Meal prepping may sound like a difficult job to do if you’ve never done it before, but really it’s going to help you to save time. Incorporating a meal prep Sunday into your weekly routine is so much simpler than you think it is, and it just takes a little planning.
Whether you want to create a Turkey mince chili, or you want to make an easy shepherd’s pie everyone can enjoy, there are so many options to help you to create a customizable plan for your whole family. That’s right, meal prepping is not just something you have to do for a single person.
You can meal prep the kids lunches, you can meal prep your lunches, and you can even meal prep dinners especially if you work long hours. Having a plan gives a sense of how much time you will need, so here is everything that you could be doing on a Sunday to get your meals ready for the week.
Delicious Meal Prep Options
- Plan your carbs. On Sundays, you need to give yourself enough time to plan your whole grains. Cooking up brown rice or quinoa by the pot can help you to create quick burrito bowls or chilled salads. You can even get through all of your potato peeling and mashing on a Sunday because you can store mashed potatoes in the freezer in portions, or you can roast them, so take them, or simply boil them ready for meal prep containers.
- Get your veggies ready. You don’t have to cook all of your vegetables at the same time if you don’t want to. Some people do it because then they just need to reheat their lunch and get ready for the day. Chopping your vegetables to be cooked later in the week helps you to get ready and save you so much time during the week. You can spiralize and peel everything, or chop into chunks and have it ready in the meal prep containers in the fridge. This way you can prep it once and use it twice.
- Get your salads prepared. If you like to have salads at lunch time, wash through all of your lettuce and your leaves, chop your cucumber and your tomatoes, and whisker salad dressing to use in a bottle in the fridge. You can then pull all of your salads together in moments, whether you have it for lunch or you have it for dinner as a side order.
- Choose your proteins. Are you planning on having eggs for breakfast or lunch? Get them hard boiled and keep them in their shells in the fridge. You can also roast a couple of large chickens and slice the breast and the legs, or you can bake tofu and get it stacked and ready. You should consider making enough protein for at least two meals, but you probably could stretch to Wednesday.
- Go shopping for your containers. If you don’t have meal prep containers already in the house, then take yourself to your local supermarkets or your local homeware store and start buying. You can choose to have meal prep containers with just one compartment, or you can even break it into three. Some people love the idea of a Bento box, which will prevent any spills if you choose to make anything with sauce. The containers that you use for meal prepping should also have a knife and a fork with it, but you can just choose to bring some from home.
- Make a menu. Before you do any of the list above, sit down and make a list of all the meals you plan to have for the week. If you are planning on having a breakfast meal prepared, you might want to buy some Mason jars and ensure you have enough for your overnight oats, but it doesn’t really matter which menu you are preparing. Just write a list so that you can then write an ingredients list based off of it. This way, you are shopping for what you know you need rather than what you think you need. Making a menu for your meal prep is also going to keep you on track so that you know exactly what you are using along the way.
- Serve. If you decide to make your meal prep for the whole week, make sure that you make freezer friendly meals so that you can put half of your meal prep in the freezer. This will mean that all you have to do is wipe it out to defrost it the night before you need it and then take it to work to reheat. Knowing that you have cooked for your family in bulk for dinners is also going to really help you out. You want to ensure that you are planned and prepared for the entire week so that you are ready to get going every time you’re going to pick a meal.
It’s really that easy! Thanks for stopping by!
