It is clear that, whether people want to save money, save time, make more nutritious meals or meet their fitness goals, meal prepping is very often the best solution, regardless of which method they take to get there.
However, it must be said that not everyone finds the meal prep routine as fun as others do, and given that ease and enjoyment are the keys to any successful major life change, the people who tend to succeed at meal planning and meal prepping in the long term are those that enjoy it most.
Because of this, here are some ways to make meal prepping easier and more fun, reducing the stress of a long prep session.
Start With Batch Cooking
Meal prepping can take so many forms, and by far the easiest for an avid cook to start with is simply to cook meals they already enjoy and feel confident doing and double, treble or quadruple a recipe as appropriate.
Many avid preppers start with batch cooking, for the simple reason that it makes the process far less complicated when a person already knows what they want to make.
As well as this, some dishes are inherently very versatile. Bolognaise sauce can not only be paired with wholemeal spaghetti but you can add chilli peppers to give it a kick one day, serve it with a jacket potato or in many other ways.
The first step is cooking to portion, and then from there, you can start building variety.
Take Advantage Of Gadgets
Meal prepping gets a lot easier if you have a few labour-saving aids to reduce the headache of a prep session.
A food processor is ideal for chopping and slicing up veg, as are chopping aids like the infamous Slap Chop.
Many meal preppers swear by rice cookers, slow cookers and low-fat grills, as they remove the guesswork of cooking specific parts of a prep meal.
Even the smallest additions can make a huge difference; if you have a good set of storage containers, it can make all the difference to your motivation.
Don’t Overcomplicate
Unless you are batch cooking, every meal prep dish needs just three core ingredients;
- A source of protein (typically chicken),
- A grain source (often brown rice but can vary dramatically),
- Vegetables.
Once you have these, the main differences are sources, spices, marinades and toppings such as chopped nuts.
Once this becomes clear, it gets a lot easier and less complicated to set up meals when you have to prepare at most 6 ingredients (two of each) to make a week’s worth of meals.
Make An Afternoon Of It
Carve out a specific time for prepping and dedicate your full attention to it. A great time to do it would be straight after a weekly shop, which is often best undertaken after making a plan for the week for your ingredients.
Once you have them out, turn up the music, listen to the radio, podcasts or audiobooks and make it as enjoyable and peaceful as possible.
This means that over the week, when you have less time to cook, you have already done the legwork for yourself.