First things first, Happy Friday! I don’t know about you, but the weeks are just flying by lately! Since we are heading into the weekend, with back to school around the corner, I thought I’d take this time to talk a little bit about weekend meal prep. Meal prep can be a major time, money, and sanity saver, especially as we head into a busy fall. I like to make big batches of storable meals and ready-made healthy snacks on Sunday to have on hand and ready to go throughout the week. Read up on the following tips to get your meal prep routine started
Plan
Plan a day to grocery shop and go with a specific action
plan of what you’re going to buy. This helps eliminate (mostly) impulse buys
and buying things we don’t need.
I try to base my list around a protein, vegetable, and
healthy grain/starch for each meal. Then I rotate different healthy snacks,
including fruits/nuts, each week.
Here are some ideas for your list:
Here are some ideas for your list:
Lean Protein
|
Vegetables
|
Healthy Grain/Starch
|
Snacks & Fruit
|
Chicken breasts (to be baked or shredded)
Ground turkey
Eggs (to be hard-boiled)
Salmon
Black beans/chick peas
|
Broccoli (steamed or raw)
Snap Peas (steamed or raw)
Carrots (steamed or raw)
Baby spinach/spring mix
Kale
|
Brown rice
Quinoa
Farro
Whole grain tortillas
|
Almonds
Dried fruit
Blueberries
Bananas
Apples
"Brown bag popcorn"
Frozen fruit (for smoothies)
Low fat Greek yogurt
Oats
|
Greek Yogurt Fruit Dip:
Vanilla Greek Yogurt
Honey and cinnamon to taste
Dash of vanilla extract
Energy Bites- try this awesome recipe from "Gimme Some Oven"
Healthy Dessert (YES its possible! And this
recipe from the “Detoxonista below is to die for!)
Prep
Now that you have shopped and gathered all of your healthy
ingredients, it’s time to prep for the week.
Here are some prepping tips:
- Wash and chop fruits and vegetables. Put any raw veggies into small containers or plastic bags so they are ready on-demand for lunches and snacks. Steam (or cheat and microwave!) any vegetables too.
- Cook up your lean protein and grains. I generally will boil two pots of water and in one make my grain, and in the other boil my eggs. You will also want to cook your lean protein. A slow cooker/crock pot can be a miracle time saver for this. For example, you can put your chicken in the slow cooker with chicken broth during the day Sunday, and then just shred it up (for sandwiches, burritos etc.) or keep them whole, and throw it in the fridge. Baking in the oven works great too!
- Prepare snack foods. I like to make a granola bar-like item each weekend and also pre-fill paper bags with popcorn kernels for brown bag popcorn. Make sure to pre-wrap snack items for easy packing/ grab and go. Make some smoothies with your Greek yogurt and frozen fruit. Freeze the smoothies in mason jars so you can throw one in your lunch. By the time lunch rolls around it will be defrosted and cold!
- Make breakfast foods. Whether it be yogurt+granola, egg white and baby spinach wraps, or baked oatmeal, cook it up and portion it out so that you never have to miss the most important meal of the day!
- Put together meals! Having a whole bunch of Tupperware containers (BPA free!) or glass containers ready will really help with this part. I like to put together as many meals as possible so that way I am ready to grab one for lunch or even a late dinner. An example of what I would put together for lunches would be:
- Shredded chicken on a whole wheat tortilla with black beans and salsa
- Steamed broccoli
- 2 energy bites
- Apple slices w/ Greek yogurt fruit dip
The awesome thing about food prepping is that you have the
ability to mix and match for whatever you are feeling like for any meal. You
already have all the ingredients ready to go! Trust me, food-prepping can be a
huge time saver (even buy you an extra 15 mins of sleep!) and also budget
friendly when you aren’t having to run out for lunch every day. Most of all, it
helps you stick to a healthy, portion-controlled, diet. Happy Prepping!
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