Meal prep is usually aligned with healthy eating, however it’s quite common for the driver and motivation to be anything other than health related. In fact, Meal prep saves precious time and money which attracts those who have never given thought to a disciplined diet. Moreover, meal offers the opportunity to cook in bulk which means you can benefit from economies of scale by buying in bulk. Again saving those dollars and time by cooking meals for perhaps a week at a time, leaving you free and financially better off to enjoy other parts of life.
Of course, if cooking were one of your enjoyable hobbies then you would enjoy this activity but it doesn’t mean to say meal prep is not for you. On the contrary, you would have more of a reason to prepare Food and give your creative side some time to experiment on a slightly bigger scale. This Meal Prep 101 article intends to take you through the basic steps and help you get you started, covering meal planning and ideas that will hopefully inspire you to meal prep.
Table of Contents
Meal Prep 101
1) Meal Prep – What Is It?
2) Various Types of Meal Prep
3) Reasons for Meal Prep
4) Who Should Be “Meal Prepping”?
5) Food That Are Meal Prep Friendly
6) Meal Prep – Step 1: Make a Plan
7) Meal Prep – Step 2: Shop & Cook
8) Meal Prep – Step 3: Eat. Then Repeat.
Meal Prep – What Is It?
This term that has become quite synonymous to eating healthy meals can get confusing. Is it prepared meals? Is it act of preparing meals? Is eat ready-made meals? The term “meal prep” commonly gets used interchangeably as a noun or a verb.
Although it sounds simple, it’s not just prepared meals or the act of preparing meals however. Meal prep includes planning the meals in addition to preparing them in advance to eat at a later date or time. These could be a few meals for each day or even days and weeks by keeping them in a fridge or freezer. These meals can then be defrosted and even reheated when its time to eat. It is worth noting that the meal prep could be in the form of ingredients packed and ready to cook when needed.
Think sliced onions. Preparing a bulk amount of chopped onions means, teary eyes once for that duration, knives, chopping boards, etc. gets be washed once and if the onions is kept in the freezer, less space is used.
Various Types of Meal Prep
Batch Cooking
Most common reason for meal prep is to cook in batch and store them to consume at a later time. It gives you the benefit of having food cooked in large quantities and then dividing them in portions. This can then be packed away in a fridge or freezer to eat as and when needed.
Ingredient Preparation
Meal preparation takes a lot of time. If these preparations can be done in advance then it saves time during cooking. Advance preparation of ingredients allows you to have the ingredients prepared in large amounts and then store in a fridge or freezer to use for your cooking over a few days. Whether that means having them cut or divided in portion, having them ready to chuck in the pan ultimately leads to time saving and less wastage. This is ideal for perishable food that can be frozen to extend its usable life.
Make-ahead Meals
Yes, as mentioned earlier economies of scale has it’s benefits, but it’s not always about large quantities. Meal prep also has a place for single meals. Preparing the meal ahead gives you the flexibility to eat your food whenever you desire and wherever you desire. You may be planning a trip to the great outdoors or have a busy day planned ahead, in which case a prepped meal will be a treat. This also helps you portion control in advance. Once the meal is made and ready to consume, there is less of a chance of over-eating.
Reasons for Meal Prep
Well, its common knowledge that buying in bulk saves you money. Think Costco and other top wholesalers. Their per item cost is normally cheaper than the normal consumer supermarket but you have to buy in relatively large quantities.
Similarly, cooking in bulk also goes a long way in cost savings. When you cook in bulk, the time taken usually increases by a little amount compared to single meals, of course relatively speaking. As an example, if it took 30 minutes to cook a single meal but 60 minutes to cook the same meal for 7 servings, you’ve saved yourself 3 hours of cooking time. This means you’ve used less energy (gas, electricity), less washing up and sometimes less wasted ingredients. These overheads add up in the total cost savings.
Another reason is; convenience and being able to consume quality meals when time pressured or on the go. When you are controlling your portion size or counting those macros, it’s not very easy or practical to carry a scale with you and measure all the separate components of a meal before you eat. Meal prepping allows you to have these planned in advance and ready to eat whether you’re on the go or time is of the essence.
Our quick read post on 5 Reasons Why You Should Meal Prep, explores a little more on reasons for meal prep.
Who Should Be “Meal Prepping”?
Meal prep works for all but particularly ideal for people on a diet programme. It also helps people who are time bound with their breaks at work and as weird as it sounds, meal prep works well for people who don’t cook or cannot cook. Their meals are usually prepared by another person/organisation in advance for them to consume. There are a few categories of people listed below. Feel free to add any you can think of in the comments section.
- Travellers
- People with medical conditions
- People on a specific diet
- Employees
- Health enthusiasts
- People on a budget
Food That Are Meal Prep Friendly
There aren’t many limitations on the types of food and ingredients for meal prepping. The key is to decide on you’re the method for preservation during the planning stage. If you are keeping the food at room temperature; then as a rule of thumb, you should try to consume the food in a few hours. Of course this is dependant on the food. Dry food can last much longer. Always check the guidelines on the food packaging. For fruits and vegetable that are bought lose, speak with the vendor at time of purchase because they will be able to tell you how long the items have been sitting on the shelf for. For those of you that are beginners in cooking, you will learn over time to be able to predict how long an item of food has been sitting on the shelf just by looking at it.
If the plan is to keep your meals in a fridge then this will most likely increase the shelf life of the meal by days. Again, this is dependant on the ingredients and check before you refrigerate. For food that are susceptible to going soggy while in the fridge, consider covering the prepared meals with a absorbable cloth or a kitchen roll. If the food is sealed in a container then layer the cloth on top and close the lid on top. This will help to absorb the moisture. Always allow the food to cool down to room temperature before putting the food in the fridge. Be particularly careful with dairy products or food containing dairy products. When they have been left in room temperature for a while it doesn’t hold well even if you put in in the fridge again.
Utilising a freezer extends the life of the prepared meals to weeks and even months. Before putting the food in the freezer, let any hot food cool down to room temperature and then in the fridge first before putting in the freezer. If you were planning on cooking in bulk, it would be a good idea to invest in a large freezer. When space does become an issue in the freezer and you end up cramming it all in, it is a good idea to arrange the food in order of when they are to be taken out. For example, the meals that will come out first should be in the front and the lasts ones at the back.
Check out the list below on foods that work well in the freezer and foods that do not work so well.
Freezer Friendly
Dairy:
- Butter
- Cheese
- Cottage Cheese
- Raw Egg Whites
- Ice Cream
- Milk
- Whipped Cream (Sweetened)
- Whole Eggs
Meat, poultry and seafood:
- Bacon
- Beef
- Lamb
- Chicken
- Crab
- Fish
- Hot Dogs
- Lobster
- Pork
- Sausage
- Scallops
- Shrimp
- Turkey
- Venison, Rabbit, Duck, Pheasant, Squirrel, Goose
Produce:
- Artichokes
- Asparagus
- Avocado (Pureed and Prepped with Lemon Juice)
- Beets
- Berries
- Broccoli
- Brussels Sprouts
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Cherries
- Greens
- Mangos
- Melon (Chunks)
- Mushrooms
- Okra
- Onions
- Peaches (Peeled, Sliced)
- Peas
- Pineapple (Chunks)
- Potatoes
- Pumpkin
- Squash (Summer Squash, Zucchini, and All Winter Squashes)
- Strawberries (Hulled)
- Sweet Potatoes
Freezer Friendly (Continued)
Baked Food:
- Biscuits
- Brownies
- Cakes
- Croutons
- Muffins
- Cookies
- Fruit Cake
- Doughnuts (Unglazed)
- Pies
- Pizza
Doughs, Batters and Pastries:
- Pizza Dough – Uncooked
- Cookie Dough
- Cake Batter
- Yeast Dough
NOT Freezer Friendly
Cooked Food:
- Cooked Egg Whites
- Cream Based Soups and Sauces
- Meringue
- Fried Foods (become soggy)
- Fully cooked pasta
- Fully Cooked Rice
- Hard-Boiled Eggs
Salad:
- Lettuce
- Cucumber
Condiments and Dips:
- Mayonnaise
- Sour Cream
Meal Prep – Step 1: Make a Plan
Meals
This is where you can get creative. You can use your mum’s super delicious recipes, your favourite cookbooks or even freestyle cooking (if you have no need to count those macros). There are a lot of free cooking eBooks out there on the Internet that you can take advantage of. Amazon’s Kindle offers a good range of books and there are regular free copies available. The Kindle app is also available on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for free. It is a good idea to cook a variety of meals and prepare different meals every couple of weeks to keep your taste buds on your side.
What is more essential at this stage is to understand the amount of dishes and ingredients you need to prepare. A good benchmark to start off with is a 7-day meal plan that includes breakfast, and dinner. The more specific Dieters will have their own schedule of meals based around their individual needs. On the 7-day plan, it is most likely that the dinner and lunch would be a prime candidate for advance meal preparation which equates to having 14 meal prep done every week. The breakfast meal would be more suited with ingredient prep and cooked prior to consumption. Depending on the type of breakfast this could go in food storage bags of plastic containers.
Storage
When planning for your meal prep, safe storage of food is an important factor and most of your cooking will be based around this constraint. It’s the chicken and the egg scenario again. Do you invest in storage space based on how much food you need to prepare or prepare enough that your storage medium allows? The answer to this question will be based entirely on what is more important to you and your circumstances. Of course for many, the current storage may be adequate for your meal prep needs, which means you are one step ahead already.
On most occasion storage will be in the Fridge/Freezer but the freezer tends to become prime real estate when cooking in advance. Keeping cooked meals in separation takes up a lot of space but allows you to have the meals ready to eat within minutes. When space is limited, ingredients preparation means you can bunch up the food together and this takes up less space in the fridge/freezer however adds time onto the cooking.
Once you’ve decided on what is important to you, it will enable you to start thinking about the ingredients and types of meal you want to prepare. Dry food work well in room temperatures and wet food will require lower temperatures to preserve. Be sure to keep an eye on those “best before” dates and vendors instructions on storage. More food safety advice can be found on the Food Standards Agency website or FoodSafety.gov if you live in the US.
Food Storage Containers
Good food containers are also important for meal prep. Containers that give you an airtight seal which will keep your food fresh for longer. An airtight seal will preserve the food for longer and avoid leaks when transporting them. On the versions with multiple compartment this will also mean the liquids in the food do not end up getting mixed with each other.
Plastic containers that are designed for meal prep are lightweight and flexible allowing for easy transportation. Always go for BPA free plastic for food products. BPA can be harmful to the brain, human behaviour, prostate gland of foetuses, infants, children and a possible link between BPA and increased blood pressure. Also ensure they are freezer safe (not all are!). If they are dishwasher and/or microwave friendly then that’s a bonus that will save you a lot of time. Space saving design such as stackable containers also helps out when storage space is limited.
There are a lot of products out there for meal prep containers but one of the products that does incorporate all those features mentioned above and more; are our very own THIS LEAN Meal Prep Containers. Click on the link to check them out. They come as a single compartment, round or two and three compartment versions.
Meal Prep – Step 2: Shop & Cook
Stock Take
Now that you’ve decided how many meals you need to prepare and hopefully decided on what food you want to cook, it is time to get the ingredients ready. It is a good idea to go through your pantry cupboards and list what items you already have. This will help you reduce waste, something that saves you money as well as the environment!
Where possible and depending on how much you are cooking, aim to buy in bulk. Contrary to popular belief you can buy in bulk without having to have trade membership with wholesalers. Many of them offer personal membership for an annual fee. Costco is a good example of this; they have annual membership options for business buyers and non-business buyers.
Shopping
When buying, shop smart. Special offers are great but be sure to check those “use by” dates for your groceries. It’s no good buying groceries for 7-day meal prep if it’s not going to last you till the end of the next day. Of course on many occasions food can be consumed after best before dates but that’s another topic. Let us know in the comments if this is a topic you would like to see covered in one of our posts.
There are usually two main dates to watch out for, “Sell by” dates and “best before” dates. The “sell by” date is to let the store know of when to have the product sold to the customer by. The “best before” date lets the customer know of the recommended date for the product to be consumed by for best quality.
Cooking
Planning the cooking process will save you a lot of time. Try to find the most efficient sequence of cooking the food so you’re not just standing there for something to cook before you can begin the next step. You would have ideally allocated a day of the week for your cooking, #MealPrepSundays seems to work with most people.
Some foods are best left uncooked until the time comes to eat. Pack those foods separately and store them appropriately. Once you have cooked all your food, allow for it to cool before packing and storing. Top tip, for foods that contain a lot of moisture like rice for example, place a cloth or a napkin on top and close the lid. This will absorb the water and keep your food from getting soggy.
Once all your food and ingredients are packed, label them with what it is and the date it was cooked. This will save you having the food all mixed up and having to open each one up to see what it is. If you’re diet is calorie controlled, makes sure to also note the calories and macros for the meal.
Meal Prep – Step 3: Eat. Then Repeat.
We would love to tell you that this last step is the easy part. Unfortunately, for most people, it is the part where failure happens, which is why it’s the planning stage in step 1 is crucial to make your meal prep journey sustainable.
Experiment with food but also include tried and tested meals in your plan. Change your meals every few weeks and make a log of what works well and what doesn’t. This will ensure when fatigue kicks in from daily life, you don’t resort to takeaways and quick meals.
Have some flexibility in your plan so you can swap meals around on the day if you are really not in the mood for the next planned meal. If you’re use to eating fast food and a healthy diet is the driver for your meal prep, it can get quite difficult because of the cravings for salt and fatty food. When you find yourself wanting to quit, re-plan your meals so that you can gradually reduce the salt and fat content.
Those labels on the prepped meals will help to count your nutritional intake and aid in identifying your meals quickly for grab and go if you’re in a hurry. We find myfitnesspal quite useful for this. It’s free to use and they also have apps for iOS and Android. Quality food takes time and costs more, but overall if you plan well and shop smart then it doesn’t have to be that way.
We hope this meal prep guide is useful to you. Its purpose is to cover the basics and provide a few helpful tips. Don’t forget to treat yourself here and there. Thanks for reading and please share with anyone that you think will benefit from this post.
This post first appeared on THIS LEAN's Health, Fitness & Sports, please read the originial post: here
