Meal Prepping For Beginners
Most of us are pretty busy in our day-to-day lives. When you've got a million things on the go, meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking can sometimes fall by the wayside, especially if you're unsure of how to prepare your meals in advance or make healthy, tasty recipes that'll cater to your cravings all week.
Here is the why and how to help you get started on your meal prep journey plus an easy template to think about when you're grocery shopping or planning meals for next week. This method is particularly good if you are short on time and you don't think you'll enjoy eating the same thing a couple of days in a row.
The first thing you should do is pick a day to prepare all your meals. This Pad Thai is easy to make and will definitely have you looking forward to your meals during the week, no take-out necessary. Aim to do your big weekly shop on Saturday or early Sunday, so you have time to prep your ingredients before the work week begins.
B) It ensures you've got nutritious meals on hand and ready-to-go = great if you've got health or fitness goals in mind. I find calorie counting to be tedious and I get overly obsessive so I like to choose meals that are naturally healthy and nutritious to add into my meal preps like the recipes I've chosen for you today.
The first time meal prepping will take much more time, as you aren't used to the hand movements. Don't select meals that require prep before you head out the door. Meal prepping, on the other hand, can help us balance our schedule with the foods we eat to maximize our health.
Also, I want to tell you that there is no right or wrong way to do freezer meal cooking. Whether than means freezing individual servings of soup in food storage bags or freezing herbs in an ice cube tray, this tip is sure to make meal prepping easier. Write your menu: When planning your menu and prep, rely on some tried and true recipes that you've cooked before, with one or two new recipes thrown in. Keeping things simple will help save you time.
Component meals are what I refer to as batch cooking. You can easily find recipes for EVERYTHING online and there are plenty of Youtube videos on how to cut, wash, prepare any and all foods. Another great way to ease into freezer cooking is just freezing individual ingredients.
You don't have to spend a whole day in the kitchen cooking if you don't want to. You can just double a few meals you make each night and within a week you will have a nice stash of meals built up. I of course LOVE to make a whole bunch of meals in a day as one day of hard work equals many days of me not cooking.
Put each meal's portion into a resealable freezer Healthy Food bag, along with any marinade you might want for it, and be sure to label what day you packaged it. Raw meat is good for a few days in the refrigerator, and if you can't get to it before then, you can just throw it directly in the freezer.
Allow to cool and shred using two forks then store in an air tight container in the fridge for 3-5 days. My husband and l both have Fibromyalgia (chronic pain and fatigue) and had terrible eating habits as most days we aren't up to cooking a proper meal. It provided variety, and it was exciting to swap Sunday night texts with the recipes (usually from your site) of what we had prepped that week.