We are a group of nutritionists that firmly believe in the value of meal preparation. So much so that we decided to write a book about it along with 26 weeks’ worth of meal preparation schedules.
We like meal preparation since we are aware of how challenging it may be to make meals from scratch during the busy workweek. This approach enables you to have a nutritious diet without having to give up time or settle for bland food.
Yet, we’ve discovered that conventional meal preparation techniques have a few drawbacks:
Your weekend day can be completely consumed by a prep day. Nobody wants to work in the kitchen for eight hours on a Sunday!
Leftovers can quickly become monotonous. Although you May cook a huge dish and eat it.
Most folks don’t want to all week. By Wednesday, you’ll be sick of leftovers and will want takeaway once more.
It might be pricey. If you’ve recently made the switch to a better lifestyle, you may experience sticker shock at the register because eating healthy may be very expensive.
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to be that way! We’ve listed some tips for avoiding these meal preparation errors below.
We started working on a new strategy when we were encountering the aforementioned problems with our weekly dinner preparation. This approach is called “Cook Once, Eat All Week.” Using this approach, you prepare a protein, carbohydrate, and vegetable in bulk before putting them together into three (fully distinct and wonderful) dinners over the course of the week.
Here’s how to use this approach to create a meal preparation schedule.
Choose two lunches and two breakfasts. For the rest of the week, keep breakfast and lunch simple for yourself. To preserve variation, it is advised that you choose two of each. To ensure you have enough food to feed your family for a week, you can, if necessary, double a recipe.If you discover that you rarely rush to get breakfast or lunch, feel free to omit it from your schedule!
From the book or free eBook, select a week. You can put up three dinners from this for the week in about 20 minutes! We advise adding a few additional meal-prep meals to your schedule or picking one of the evenings from the list below to add to your prep day if your family size is greater than 2.
Choose a snack and dessert. You can also choose to include a meal prep snack or dessert in your preparation; just choose one from the recipes listed below.
Prepare a shopping list. Making a shopping list is the next step you should take to keep everything organized.