Meal prepping has gained immense popularity in recent years as a convenient and efficient way to manage daily meals. It involves preparing entire meals or dishes ahead of schedule, often in bulk, to save time and effort during the week. This practice offers numerous benefits, including time savings, healthier eating habits, reduced food waste, and potential cost savings.
Types of Meal Prepping
There are various methods of meal prepping, each tailored to individual preferences and schedules:
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Batch Cooking: Preparing large quantities of a specific dish and dividing it into individual portions for freezing or refrigeration. This method is ideal for meals that can be easily reheated, such as soups, stews, and casseroles.
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Make-Ahead Meals: Cooking complete meals in advance and storing them in individual containers for refrigeration or freezing. These meals can be reheated and consumed at mealtimes, providing a convenient and time-saving option.
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Ready-to-Cook Ingredients: Preparing individual ingredients or components of meals in advance to reduce cooking time later. This method involves tasks such as chopping vegetables, marinating meats, and preparing sauces.
Benefits of Meal Prepping
Meal prepping offers a multitude of advantages:
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Time Savings: By preparing meals in advance, you can significantly reduce the time spent on daily cooking, freeing up time for other activities.
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Healthier Eating: Meal prepping allows for better control over ingredients and portion sizes, promoting healthier eating habits. It reduces the likelihood of impulsive unhealthy choices and encourages the consumption of home-cooked meals.
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Reduced Food Waste: Pre-planning meals helps minimize food waste by ensuring that all ingredients are used and consumed before they spoil.
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Cost Savings: Meal prepping can lead to cost savings by reducing impulse purchases and allowing for bulk buying of ingredients, which is often more economical.
How to Meal Prep Effectively
To ensure successful meal prepping, follow these steps:
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Plan: Create a meal plan that aligns with your dietary needs, preferences, and schedule. Consider the types of meals you want to prepare and the time you have available for cooking.
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Shop with a List: Based on your meal plan, create a detailed shopping list to avoid impulse purchases and ensure you have all the necessary ingredients.
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Organize Your Prep: Plan your cooking tasks efficiently to maximize time and minimize effort. Start with dishes that require longer cooking times and work on other tasks while they cook.
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Choose Appropriate Storage: Invest in reusable, airtight containers to store your prepped meals. Consider the storage capacity of your refrigerator and freezer to ensure adequate space.
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Cool Foods Properly: After cooking, allow meals to cool completely before storing them to prevent spoilage and ensure food safety.
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Portion Meals: Divide meals into individual portions for easy storage and reheating. This also helps control portion sizes and prevents overeating.
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Label and Store: Label containers with the date and contents for easy identification and to track freshness. Store meals in the refrigerator or freezer as appropriate.
Meal Prepping for Health
Meal prepping can be a valuable tool for maintaining a healthy diet:
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Plan Balanced Meals: Include a variety of food groups in your meal plan to ensure a balanced intake of nutrients. Incorporate lean proteins, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats.
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Control Portion Sizes: Pre-portioning meals helps prevent overeating and promotes mindful eating habits.
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Reduce Unhealthy Choices: By having healthy meals readily available, you are less likely to make impulsive unhealthy choices when short on time.
Meal prepping is a versatile and effective strategy for saving time, improving nutrition, reducing food waste, and potentially saving money. By following the tips and techniques outlined in this guide, you can optimize your meal prepping routine and reap its numerous benefits. Remember to tailor your meal prepping approach to your individual needs and preferences to make it a sustainable and enjoyable part of your lifestyle.
Does meal prepping save money?
Meal planning can save you money in a variety of ways. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Meal planning is said to save you anywhere from £1,000 and £3,000 annually.
Meal planning can help you save money in the following ways: [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
- Reduce impulsive supermarket purchases, plan your meals in advance, and buy only the food and ingredients you truly need to save money on your grocery shopping. Meal preppers typically prepare their meals in advance and bring a list with them when they shop for groceries. You are less likely to give in to sales at the grocery store or purchase unnecessary food. This can save you money overall.
- Reduce food waste costs: As we’ve already seen, individuals who plan and prepare their meals are much less likely to waste food. According to studies, the average British family throws out about £800 worth of edible food annually. You can drastically cut down on food waste and save money by being more conscientious about the foods you purchase and minimizing food waste.
- Reduce your utility costs: Most households are looking to cut back on their usage due to the UK’s rapidly rising energy and utility bills. By planning your meals in advance, you can avoid using gas, electricity, and water in your kitchen on a daily basis. You might use your oven once or twice a week as opposed to every day. This can help you to save on your energy bills.
- You can buy ingredients in bulk. You can save money by purchasing ingredients in bulk or planning your meals around what’s in season or on sale. For instance, if chicken is on special at your grocery store, you can buy more than usual, cook it in batches, and freeze it for a later time.
- Meal prepping can help you save money every week by reducing impulsive buying. For example, how often have you come home from a long day at work and ordered takeout because you’re too tired to cook? Or how often have you gone into the store to pick up something for dinner and left £50 lighter?
What foods should you not meal prep?
The kinds of foods you shouldn’t meal prep depend on how you intend to store the meal, how long you want to store it for, and how you want to reheat it. Some foods—like cooked meat—do not freeze well, have a short shelf life in the refrigerator, or may lose flavor when reheated.
The following foods are some that are not advised for meal prep: [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
| Food | Reason |
| Fried or cooked rice | Rice is more problematic to reheat than other foods and it may contain Bacillus Cereus – a type of bacteria that can survive the cooking process. This bacteria can result in food poisoning. |
| Cooked pasta | Although cooked pasta is safe to eat when reheated, it can become soggy or mushy when defrosted. If you are preparing a meal involving pasta, it is best not to cook the pasta or to cook it al dente. |
| Some fried and crispy foods, such as crispy chicken, crispy tofu or tempura | The oil from fried food may seep through the food, meaning it will lose its crispiness and crunchiness and become soggy. |
| Salad greens, fruits and roasted vegetables with high water content, such as watermelon, lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgette, cabbage and celery | When defrosted, these foods can become limp or soggy or lose their colour or flavour as a result of oxidisation. |
| Raw fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas and avocados | Fruits that are likely to brown quickly or become mushy can ruin the taste and texture of your meals, particularly if you store them in the fridge. |
| Milk-based sauces | The milk may separate from other ingredients when defrosted or it may curdle when reheated. |
| Egg-based sauces and mayonnaise | The ingredients may separate or curdle when defrosted or reheated. |
| Cream-based products, such as custard and yoghurt | The ingredients will separate when frozen and the texture will change. |
| Soft cheeses, such as cream cheese, goat’s cheese and cottage cheese | The texture of soft cheeses will likely change, and they will become grainy and crumbly. |
| Foods containing gelatine, such as jelly, cheesecake and panna cotta | Gelatine cannot be frozen as it doesn’t set in the freezer and remains liquid and the food often turns to mush. |
| Fresh leafy herbs, such as basil and parsley | The herbs become limp and soggy when frozen and then defrosted. |
Making sure that any food you meal prep is properly stored in airtight containers and at the right temperature is crucial. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] Food should never be reheated more than once, and meals frozen should always be properly defrosted. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text].
MEAL PREP | 9 ingredients for flexible, healthy recipes + PDF guide
FAQ
What is it called when you prepare food in advance?
What is the meaning of prepping food?
How far in advance can I prepare food?
How do you prepare food in advance?
There are a few ways to prepare meals, and all of them involve preparing food in advance to make eating throughout the week much easier. There’s no one right way to do it, but here are three common techniques: Batch cooking: Batch cooking involves making multiple recipes at once (oike on the weekend) and freezing to use later on.
When should one eat fruits, before or after meals, and what should be the gap of duration between meals and fruits?
There´s no right time to eat fruits. You must consider the amount of carbohydrates you eat in a day, especially if the patient is diabetic or has insulin resistance. Fruits are source of vitamins and fibers and is recommended to eat three servings a day.
Should you cook a recipe in advance?
If there simply isn’t enough time to prep and cook all your recipes on your designated prep day that week. For this method, you’ll do all the prep work for a recipe in advance, such as chopping vegetables, making sauces, and marinating your proteins. Then, you store each item individually, and assemble and cook on the night when you need it.
What is meal prepping?
Meal prepping is the concept of preparing whole meals or dishes ahead of schedule. Since it requires you to determine what to eat ahead of time, meal prepping may lead to more nutritious meal choices over the long term. Meal prepping is particularly popular amongst busy people because it can save a lot of time.