The last thing many of us want to do after a long day at work is get into the kitchen and slave away at the stove for an hour cooking. Finding time to prepare healthy meals can be a challenge.
Many of us when we think of meal prepping, we think of cooking everything on a Sunday evening and eating out of containers for the week, which some may find overwhelming and stressful. The good news is with a few simple strategic steps, you can simplify this concept and eliminate some of that stress!
1. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
You want to try and plan which meals you’d like to cook for the week. This way you can easily put together a shopping list and it minimizes your reliance on convenience foods. Starting with as little as 2-3 recipes you plan to make can be a good start.
2. A little goes a long way
Most people believe that meal prep means you have to cook the dish from start to finish and assemble it into containers. However, you could simply meal prep different components of your recipes instead! You could chop up all of your veggies ready to add to bases or dishes or have them as on-the-go snacks.
3. Invest in quality containers
Nothing puts you off eating your meal-prepped lunch more than realising it’s leaked at the bottom of your bag! Invest in a handful of durable, freezer-safe, and microwave-friendly containers, maybe even with multiple compartments as this can be useful for portion control.
4. Make it enjoyable!
If you’re into plain rice, chicken and broccoli as your meal prep, I won’t stand in your way! However, meal prep meals don’t have to be bland or include foods you hate the thought of. These days you can find healthier ‘fakeaways’ for lots of takeaways, and there are plenty of ways to make food tasty that won’t increase the saturated fat content.
Ultimately meal prep needs to fit your schedule. Consistency is key in whether you prep for the entire week on Sundays or break it into smaller blocks of prepping/cooking. You can even try to recruit others in your household to share the workload and make meal prep more enjoyable so it doesn’t seem so over-overwhelming!
