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What is meal prep?
Meal prepping is an easy and effective way to deduct your cooking time. As the name suggests, meal prep is when you prepare meals in advance.
In simple terms, it is getting most of your culinary work like segregating ingredients, portioning components, chopping elements and pre-cooking done ahead of time. In other words, you will have an advanced head start to cooking.
What is the point of meal prep?
Meal prep is a great hobby to get habituated, which can be very rewarding. Those who would most likely benefit from meal prepping are:
- Anyone short of time to spare in the kitchen
- Busy parents raising kids and those who don’t want to invest their daily evenings cooking meals
- Those wanting to be frugal and start living on a budget.
- People opting for healthier options and want to avoid buying takeout food.
- Students attending universities or those living in dorms who want to save on time and money.
On the contrary, meal prep may not be for everyone. Some of the reasons could be that meal prepping could feel repetitive and hence you can suffer getting tired of the same routine, or having the feel of eating the same recipes over and over again or be overwhelmed by the amount of work going into it etc. Also, if you are someone who dreads leftovers then meal prepping may not be your thing.
How do I start meal prepping?
For all the newbies out there, meal prepping can be viewed differently and is very subjective. It can be easy for some, while it might be extremely demanding for the rest, and may require some time to get the hang of it.
The best way to tackle meal prepping for beginners would be to have an unhurried approach.
First learning the process of meal prepping would be a great initial step. Begin with prepping easy recipes like smoothies, pasta, salads, soups, shakes etc. Starting out with simple straightforward recipes acts as a great confidence booster before you can make that big jump into creating more innovative recipes.
How to meal prep for the week
1. Make a checklist:
The first step would be to make a pre-shopping checklist and outline a layout before heading to the stores. This is where you can get creative and have full freedom to design a personalized checklist according to one’s liking. It can be a weekly plan or a 2–3-day plan, or simply just targeting lunches or supper ideas based on your budget.
2. Create a routine:
For beginners, it would be prudent to start slow and then grow big. So, for the first few weeks, it would be idealistic to meal prep for 2 or maybe 3 meals a week initially then increase it to 4 to 6 meals a week or even more, then decide if you want to take that deep plunge into full-on meal prepping.
3. Stick to it:
This might come as a surprise to some but sticking to a meal plan is equally as challenging to creating a meal prep outline. Be motivated, get creative. build your meal prep goals and don’t let go!
4. Portioning:
Time to balance your meal portions by categorizing your produce. Make a guesstimate and classify your staples by allocating them into containers, zip lock bags, Tupperware boxes, or utensils of your choice etc. Make a checklist to make sure you are on track and top of things.
5. Juggling tasks:
This forms the main component of meal prepping. Endless ways to meal prep, this is the stage where one gets organized and makes their creation come to life by sorting, dicing, marinating, roasting and frying.
6. Assigning and allocation:
This is the stage where we assemble our ingredients for each recipe and club them together as per your preference. It would be helpful at this stage to label your containers with the name of the recipe, with its date of consumption and quantity to help you save time. And also to assemble your cooked and non-cooked ingredients accordingly to access them easily on the day of use.
7. Storing:
Another key step of meal prepping is deciding how to store your prepped elements. Basic principles of meal prepping involve storing raw and cooked ingredients in its appropriate places like having meats frozen, vegetables and fruits refrigerated while having items like lentils, pasta, nuts and seeds zip locked and stored in your food pantry.
What food is good for meal prep?
The best resources for meal prepping come from your food pantry, those store-bought commodities and fresh ingredients. Your produce can range from meats, vegetables, cheese, bread, lentils, fruits, nuts and seeds, pasta etc.
I personally prefer to have a portion of carbs, veg, protein and some fruit. So for example, spiced rice with cut cucumbers/cherry tomatoes, chickpeas and grapes.
How long can you keep meal prep in the fridge?
Unfortunately, although meal prep can be a time saver it lasts only for a few days as most of the components are perishable. Hence, it is not very famous for its longevity and therefore it would be wise to think of short-term goals while meal prepping.
Try to consume refrigerated cooked meals in a timely manner as it can help prevent food wastage and eliminate the need to discard rotting food. It would be best to consume food within 3 days or less of cooking as most products do not have a long shelf-life.
Related post:
- How to save $200/month on groceries – Money Hacks to consider!
- Supercook App – Recipes for leftovers
Are meal preps worth it?
A valid point to consider before entering into the world of meal prepping.
To answer this question, a little self-evaluation may be required. Figure out if you are someone dedicated to cooking meals at home without having the urge to buy takeout food, a probable drawback to meal prepping one has to consider is that meals can get a little repetitive.
Pros and cons of meal prepping
If you are someone who is on the fence and feel indecisive about meal prepping then maybe considering the pros and cons of meal prepping are something to keep in mind to determine if this could be the right for you.
Benefits of Meal Prepping:
– You don’t have to be a pro to meal prep, even amateurs can get accustomed to meal prepping with time.
– Meal prepping is not innate. As it is more of an acquired skill that can be learnt over a period of time.
– A guaranteed feature of meal prepping is that regardless of how good a meal prepper you may be, it is a known fact that meal prepping is a definite time-saver than conventional cooking techniques.
– It is a new offset to traditional cooking methods which makes you do everything from scratch three times a day 365 days.
– Meal prep is one of the best ways to be thrifty and economical for your gastronomic needs.
– It combats and prevents any yearning from dining out.
– Meal prepping can help you pre-portion your quantity and hence you can keep a tab of your calorie intake and make adjustments according to your daily need, hence it would be an apt choice for weight loss lovers.
– A great option for working couples who are pressed for time and it can be a great stress buster for couples who are constantly on the go.
– Meal prepping can help optimize your work in the kitchen giving you ample time to focus on your social life.
Cons of meal prepping:
Although there are no particular cons to meal prepping, it may not be everyone’s forte.
-It might require some organizational skills
-If you’re on a very tight schedule, meal prepping even though is time-saving would require you to allocate some quality time in a week to get the work done.
-Not the best choice for someone who prefers to buy from companies that offer weekly prepared meal delivery services
-It can be a bit inconvenient to meal prep for the entire family (especially for larger ones) and for those with extended relatives.
What is the proper way to meal prep?
1. Meal prep containers – Choose the right containers with lids, jars or zip lock bags for your prepped components.
2. Vegetable slicer – It would never hurt to get a multifunctional vegetable cutter/slicer or use a cookie cutter to aid in all that slicing and dicing if you think chopping with traditional knives is time-consuming and cumbersome.
3. Get Creative – If you are planning on making a salad, you can also try using a cookie cutter for your vegetables giving it a funky shape to veggies and making it more exciting.
4. Food Categories – Sort food ingredients into their food groups like categorizing grains, vegetables, fruits, carbs, protein etc.
5. Pantry Staples – Scavenging your food pantry, in other words, be a real-life food hunter searching for forgotten and previously bought staples that are found lingering in your food cabinet. These items can be a lifesaver and help you create new recipe ideas.
6. Inspiration – If you want to break an unchanging routine of cooking, here’s two words for you ‘’get inspired’’. The best thing about inspiration is that its ‘’absolutely free’’, so get inspired, read a cookbook, check out cooking blogs, watch cooking shows on TV, attend culinary classes, rummage through cooking videos etc.
7. New Food – Try breaking the monotony by exploring other global cuisines, don’t feel shy or hold back. Have a personal food planner and try weekly cuisines like Italian, Mexican, Mediterranean, Thai, Greek, Spanish, Chinese, Indian etc.
8. Organize – If you have that extra time in hand and love being super-duper organized, a meal prep diary would go a long way. In your meal prep diary, enlist your meal prep ideas, things to buy, sketch out a plan, a great place to write down your personal meal-prep thoughts.
9. Take a few breaks in between. Even a small hiatus can re-energize you and make you feel rejuvenated to start prepping for the next week.
10. Choose a date – At the start of a new week make sure you know the days that you would not require any prepping and so that you know which days you need to target.
Summary of Meal prepping:
Now that you have a full understanding of how to meal prep, we have a list of recipes that you can bookmark! Its meal prep idea for breakfast and dinner. They are simple recipes on a budget and perfect for beginners.
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