When we got back from our trip, I was not ready to jump back into cooking right away, and I had frozen chili and a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing all ready to go. It was just the break I needed, and then I felt ready to jump back into regular cooking. I talked about how I have the biggest components of Friday's dinner already done. Monday, I put everything in the Food Saver and marveled at the feast before me that would just need to be heated up. When I was placing rice in its bag, I wondered why the heck I haven't done more meal prepping. I'm already in the kitchen, what would it take to have some brown rice or quinoa going while I was making my lunch? Then portion it out and freeze it to be FoodSaved the next day. Future me would be so happy, and I know this from experience.
So I needed to be inspired and was curious...
Do you batch cook/meal prep every week? What kinds of things do you prep for the week?
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I'm glad you are getting the chance to do this so that you can ease the burden later on. Very smart!
ReplyDeleteI always think I should meal prep, but then I don't. I do like to keep shredded, unseasoned chicken in the freezer so I can use it in a variety of recipes. I know I have some chili portioned out in the freezer for lunches. Beyond that though, I just don't plan well enough.
ReplyDeleteI don't meal prep as much as I'd like to because 1)one of our freezers does not work so I have very limited space, and 2)I'm not using my Food Saver as much for the same reason. One thing I do consistently though right now is I always pre-chop/dice my vegetables because I find that to be most time consuming and it creates bulky dishes so I want those out of the way. And I portion out my seasonings ahead of time and have those ready to go so I'm not fumbling with my spice area. And I will always prepare lasagna or chicken manicotti the day before so that's easy to pop in the oven the next day. Beyond that, I haven't been able to do too much.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest eating problem is portion control so I started a new system in January where I do all of my meal prep on Sunday for the week. I thought I'd hate having the same breakfast/ lunch/ dinner Monday to Friday but honestly it's not that bad and even though it takes a good chunk of my Sundays, the time it saves me when I get home from work is so worth it. I just cook for me so I just make one thing each week then drastically switch it up the next and make sure it's balanced over my 3 meals of the day. For example, when I have tuna for lunch I don't do it on the same week that I have shrimp for dinner. If there were 2 of me (us?) I would maybe consider making 2 dinners and alternating nights. I've done a roast, pulled chicken, ground turkey, shrimp (which i cook daily but just have all the accessories prepped/measured and ready to go)... basically anything you're already making, just make bigger batches. I'm only 5 weeks in but so far, so good.
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