Does the word meal prep scare you? As much as we {I} talk about planning ahead and being prepared with ready-to-eat food, the hardest part about meal planning is meal planning! AmmIright?
But today I’m giving you some tips to show you how meal prep and planning your meals can be easy and stress-free! Woop! Woop! How does that sound!?
Here are my top five tips for planning your meals!
- When your grocery shopping alway buy extra. For example, if you’re buying one whole chicken, buy two. Always buy enough for two meals instead of just one. It took me years to figure out to NOT put all of the meat right away in the freezer. I did this for so many years, always forgot to thaw and then wondered what in the world would we have for dinner! Ikr! Now I put all meat in the refrigerator at least for a couple of days until I can decide how or when to cook what! Hola!
- Multi-tasking while your cooking also saves time. When you roast that whole chicken, instead of cooking just the one, cook both. The oven is already on so cook once eat twice. While your cooking up those chicken tenders on one burner, have some ground beef or turkey browning on another burner. I also never just cook one sweet potato…again, while the oven is on and hot, cook up several to keep for the next couple of days. Or instead of boiling just one or two eggs for breakfast, boil up several!
- Save leftovers! Any and all leftovers! It’s no secret that I’ll save five pieces of broccoli or zucchini then add it to an omelet the next morning. I’ll also have a leftover chicken tender for breakfast too!
Leftover chicken for breakfast? Absolutely! 🙂 - Chop extra! When chopping vegetables for a recipe or meal, chop extra. If your recipe calls for a 1/2 onion, go ahead and chop the whole onion and store away the other 1/2 for later. Or also don’t be ashamed to buy veggies already pre-chopped and ready to use!
- Plan ahead for the next meal or two instead of a week at a time. It’s easier for me to save leftovers and cook extra for my next meal instead of being overwhelmed at the thought of cooking up enough food for several days.