Meal Prep for Beginners

You may wonder, why prep meals? I can always get some takeout or cook fresh every time. If you can cook from scratch every meal time, well then, that’s great. But if you are like most of my patients, not everyone has the time, or the energy to do so. Parents with young kids and those who have to commute to work every day may find it difficult and stressful. As for eating out, well, let’s just say, that the less you do it, the better your health will be.

To achieve optimal wellness, you need to have as many home cooked meals as you can; but cooking at home means a lot of chopping and roasting and boiling and so on, and clean up afterwards as well. If you want to avoid doing this every time, you really need to plan well ahead to ensure that you can fix these meals in a jiffy.

However, if you set aside a day to do all your cooking and back stock meals, you’ll have delicious and healthy meals ready to pull out of the freezer anytime.  Set aside one day and you can chop, roast, puree or even boil/steam food in bulk quantities, vacuum seal it and freeze it using food safe plastic bags; you can use this in the future whenever you’re too tired or stressed to cook a meal from scratch.

Why You Need to Prep

Well, there are several reasons.

• Obviously, it helps you save time, effort and energy
• You can whip up healthy food in minutes, eliminating the need to eat deli/restaurant food
• Planning ahead lets you make one meal for the whole family even if you have fussy eaters or anyone with food sensitivities – to gluten dairy, nuts, eggs, etc.

Foods That Can Be Made Ahead of Time and Stored or Frozen

Not all food tastes good after freezing and thawing and/or heating, however, there are a lot that do! Plus, there are other things you can make with a dehydrator or that you can preserve through a canning process to have at your fingertips all year long.

• Soups and stews
• Muffins and other baked goods
• Crackers and chips for anytime snacking
• Desserts like pies and cookies (healthy versions of course).
• Sauces
• Roasted veggies or cooked meats

Equipment you Need

For successful meal prep, make sure you have the following equipment in your kitchen:

• Food processor for quick chopping of veggies, blending and so on
• 16 or 22-quart cooker that lets you multitask
• Food vacuum sealer
• Stock pots of different sizes
• Dehydrator for making chips and crackers – without baking, or using much oil
• Sealable food safe plastic bags to freeze food in
• Meal prep containers – look far containers with partitions so you can store for each individual. Stackable containers make storage easy.
• Egg cooker that lets you boil several eggs at once
• Mason jars for keeping prepared salads fresh

Remember

• To pick a day when you’re going to prep meals, because you’re going to have to do some bulk cooking, and you need to be free.
• Work out in advance, how many meals for how many people you’re going to cook for; decide what you’re going to make, and ensure you include all the nutrients like fats, proteins, carbs, minerals and fiber
• Do your grocery shopping accordingly

To see how meal prep works, do watch our video .