Meal prepping can help you enjoy your food more, as you learn to perfect recipes and create a routine that’s sustainable. However, it isn’t for everyone.
Not all foods can be meal prepped, as some may have a short shelf life or lose their quality when reheated. You can reduce impulsive buying and save money by bulk cooking staple ingredients that last longer – such as chicken, rice, other grains, beans, lentils and roasted vegetables. Check out more at Jacksonville!
1. Plan Your Meals
The first step in meal prep is planning your meals for the week. Start with selecting healthy recipes that are easy to make ahead and taste good reheated.
Meal prepping is a popular choice for busy people who want to take control of their food. It can reduce the amount of takeaways, ready meals and snacks that you eat which can be high in sodium, sugar and saturated fat.
If you’re new to meal prepping, try preparing meals for two or three days at a time. This will ease you into the process and will prevent monotony for those who prize variety in their diets. You can also experiment with using different spices, condiments or dressings to add variety to your meals. This will help your foods to stay fresher longer.
2. Prep Your Food
Food prep can reduce impulse buying, such as popping into the supermarket to buy a pizza because you can’t be bothered cooking after a long day. It can also help you eat more healthy meals, as you’ll have home-cooked recipes to choose from that are based on foods and ingredients that you love.
When you plan and prepare your food, it can last for the week, which means less food waste. Food waste is bad for the environment and costs money. If you meal prep, you can plan ahead and only purchase what you need, and avoid throwing away expensive perishable items like meat, fruit, vegetables and salad dressings.
To prevent food spoilage, store your prepared meals in airtight and reusable containers that fit into the fridge, freezer or workbag. Label the containers with their contents and dates to track when to eat them by.
3. Store Your Food
To ensure your meal prep lasts, make sure you have plenty of food-safe containers for storage. Glass jars work great, but you can also upcycle a lot of other items, including tupperware and aluminum foil. Make sure to clean these containers well before using them (a hot, soapy kitchen sink and some Goo Gone will do the trick).
Store food properly, separating items by type and placing perishables on the top shelf of your fridge. Also, try to avoid storing foods in the door of your fridge where temperatures fluctuate more.
Don’t forget to label your foods with a date so you can rotate them as needed and avoid food waste. Keeping a running list near your fridge can help with this, too, like Palinski-Wade suggests.
4. Freeze Your Food
The goal of meal prepping is to cook enough food to get you through the week. If you do that, reheating the meals will be easy and convenient.
It’s important to use stackable containers when prepping and cooking, so you can fit more into your refrigerator and freezer. Also, remember to label your foods and rotate them to ensure you’re using the oldest first. This can help reduce food waste and prevent spoilage, which can cause health issues.
Meal prep can be a great tool for those with a busy lifestyle or who don’t like eating leftovers several days in a row. However, it’s not for everyone — especially people who prize variety and freshness in their food. If that’s you, consider preparing component meals instead.
5. Reheat Your Food
Whether you are preparing whole meals or component dishes, it is important to know how to reheat your food properly. This will help your meal prep last as long as possible and ensure that your food stays safe to eat.
If you are new to meal prepping, start by documenting recipes that work well for your family. Then, try a few new recipes each week. Keep in mind that some foods are not ideal for reheating, such as cold greens or noodle bowls, and some recipes might require a special technique for reheating, like sheet pan dinners or baked chicken. Avoid food waste by labeling and storing your meal prep correctly, rotating foods often to use up older items before they spoil. Also, be sure to keep your meals in the refrigerator and freezer at the proper temperatures to reduce your risk of food poisoning.