-understated part of a meal plan. You have to actually plan. There are tons of guides and printable plans to help with this. Basically, you need to create a method to create a grocery list that includes all the food you need to order (I HATE the return trips to grocery stores because I forgot something), a schedule so you know when meals needs to be prepared, and a guide to help you actually take care of business in the kitchen when it comes to cooking.
If you don’t have a guide yet, I encourage you to check out ours by clicking the button below.
The Good Today Co. Weekly Meal Planner
Containers
This is probably obvious, but if you’re going to cook food in advance, you’re going to have to have a place to keep it until it’s time to eat. Starting off, I’d recommend going for cheaper options for tupperware and containers until you learn what works best for you and then you can really optimize what you have to fit your needs. Here are a couple options I recommend.
Freshware Meal Prep Containers [50 Pack] : Amazing bang-for-buck, BPA-free, dishwasher-safe, and comes with two compartments to seperate foods (you won’t always need it, but when you, it’s amazing to have this option).
Rubbermaid 60-Piece Food Storage Containers with Lids : I guarantee you know someone who has these. The classic, red-lid plastic containers. This pack is large, so it’s clutch if you have a big family and need the extra storage capabilities.
Conquer the Kitchen: 5 Easy Meal Prep Hacks to Save Time and Sanity
Now that we have the infrastructure to start, we can get to the juicy details of thriving in a meal-prep world.
1. Batch Cooking:
Have a chicken recipe you’re cooking tonight and another recipe you’re cooking in a couple days? Cut your cooking time in half by batch cooking. Batch cooking basically means cooking multiple days worth of ingredients at the same time. Once you’re done, the “leftovers” (the ingredients you’ll be using later) into containers (told you they were important) and spend the rest of the evening relaxing knowing you just cooked in double-time.
Some optional items that may help you as you batch cook include:
An Instant Pot or slow-cooker (turn it on and walk away meals are always nice to have in your back pocket)
2. Smart Chopping and Prepping:
This is probably more relevant for vegetables, but proteins and grains can fall into this category.
I love cutting vegetables. My wife doesn’t. So sometimes on Sunday evenings, I’ll pull out all of our produce and I’ll go through and cut everything to the right size, put it into portioned containers, and then slide them back into the fridge. This lets me take care of some of the cooking load and also speeds up Kayla’s work-flow when she starts cooking later on in the week.
Look through the recipes you have planned for, and then chop, dice, and slice everything to the appropriate form all at once. That means you’ll have to clean your knife and cutting board on one night instead of 3 or 4, and prep yourself for success in the future.
3. Utilize Leftovers Creatively:
This was always a game in my house when I was in high school. My parents would cook food for dinner and we’d normally have leftovers (I was an only child). So when I got my driver’s license, I would drive home before my parents would get off work. I started trying to brainstorm different ways to take the leftovers and re-use them into a new recipe. In hindsight, most of my creations weren’t very admirable, but every now and then, I’d hit a home run.
If you’re meal planning, you shouldn’t have to be concerned about what tomorrow’s dinner is going to be (which is huge). The urgency of cooking has been lifted off your shoulders. Because of this, a general category you can now be thinking about is how you can repurpose and utilize your leftovers to enhance the meals you’re already planning on having. Still thinking about the tacos you had yesterday, what if we repurpose take that spicy ranch you made and add that to the menu for the sliders tomorrow?
4. Breakfast Meal Prep:
This is a big one. We’ve started trying to prepare breakfast meals in advance. Sometimes we’ll make breakfast burritos and throw them in the freezer so we can just pull them out when everyone wakes up. Sometimes Kayla will make a batch of over-night oats. Normally, mornings are stressful enough. You have to worry about getting the kids up, getting ready for work, and the last thing you need to do is scramble to scramble some eggs last minute so you don’t starve to death before lunch time.
5. Portion Control Made Easy:
Final tip: just because you make a lot of food at one time, doesn’t mean you should immediately sit down and try to eat it all (trust me, I’ve learned this from experience). Be intentional and disciplined to portion serving sizes appropriately. This helps make sure your food sticks around for as long as you need it to, and helps you not get into a bind later on when you accidentally eat tomorrow’s lunch as a second course the night before.
You can do this.
I promise you that meal planning can be very beneficial to your life. It will help you eat healthier, spend less at the grocery store, and take the burden and stress of cooking off your shoulders during busy weeknights.
All it takes it to get started.
You got this.
