How To Meal Prep

Meal prep is the practice of putting together all your meals for the week on one day to be easily prepared throughout the week. There are several advantages to meal prep such as convenience and thriftiness. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to eat for lunch because you’ve already prepared it, and you don’t have to worry about a money budget, because you’re not going to be going to a restaurant. 

Depending on what you’re prepping for, meal prep can look a little different for everyone, but the same basic principles apply: prepare food on one day for the entire week.

Types of Meal Prep

They are several types of meal prep. Let’s take a look at them!

Ingredient Prep -- This kind of prep has you putting all the basic ingredients into your daily boxes so you can cook and eat them in the same sitting.

Batch Cooking -- With this kind of prep you’ll make whole meals for the week, one for each day, and then freeze them until you’re ready to eat them.

Full Make-Ahead Meals -- Here you’ll make one big meal that’s big enough to portion out into the rest of the week. You’ll be eating the same meal every day, but it makes it a lot easier to plan!

What to Use

When it comes to what kinds of food you can use for meal prep, it depends on what foods are palatable to you and hold up to being stored in the fridge or freezer for a few days. In general, Cooked meat, roasted vegetables, soups, sauces, nuts and sturdy raw vegetables make for a good base for a prepped meal. Soft, cooked vegetables, cut fruits, crackers; these foods will get softer and mushier as they sit in your fridge, so they’re not the best candidates (unless you’re into soft crackers!).

Also consider how you’re going to be heating your meal back up. Some foods do better in the microwave than others, but you may be using an oven or a stovetop instead. It all depends on what’s available to you.

Storage Containers

The very first thing you need for food prep is good storage containers. You might be tempted to go out and buy some cheap plastic boxes, but we recommend solid, high-quality glass or stainless containers. Even if your plastic containers say that they are microwave safe, they can still leach nasty chemicals into your foods while heating up or even just sitting for a while in the fridge. Glass containers won’t leach into your food, are easy to clean and easy to cook in. Not only that, but glass containers will definitely be dishwasher safe, which will make things easier during cleanup!

Build Your Menu

It’s important that you use recipes that yield a lot of servings, or if you like, double the recipe to last you through the week. We have a lot of recipes that might work! For example:

Vegan Paella Valenciana
Pisto Manchego
Lentil, Chorizo, and Vegetable Stew
Hummus Bowl with Chorizo and Crispy Kale

Check out all the recipes on our website for some more great inspiration for your meal-preping future!

Meal prep doesn’t require any kind of tools or apps to get started, just a little time set aside on Sunday. Once you start meal prepping you’ll find your days going smoother and your lifestyle getting healthier. It’s just a matter of putting in the work! Give it a try and then come back here every couple of weeks to see a new recipe that you can try at home! And don’t forget to visit our Facebook or Instagram profiles to let us know what you thought!