On the off chance that you are looking to save time, money or just enjoy a healthier diet, meal prepping can enable you to meet your goals. Meal prepping is spending a block of time one day a week to put together all of your would-be meals. Opposite to meal planning, where you search and collect recipes to fit your schedule best, meal prepping generally includes preparing meals or ingredients ahead of time and then storing them until it’s time to use them up. Whether you would like to make and freeze entire meals ahead of time, prepare meals in individual containers for rapid on-the-go lunches, or chop and store ingredients ahead of time, meal prepping can help you cut food waste, save money, and eat a healthier diet, similarly. Ready to begin? Here are a few tips to help turn your first meal prep into a successful one.
Start small. If you are just now starting with meal prep, it can truly become overwhelming to plan an entire week’s worth of meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) all at once. Start simply by doing a few meals a week, or maybe just dinners, lunches, or snacks. You can easily start making positive changes to your meal planning habits quickly wherever you start!
Make a checklist. It’s a brilliant plan to spend some time writing down everything you’ll need to do during your weekly meal prepping session. Collate your recipes and prepare a shopping list of all and anything you’ll need. This can truly ensure that you have all the correct ingredients on hand when the prep day arrives.
Invest in containers. When you do meal prep, you’ll be making meals or preparing ingredients for several days of meals all at once. Precisely why, it’s quite important to invest in a set of quality food storage containers that you can reuse each week. It may take a few weeks to figure out just how many containers you should have, so just start with a medium-size set and then adding more containers as you go, as may be required. Also, keep in mind that glass containers are more eco-friendly and tend to last longer than plastic!
Gather ingredients. Just before your planned prep day befalls, start buying the ingredients on your shopping list. The ideal place to initiate this is by shopping in your pantry. Take stock of what you already have or can use and what you need to get. Try to rotate the food in your pantry routinely to prevent wasting money on expired food items. Generally, it’s a brilliant idea to seek out and find recipes that will allow you to use things you already have to maximize your meal prep efficiency.
Schedule enough time. Meal prepping can take several hours, depending on how many and what type of meals you are preparing. Bear in mind to set aside a good chunk of time for your weekly meal prepping session. It’s a great idea to try and fulfill your meal prepping on the same day of the week and, and at the same time, to help make it a consistent part of your productive, new meal planning system.
Prep smart. Though conceding your principal goal may be to prep everything fresh or from scratch, don’t be distressed or afraid to take a few shortcuts when you need to. By way of illustration, if chopping vegetables takes up too much time (or you just don’t like doing it), go ahead and buy pre-cut vegetables instead. Still, don’t try to go too big or quite elaborate with your meals. Even supposing you wish to include all of the basic food groups into your meal plan if you find yourself really struggling to keep up, scale back your meal prepping at a bearable pace. The more efficient you can make your meal prepping sessions, the greater the probability that you will do it consistently every week.
Last point, be sure to remember that meal prepping is different for everyone. You may definitely want to experiment with different approaches until you finally find a system that works best for you.
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