Meal prepping is designed to make life easier. It takes away the headache of not only figuring out what to eat at every mealtime, but the hassle of making it as well. It’s a great solution for people who are trying to eat healthier without more stress, for those who never seem to have the time to make meals, and for those who just don’t have the motivation to cook!
Why meal prep?
There are many benefits to meal prepping, such as:
- Improving health
- saving time
- having something handy to eat that’s also healthy
- saving money by not eating out or ordering takeout
- managing portion sizes
- better relationship with food
How to start meal prepping
There are three main methods of meal prepping:
- Batch cooking – where big recipes are made in one go, sometimes portioned up, and then frozen or saved for later use.
- Individually-portioned meals – where food is portioned into containers ahead of when they need to be used.
- Prepped ingredients – any ingredients that need to be chopped, peeled, roasted, sliced, or prepared before being used are prepared and kept for later use.
The three different methods appeal to different people according to what’s best for them. Whatever the method though, getting started with meal prepping is easy – just follow these tips.
1. Write it down
The first step to meal prepping is creating a meal plan, which is a rough idea of when the meals will be eaten. After that, create a grocery list of what ingredients will go into these recipes. Stocking up on basics is a great place to start, but the list can always be fine-tuned and updated after tip number 2!
2. Choose easy recipes
Making food that’s tasty and healthy doesn’t have to be difficult. Some easy recipe ideas for meal prep can be one-pot recipes, salads (where the base isn’t necessarily greens), or mix and match (where an array of components can be mixed and matched for plenty of combinations).
3. Use recipes with overlapping ingredients
Even after choosing easy recipes, the process of meal prepping can be further streamlined by using recipes with overlapping ingredients. Carbs like pasta, rice, and potatoes are great examples of ingredients that can go in many different recipes but end up with vastly different results.
4. Plan around social life
Meal prepping works best when it’s built around social life. Taking a Saturday to meal prep when the alternative was binging Netflix shows is great, but skipping a best friend’s wedding to meal prep isn’t! Plan a meal prep schedule that works for you and you’re likely to stick with it.
5. Take notes
Taking note of what works and what doesn’t is a great way to refine and personalize meal prepping. Use resources like Pinterest or food blogs to take note of:
- recipes
- methods of meal prepping
- ingredients (based on flavor, versatility, amount of use, ease of use, storage life, etc.)
- times to meal prep
Meal prepping doesn’t have to be difficult, and it does a world of good. We love that, because here at BetterYou, we’re all about helping our users to make better health and wellness decisions every day. We hope that this article has helped you figure out how to start meal prepping!
