With the New Year on the horizon, many of us are thinking about our resolutions for the year ahead, and one of the best ones for people on a health kick is to boost our meal prep regime.
Whether this is sticking to our diet and fitness goals, preparing a greater variety of meals or ensuring that nothing gets wasted, here are some top tips for upgrading your meal-prepping game.
Stop Prepping Plain
The greatest friend in any meal prepper’s arsenal is a diverse spice rack. Eating the same bowl of grilled chicken, brown rice and kale day in and day out can quickly get tiring and cause you to crave bigger flavours.
This isn’t even a knock on any of those ingredients. They are fantastic bases, but if you add a little extra, such as chilli flakes, paprika, garlic, basil, rosemary or a range of sauces, you can turn that one meal into a week’s worth of hearty, wholesome meals.
Switch To Preparing Ingredients
Most people start their meal prepping by batch-cooking meals that they like so they have several portions worth of the same meal. This is a great and perfectly valid way to prep, but if you want to really take your prep to another level, get into the habit of prepping ingredients instead of meals.
Chop vegetables in advance and store them in the fridge. Cook grains ahead of time and freeze the portions ready to reheat. Then it is just a matter of combining them in whatever combination you like, adding your spices and additions and having a meal in just a moment.
Keep It Simple
Ultimately, the best meal preps consist of just a few healthy and nutritious ingredients rather than overcomplicating you with a diverse mix of flavours that are complex to cook and just as complex to eat.
Typically you need just a protein source, a grain and a vegetable portion to make a successful meal prep, and once you start cooking with that in mind, meal prepping stops being quite as daunting.