Meal Prep 101
Meal prep isn’t just for body builders on Instagram; it’s for all of us! Learn how to customize meal planning and prep for your lifestyle.
We’ve all been there. You decide you’re going to improve your diet. You go to the grocery store and fill your cart with the most vibrant, colorful food you can find. You smugly watch the clerk ring up your fruits and veggies, beaming with the knowledge that he must think you’re super healthy.
Within a week, half of your prized food has succumbed to rot in the fridge, as though it sensed your smugness and wanted to punish you.
If this sounds familiar, you need some meal prep up in your life! By now, you’ve surely seen the beautiful photos on instagram of a week’s worth of lunches neatly laid out in little Tupperware, proudly displayed by an unbelievably attractive couple. His muscles can only be described as Herculean and she’s a fitness model who writes sponsored posts about detox tea. Meal prep is all the rage. But it isn’t just about making lunches for the week, silly hot couple! It’s about setting yourself up for success for the whole week. And it doesn’t mean you have to pre-cook all of your food on Sunday. It can take any form that would most benefit you.
Until a few years ago, I rarely did any meal planning or prep. Far too often in grad school, I would go to bed without dinner, having filled up on gin and tonics instead (that’s right, I am the poster child of health). It the G&Ts didn’t do the trick, I would dash to the nearby taco truck for a late night snack.
After I got married (but before Dan and I went vegan), we got into the habit of weekly grocery shopping. But we didn’t form a plan. I would attempt to make meals with the random groceries we’d purchased, only to realize that I was missing a few key ingredients. So our weekly shopping trip turned into one big trip to Trader Joe’s, plus several little trips to the overpriced corner store. If even the corner store couldn’t save us, we resorted to grabbing something from the nearby soul food place or the McDonald’s down the street. We coined this act a “desperation run.” For lunch, we went out everyday. And in NYC, that cost us about $8/person/day or $80/week. These “solutions” to our lack of planning were obviously not healthy nor cheap.
When we started our 10-day whole food, plant-based experiment, I knew I needed to approach grocery shopping and meal planning very differently if we were to succeed. I hoped it would make sticking to our new diet easier and save us some money. Spoiler alert: I was right. My solution was to set aside about an hour on Sunday morning to create a complete meal list for the week and a grocery list based on those meals. That afternoon, Dan and I hit the grocery store. I made sure to plan the week in such a way that we would have leftovers to pack for lunch and leftovers for dinner a few nights per week (so I didn’t have to cook everyday). I also factored in one meal out per week. If the upcoming week looked particularly stressful, we would prep some lunches and pre-chop veggies to make cooking dinner faster throughout the week.
This plan has worked for me for the last two years. But others may not have time or energy to cook dinner after work. Others may only be able to cook dinner a few nights per week. Others may be feeding a lot of mouths and usually don’t have leftovers. No matter your situation, you can customize your meal planning and prep to make your week healthier, cheaper, and easier. Does this sound like the intro to an infomercial? Good!
There are 3 things to keep in mind while thinking about this topic: MONEY, TIME, & TASTE.
MONEY:
If you have limited funds or are trying to save money on your food budget, proper meal planning and prep WILL save you cash (I pinky swear!). Aim to cook most of your meals at home with the possible allowance to eat out once or twice per week.
If you want to go a step further in your quest to cut your food budget, center your meals around super cheap ingredients like rice, beans, oats, potatoes, and frozen veggies.
TIME:
Consider how much time you can realistically spend cooking dinner everyday. The only wrong answer is a dishonest one. If the answer 0-30, you will need to do most or all of your meal prep on the weekend. It it’s 30 minutes, set aside some time on your day off to prep the dinner ingredients that will take the longest to prepare (pre-cook rice, pre-chop veggies, etc). When dinner time rolls around, you can just throw all that crap in a pan and season it. If you can afford longer than 30 minutes, your weekends will probably only need to consist of planning and grocery shopping.
Now, think about the other meals you eat. Do you need to eat breakfast everyday but end up grabbing something packaged on your way out the door? Or find yourself at a drive-in for a good ol’ cholesterol-laden egg and sausage sandwich? Prep some overnight oats on Sunday evening in little mason jars. They’re just as portable, cheaper, and won’t make your arteries scream in agony (I bet you thought that sound was just your power-steering pump). If you usually skip breakfast and opt for coffee and a large lunch, make sure that lunch is a nutritional powerhouse! Pack healthy, filling lunches on Sundays OR pack up your leftovers from dinner. This isn’t rocket science, folks! Even those of us who need a calculator for simple addition can do it (I am the poster child for health AND math skills)! It just takes some foresight.
TASTE:
Do you need variety in your meals? Or could you care less as long as there’s something to eat? I get bored with food quickly. If I eat the same dinner several nights in a row, I’ll eventually decide to forgo the leftovers and go out to eat. If my little bento box is filled with the same lunch Monday-Friday, I will get tired of it and end up buying lunch by Thursday. For some weird reason, this doesn’t apply to breakfast foods. If I find a breakfast I really like, I will happily eat it everyday. So if your preferences are like mine, you will be more successful if you make two different lunches and alternate them throughout the week. Similarly, if you have to batch cook dinner for the upcoming week, be sure to make 2 or 3 different dinner recipes.
If your palate doesn’t get bored easily, you can make one HUGE batch of something for lunch, and another GIANT batch of something for dinners. For a little variety, batch cook a soup on the weekend and make a different salad to serve with it everyday.
Clearly, there are SO many variables associated with this topic. There is no “one size fits all” approach. It’s important to figure out what you need and how to meet those needs. So, I’ll be sharing my approach to meal planning/prep and posting weekly recipes for your perusing pleasure. If an idea works for you, use it! If it doesn’t suit your needs, ignore it.
My meal plan for this week. Clearly, I’m very excited about bagels.
Here is my meal plan for the week. I made it look extra fancy and official just for you (you’re welcome). Because of my job, I am currently a vampire person. I work late and wake up late. So, I generally eat a large “breakfast” at 1:00pm and a large dinner at 6:00pm before I head to work. If I get hungry after dinner, I eat some fruit or nuts. I’m currently experimenting with oil-free granola recipes, so that (with some berries) is my main breakfast for the week. For dinners, I try to always make sure to include some cruciferous veggies.
So what now, my future meal prep champion? Go forth, have an honest discussion with yourself and/or your family, and figure out how you can customize your meal planning and prep to meet your needs. Let me know what solutions you come up with! And check in with me this Sunday for a meal prep hack.
Happy prepping!
-Courtney