let’s make this easy

Let’s talk about meal prepping, shall we?

I’m sure we’ve all seen it on Pinterest and Instagram by now - the counter covered in tupperware filled with meals all cooked, prepped, perfectly portioned out, and ready to go for the week.

Well, not gonna lie, this can be quite a bit of work to do all in one day, and because it ends up feeling like a chore, it’s a habit that starts off with great intentions and often ends up getting left in the dust.

Luckily, there’s an easier way to meal prep! All it takes is a handful of simplifications to make this seemingly heavy chore much lighter, so you can reap all the benefits while spending less time and energy in the process.

Benefits of Meal Prepping

The concept of meal prepping itself is wonderful and comes with many benefits:

1. Saving time on cooking throughout the week

2. Making healthier food choices

3. Eating more balanced meals

4. Avoiding cravings and crashes by having healthy food at the ready

5. Keeping your sanity amidst a busy life and schedule (i.e. avoiding hanger pains)

Realistic Meal Prepping

In order to make meal prepping a regular practice and enjoy all the benefits, there are some keys to making this habit easy enough to stick to:

1. Pick a time that works for you and your schedule

   Choosing one or two days a week to prep a variety of versatile foods is automatically going to save you time and help you eat healthier the rest of the week. Making breakfast, packing lunches, and cooking dinner will all be easier tasks when you have pre-cooked and prepped options at the ready.

   But hey, not all of us want to spend all day Sunday cooking in the kitchen, do we? Thankfully, there is no hard and fast rule that says meal prepping HAS to be done on Sunday, so if Sunday comes and goes and you realize you missed the meal-prepping boat, no need to fret or give up on the task altogether.

   Simply re-assign the task to another day. Or, perhaps you prep the carbs on Saturday and get the veggies ready on Sunday. Do what works best for your schedule - if it’s a task that needs to be broken up into a couple of days, that’s totally cool, no sweat!

2. Make big batches of versatile foods

   It is key to have a variety of base foods prepared to grab from so you can quickly throw together a salad, bowl, or simply cooked meal from the already prepared options.

   Healthy complex carbs is one category that is great to have prepped and ready to go. Here are some examples:

   • Cook a big batch of quinoa or brown/wild rice to have for salads, bowls, and sides

   • Cook (or simply open and strain) a big batch of chickpeas or black beans to easily add to meals. These double as a great source of plant-based protein and fiber too

   • Cook a big batch of oats to have ready for breakfast or snack all week long

   • Roast 6-10 sweet potatoes at a time to add to recipes or eat alone as a healthy snack

   Fruit and veggies are also great to have ready-to-go at all times. Here are some tips:

   • One tip is to wash produce right when you get home from the store as you’re putting it away

   • Take this tip a step further and chop up the fruit and veggies, then store them in glass containers for salads and cooked recipes

   • Or, skip these tips altogether and go straight for the pre-washed, pre-cut fruit and veggies. Seriously, no judgment here! If having pre-washed, pre-cut produce on hand is the difference between you actually eating them vs. reaching for the potato chips because you’re too tired to wash and chop, by all means buy the packaged veggies!

   • Last tip on produce - buy what you’re actually going to eat. If you love pineapple but you know you’ll never spend the time to remove the shell and cut it up, just go for the apple that requires no work instead. This way you have a healthy option that you know you’ll actually reach for when the time comes.

3. Skip portioning out individual meals

   Picture this, you made all your meals perfectly portioned out for the week, but by day 2 you’re so bored of grilled chicken with broccoli you say screw it and call for thai food delivery instead.

   Or, on Sunday you laid around on the couch all day and your food filled you up just fine, but after a long work day plus a work-out on Monday, you’re ravenous and the food you portioned out isn’t nearly enough. Any of this sound familiar?

   Here’s why - our caloric and energy needs CHANGE on a daily basis depending on our activity levels, stress, sleep, and more. Additionally, one day you might want savory and the next day you might want salty - our tastes and cravings change day-to-day too.

   For these reasons, I suggest skipping the actual “meal” prep part of meal prepping. (So maybe we should just call it food prepping?) By just having food bases prepped (plain quinoa, rice, beans, veggies, etc.) instead of the whole meal you can:

   • Combine the food bases in a wider variety of combinations (meals) to fit what you’re craving in the moment

   • Use the bases you have prepped and dress them up with different flavors, dressings and seasonings to match the mood you’re going for

   • Adjust portion sizes and macronutrient amounts (proteins, carbs, and fats) to match your daily caloric and energy needs

4. Use simple cooking methods and tools

   This kind of meal prepping is all about the basics. We’re talking plain rice, plain quinoa, plain beans, raw or unseasoned cooked veggies, unseasoned proteins, and so forth. Anything other than some extra virgin olive oil and a bit of sea salt can be left in the cupboard. The reasoning for this is twofold:

   1. Keeps things simple

   2. It allows you the greatest number of meal combination options so you can make different meals for different moods (you can season and add dressings later)

   Continuing with the simplicity theme, I love these two easy tools/methods for meal prep:

   1. The Instant Pot - use this to quickly and easily cook rice, beans, sweet potatoes, and more, all in one hands-off easy to clean pot

   2. A cookie sheet - use this to roast all sorts of veggies with simple olive oil and a bit of sea salt

Easier, simpler, more sustainable

Let’s review - the keys to easier meal prepping on a busy schedule are:

1. Pick a time that works for you and your schedule

2. Make big batches of versatile foods

3. Skip portioning out individual meals

4. Use simple cooking methods and tools

Overall, this method of meal prepping (or food prepping, if you will) is much more manageable, more versatile, and more satisfying. Instead of being limited to one or two meal combinations throughout the week, you can make a variety of combinations that will help you avoid getting bored with your food.

This in turn will help you stick to eating your homemade meals, rather than seeking yummier options elsewhere. As a result, you’ll be eating healthier (home-cooked is typically healthier) on a daily basis, without the stress of preparing a new dish from scratch every day.

I hope you love these tips! Leave a comment below to let me know how this style of food prepping goes for you, or share your favorite food prep hacks too!

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