Meal prepping doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Here are my best meal prep tips to help you achieve your health goals with an efficient meal planning strategy.
Prepping your meals doesn’t have to take a lot of your time. In fact, meal planning and meal prepping is all about saving time!
It helps you have a healthy home cooked meal on busy days because you cooked or prepped them ahead of time. If you follow a simple plan it will be easier to ensure that you keep to your prepping habits.
In this post I share some of my best tips on meal prep to help you achieve your health goals with an efficient meal planning strategy.
Meal prepping tips Do’s and Don’ts
1. Do start with simple meal prep ideas
When planning for your recipes, always start with meals that you are already familiar with. The best recipes for meal prepping are always the ones that you can batch cook in quantity and store for a few days.
Recipes with fewer ingredients are also perfect for meal prepping because you will have less ingredients to wash, dice and cook which will reduce the time you need available for meal prepping.
Check out some of the best meal prep meals for week days here.
2. Do choose the correct meal prep containers
Always make sure that you use the best food storage containers for each type of recipe.
Depending on the level of prepping that you will do, freezer bags will be enough. However, many recipes may require glass, oven, microwave and dishwasher safe containers.
It is important to have a good selection of airtight, leak-proof containers or bags to keep the meals fresh and safe for longer.
3. Don’t leave food in room temperature for too long
After you have prepared and portioned your meals, leave them in room temperature for about 30 minutes to cool down and then store them in the refrigerator straight away. They don’t need to be completely cool to be put in the refrigerator.
From frozen meals, after you have prepared and portioned the food, leave it in room temperature for 30 minutes to cool down, then cool them completely in the refrigerate for about 2 hours before placing the food in the freezer.
Tips for meal prepping organization
4. Check your freezer, fridge and pantry before grocery shopping
This is my top meal prep tips for busy moms who want to keep on the budget too.
Always check your freezer, refrigerator and pantry before even thinking about your meal prep ideas.
What ingredients do you have that need to be used so it doesn’t spoil? How can you make space in your freezer for the next batch cooking? Can you use any of your pre-prepared freezer meals this week?
This will help make your life so much easier.
5. Choose the best day for planning and prepping
Always choose a day of the week that you have the time to do your meal planning and prepping.
The weekend is often a great day for most people, but you can set your own prep routine that will work for your schedule.
You don’t have to follow anyone else’s plan here. If you feel comfortable meal prepping every 3 days, then do it. This is going to be a huge help already.
6. Check your schedule to avoid unnecessary work
Before you start preparing a meal plan think about the week ahead. Are you going to need to prepare meals for every day? Is there any event happening?
By doing so you avoid wasting precious time cooking and also money for the grocery you would otherwise buy.
Safety meal prepping tips for beginners
7. Label everything
The use of labels is an effective way for you to identify the meals you have prepared and stored in the freezer or fridge.
Don’t trust your memory here because it is easy to forget what you made and when without proper labeling.
Write down the recipe name and the date you cooked it, so you always know how fresh it is.
You can use either stickers or permanent markers to identify your meals.
Food prep tips take away
To keep yourself organized make sure that you take one day to do the planning and come up with a list of easy to follow recipes that require just a few ingredients.
Check your schedule to avoid unnecessary work and your pantry and fridge to use up previously cooked meals. This will make sure you make room for new meals and also save time preparing them.
To ensure that your food is always fresh and safe to eat, use proper airtight and leakproof containers or bag, don’t let the meals stand in room temperature for too long and label your containers so you can easily identify what is being stored.
Following these simple meal prepping tips is a surefire way to safe time, money and stress while meal planning.