Two habits helpful for eating more nutritious meals and snacks are Meal Planning and Meal Prepping. Planning out your meals for the week can increase your fruit and vegetable consumption by including them in your meals and decrease your food budget by consuming more homemade meals and less restaurant meals. Meal Planning is most successfully executed when Meal Prepping is part of the process.
Meal Prepping can be anything from preparing produce for immediate consumption (wash the grapes, cut up the strawberries, slice the carrots) to getting all the ingredients ready for each meal (think cooking show style). Our family falls in the middle of this preparation continuum. The produce is generally ready for consumption and lunches are made for my husband, my school-age son, and me.
If you’re a pro at this, leave some of your tips in the comments! We can all benefit from your knowledge. If you’re new to meal prepping (and perhaps even meal planning), we’ll give you some tips to get started and hopefully keep this healthy habit going!
Meal Prep: There are about as many methods to meal prepping as there are to bathing your children. The end result is the same, but we all attempt it a little differently. The best way to meal prep is the way that works best for your family, schedule, and food preferences. That being said, there are a few basic guidelines that are helpful for everyone:
- Set Aside Time. It seems like a no-brainer, but meal prepping is an investment that takes time and storage. Depending on when you do your grocery shopping, you’ll need to carve out an hour or two to prep veggies, portion out snacks and lunch items, and create some meals. It seems time-intensive on the front end, but meal prepping actually saves you time throughout the week.
- For example, my meal prepping is spread out over the week. I’ll alternate weeks where I’ll make tortillas or sourdough crackers during naptime on day. I get groceries on Friday and clean my produce then. On Sunday mornings I’ll prep my breakfasts for the week, my hubby’s lunches for the week, portion out parts of my son’s lunches, and hard-boil a whole bunch of eggs. On Mondays, I’ll make a big batch of cooked grains and beans or roasted sweet potatoes to use for my lunches during the week.
- Invest in decent storage options. You’ll need reusable storage for portioning out meals, making work lunches, making snack baggies for the kiddos, and storing prepped fruits and veggies.
- Our fridge goes from full to empty during the week and my Tupperware drawer goes from empty to full at the same rate. I use glass containers for my lunches and grains because I reheat those in the microwave. I use plastic containers for my hubby since he does not reheat his lunch. We just purchase reusable plastic and cloth bags from Amazon because we were going through so many baggies each week.
- Don’t forget about the freezer! If you’re making smoothies everyday, why not make some extra and throw it in the freezer to have the next day? Making soup or stew? Double the recipe and freeze half of it so you have two meals for the work of one. This is very smart meal prepping.
- We store our soups and stews in the gallon freezer bags. Once the meal has cooled, we put it in the freezer bag, seal it, label it, and lay it flat in the freezer so it freezes like a book. Voila! Now you can stack them!
- Sometimes it’s simple. The mornings can be chaotic – trying to get the kids ready for school or class, eating the most important meal, and getting out the door for work – to say the least. If your mornings don’t allow much time for any prepping, do it the night before. Get the lunches and class snacks ready, assemble some of your breakfast, or get the coffee ready while you’re cleaning up from dinner. These may not be huge time bombs in the morning, but gaining a few minutes here or there can really add up. And maybe, just maybe, you could have a smoother morning.
Food Storage Guidelines: Meal prepping can involve cutting up your produce. What is the best way to store your prepping efforts to preserve as much freshness as possible?
- Root vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and beets, and other hard veggies like celery and radishes should last a week cut up in the fridge. You can place them in a sealed container with a little clean water after washing and cutting or a damp paper towel.
- Leafy greens: After washing, pat dry with a paper towel or run through a salad spinner. Lay the greens on a paper towel or clean dishtowel. Roll up the towel and put in a gallon-size freezer bag and leave unsealed. This should keep the greens fresh for a week. If using pre-washed greens, choose the product with the furthest “use by” date and store in the fridge.
- Cruciferous veggies such as cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts should be stored in an airtight container. Broccoli may need more breathing room so store washed crowns wrapped in a dry paper towel in an open container.
- Softer veggies such as tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, avocadoes, and summer squashes do not retain freshness very long after cutting them. It’s best to cut these veggies closest to the time you are going to use them.
- It’s great to prep a big salad to enjoy for dinner for a couple of meals or individual salads to eat throughout the week. With fresh produce, your salad should last a couple of days. Avoid adding avocado chunks or salad dressing to your big salad; save that for mealtime. When making salads in individual containers:
- Choose hearty greens such as arugula or kale
- Use harder veggies such as radishes, snap peas and carrots and seeds or nuts for your bottom layer
- Add your salad as the middle layer
- Top your salad with the softer veggies such as cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, peas, cooked grains, and/or roasted potatoes
- Store your dressing in a different container
- Keep your protein – hard boiled egg, cooked chicken, sliced tofu – in a different container
- Refrigerated fruits are not as hardy as many vegetables. If you are going to wash your fruit before storing, you should consume that fruit within a day or two. This recommendation mainly applies to softer fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
- Sprinkle a little lemon- or lime-juice on cut apples and pears to retain freshness and prevent browning.
- Melons can be cut and stored in an airtight container for 2-4 days.
- Use a salad spinner to dry washed grapes before storing in the fridge. You can keep your grapes in an open container for 3-5 days depending on the ripeness of the grapes upon purchase.
- Fruits such as mangoes, peaches, and nectarines are best left alone until ready to eat.
- If you’ve prepared your fruit but are unable to finish it before it spoils, freeze it! You can use frozen berries in cooking, smoothies, or added to oatmeal. Frozen melon and grapes are a snack sure to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Meal prepping is a healthy habit that can save time and money throughout the week. As with all habits, it can take time to put into practice consistently. Some weeks you’ll be the Meal Prep Queen and some weeks you’ll have to keep your LuLu leggings in the cart after throwing money in the garbage with moldy veggies that weren’t consumed. You’re practicing though and with with regular effort, you’ll be meal prepping like a mother in no time!
Recent Comments