Mastering Meal Prep: How to Save Time and Eat Healthier

Meal prepping makes it easier to follow a diet that supports your health and fitness goals. It also helps you avoid impulsive buying and eating that can be costly in terms of both money and time.

Meal prep can involve chopping, marinating, boiling and cooking multiple meals at once. To optimise your meal prepping efforts, select recipes that can be made in advance.

Planning

The first step in successful meal prep is planning your ingredients and cooking schedule. Pick a day per week to prep and cook meals. This also helps determine when you will need to go shopping, as you may have to buy fresh produce and other items that do not last long in the refrigerator or freezer.

You can meal prep whole recipes to be frozen or refrigerated, or you can prepare component foods for use in different meals. Choosing to make a larger batch of a recipe that can be eaten multiple times, such as soup or chili, may help reduce food waste by having extras on hand to enjoy in the future.

If you are new to meal prepping, start small by preparing meals for two or three days at a time and snacks to have on hand. This will ease you into the process, save you money and reduce food waste. Plan ahead to avoid running out of essentials like protein, whole grains, beans (canned or dried), jarred sauces and healthy oils.

Prepping

Meal prep involves preparing meals in advance and storing them in airtight containers, usually plastic ones that can be reused. Many brick-and-mortar grocery stores and online retailers sell meal prep containers but you can also upcycle old takeout or Cool Whip containers that seal well. Meal prepping can save time on daily cooking and ensure that you’re eating a healthy, balanced diet. However, it’s important to make sure your meals are varied and that you don’t repeat the same foods too often, as this can lead to boredom and a tendency to reach for unhealthy snacks or fast food.

Ideally, you should use a recipe or meal planning app that takes into account any allergies and dietary restrictions you may have. This will help you plan a meal that suits your needs and ensure that you have all the ingredients you need before starting to cook. Prepping foods and storing them at the correct temperatures can reduce your risk of food poisoning.

Storing

Whether you’re meal prepping to make weeknight dinners more manageable or to stick with your fitness or health goals, it’s important to store and reheat food at the correct temperatures. This ensures that your meals are safe to eat and keeps them fresh for longer, which cuts down on food waste.

Depending on your schedule, cooking and eating habits, and dietary restrictions, meal prepping can be as comprehensive or as simple as you like. It can be as easy as washing and chopping vegetables and batch-cooking grains or marinating proteins and then portioning them out into containers, or you can cook and pre-portion entire recipes to create a week’s worth of dinners.

For beginners, Palinski-Wade suggests starting small by prepping only two or three days’ worth of meals at a time. She also recommends keeping a fully stocked pantry so that you have the ingredients on hand when you get stuck in a meal prep rut. There are also a number of smartphone apps that allow multiple people in a household to collaboratively plan and shop for groceries, which eliminates confusion and double purchases.

Cooking

When people think of meal prepping, they often picture whole meals, like chicken breast, rice and veggies, perfectly portioned into a week’s worth of containers. But there’s more than one way to meal prep, and it depends on your schedule and preferences.

“It’s important to know what your ideal meal prep day looks like for you and your family,” Palinski-Wade says. That’s why she suggests finding a day each week to shop for groceries and cook multiple dishes for the coming week. “It helps to have a set routine so you can plan accordingly and avoid food waste,” she adds.

Another option is to do ingredient prepping, where you prepare your ingredients ahead of time, like roasting a chicken that will be used in dinners throughout the week or chopping veggies for salads. This way, you’ll have fresher ingredients on hand and won’t be tempted to buy takeout when hunger strikes. This type of meal prep also cuts down on food waste, as you’ll use up your ingredients before they spoil.