How to Take the Pressure off of Meal Prep

This is a collaborative post.

Meal prepping for the week ahead is a great way to save time and make it easier to stick to a healthy diet. Whether you want to get started with meal prepping to achieve a certain fitness goal, save money on food, save time on food preparation or just live a generally healthier lifestyle without putting in a huge amount of effort, getting started is sometimes harder than you might think.

Meal prepping can put you under a lot of pressure to not only come up with great meal ideas for the week ahead but also get them ready for yourself, which can be a lot of work to do on a weekly basis. Here are some top tips to keep in mind to make meal planning and prepping as pressure-free and effortless as possible. 

Use Meal Planning Services

Often, the most pressure that comes with prepping your meals in advance comes from planning what to eat. It’s easy to run out of ideas and struggle to come up with fresh new ideas if you don’t want to get bored with eating the same things all the time.

Luckily, there are lots of online resources that you can turn to, to make it easier for you to plan your meals in advance. You can use the app here to come up with new meal plan ideas and make it easier to decide what to eat throughout the week. 

Make a Shopping List

By making a shopping list well in advance you can make meal planning and prep easier on yourself. If you want to save money, consider ingredients that you can buy in bulk to make a wide range of different meals.

For example, if you eat meat, then you can buy a large amount of chicken and turn this into several different meal ideas throughout the week like curries, salads, stews and more.

When making your shopping list, it’s worth going through your kitchen to see what ingredients you already have that you can use for the week ahead. 

Batch Cook in Advance

Batch cooking and then freezing your food is an ideal way to prepare your meals for the week ahead.

There are lots of different recipe ideas that you can cook in large batches and divide into smaller portions to freeze for later, ultimately allowing you to save time during the week when you are busy since all you will need to do is reheat the meal ready to eat.

If you have time, you can batch cook a few different meals on the weekend to enjoy the week ahead. 

Prep and Freeze Fresh Vegetables

While you can buy prepared and frozen vegetables ready to use, buying fresh produce is often the cheaper option. However, this can often go bad quickly and will add time to preparing meals.

One simple trick to make meal prepping easier is to prepare and freeze your fresh vegetables in advance. When you buy onions, for example, they can be chopped and frozen for later, so all you have to do is put them in the pan when you’re cooking.

It’s also worth considering investing in tools that make chopping and slicing fresh vegetables easier if you want to save as much time as possible. 

Get a Slow Cooker

Whether you don’t like the pressure of cooking or simply want a convenient option that allows you to cook a large quantity of food without having to do a huge amount of work, a slow cooker can be one of the best investments to make.

Simply put the ingredients in, turn it on, and leave it for a few hours to work its magic resulting in a perfectly cooked, tasty meal. 

Meal prepping doesn’t have to be a lot of pressure, with these handy tips.