Hey there reader,
Today I want to share some meal prep recipes I make every week.
You might think that because I frequently talk on Organize Yourself Skinny about meal prep and make-ahead recipes, I spend every week preparing these perfectly prepared meals for the week.
Nope. I like it easy, and I need it easy, just like everybody else.
One of the ways I keep things easy is by doing a mix of meal prep ideas.
- First, I look at my week. What do I have going on, and what meals will make my life easier?
- Then I plan our meals around that. I put together a meal plan on Thursday or Friday because I like to go grocery shopping on Saturdays.
- Then, I get up on Sunday morning, ready to prep. I like to get it out of the way to enjoy the last part of my weekend. I should also mention that I take time Saturday night to have all the dishes clean, so I'm not wasting time cleaning up and looking for containers and such.
A quick tip: I try hard NOT to grocery shop and meal prep on the same day because that's exhausting and will take up more than half of my day. It's much better to put a meal plan together later in the week, shop on Saturday, and prep on Sunday mornings. That's what works for me.
So, what do I prep? And how?
Of course, it depends on the meals for the following week and the kind of time I have on the weekend.
In general, this is what a meal prep day looks like for me.
I always make our salads for the week. I prepare mason jar salads for myself, and I put Mike's salads in rectangle glass containers. You can see all of my mason jar salad recipes here.
If I only do one thing on Sunday, it's making our salads.
My advice is to pick the meal that would make the most significant difference in your week if made ahead of time and make that a priority every week.
I always make brown rice. We eat a lot of rice, and we eat it as a side, or I use it in stir-frys, one-pot meals, or bakes during the week. Brown rice heats up nicely and never tastes like leftovers.
I use my rice cooker to make a big batch while working on other things. This is my go-to brown rice recipe.
I always organize smoothie ingredients. Sometimes I'll make smoothie kits; other times, I'll make sure to have all the ingredients. This blueberry smoothie and detox smoothie are my favorites.
I always prepare a meat component. Most of the time, this means using my slow cooker to cook shredded meat in recipes during the week—for example, having salsa chicken ready for quesadillas. Quesadillas come together in 10 minutes when the chicken is prepared. Or I'll make a batch of crockpot shredded chicken to use in various recipes.
If I don't want to cook the meat fresh during the week, I'll trim, slice, or chop the meat as it calls for in the recipe. For example, I'll cut strips for stir-fry or pound chicken breasts into cutlets for chicken parmesan. Or I'll marinate in the marinade. I store all prepared raw meat in glass containers.
I'll prep a slow cooker recipe to cook during the week, and I try to make a slow cooker recipe at least once a week. Instead of assembling ingredients the morning of, I'll prep the recipe on Sunday or the night before. Then, all I need to do in the morning is turn on the slow cooker. I love making this Turkey Chili recipe.
I'll assemble a recipe to cook during the week. I don't do this every week, but I will when I want to cook it fresh the night we eat it. I do this with recipes like enchiladas and baked ziti. All I need to do is stick it in the oven when I'm ready to prepare dinner.
I'll cook at least one recipe thoroughly, and I do this mostly with casseroles and bakes. In my opinion, those heat up nicely, and I don't mind leftovers. Plus, it makes my life so much easier to just heat and eat during the week. So, most weeks, I'll make some rice or pasta bake, and then store it in the refrigerator.
Meatloaf is another recipe I'll cook on Sunday for the week. We love this Italian Meatloaf and Cheeseburger Meatloaf.
That's it. Of course, there are some weeks where I do everything and other weeks where I only make mason jar salads and smoothie kits.
Create a meal plan around your schedule and prep the meals that would be the most helpful during the week. Start slow and do more once you feel comfortable.
I hope you found this helpful. If you have any other meal prep questions, reply and let me know.
Talk to you soon,
Tammy
Organize Yourself Skinny
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