In today’s world, eating out and ordering in isn’t just perpetrated by the desire to indulge. With incredibly busy lifestyles, eating out has become more of a necessity than a luxury. However, this convenience comes at a price. Besides shooting a hole through your wallet, eating out isn’t particularly good for your health. Unless you’re exclusively dining at healthy joints, you are jeopardising your long-term wellbeing.
It’s understandable that you might not have the time or resources to enjoy home-cooked meals. But it’s vital to change your dining habits if you want to keep your health in check. For this purpose, meal prepping is the perfect solution for you. Here are some helpful tips for meal prepping:
- Plan in advance
Rather than running around like a headless chicken on a Saturday morning, plan your meals ahead of time. Head over to Pinterest and Youtube for meal ideas. Your food list must have 2-3 sources of protein, 2-3 types of fruits, leafy greens and 2-3 vegetables. After you’ve finalised the menu, prepare a detailed grocery list.
For extra savings and better quality products, you should check out your local farmer’s market and schedule your shopping trips accordingly.
- Buy in bulk
Affordability is one of the biggest advantages of meal prepping. Be on the lookout for wholesale stores that offer big discounts on bulk purchases. You should buy ingredients with long shelf life such as rice and legumes in big quantities.
- Get quality storage containers
Remember how mothers are always so possessive about their Tupperware? Well, soon you’ll be able to relate to that feeling. As meal prepping involves meals for an entire week, you need good quality storage containers for the same. Though on the pricier side, glass containers are a convenient and durable option.
- Cook a base
To make things easier for yourself, start by cooking big batches of grains that will act as a ‘base’ for your meals. Rice, Quinoa and Couscous all can be used in a bunch of ways for different meals.
- Work with what you have
Before shopping for groceries, check out what you already have in your pantry. You can creatively repurpose these leftovers to make delicious meals and at the same time save money.
- Prepare multipurpose dishes
Instead of preparing distinct dishes, try to incorporate ingredients that can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, roasted vegetables offer excellent nutritional value and can be thrown in a burrito or in a Korean-inspired stir fry.
Similarly, you can enhance your meals with condiments, dressings and sauces.
- Stock frozen foods
Contrary to what you might think, the nutrient content of frozen produce is similar to that of fresh produce. While you should try your best to cook with fresh ingredients, you should keep frozen fruits and vegetables as a backup. So in case you’re too busy to grocery shop for the week, you still have something to cook with.
- Try pre-prepped ingredients
There’s nothing more tedious than rinsing and chopping ingredients. If this is the reason why you avoid cooking altogether, then there’s an easy solution for that. You should buy pre-cut and canned vegetables for minimum prep time.
- Follow a cooking timetable
You should frame a cooking timetable in order to cook efficiently. Creating a schedule will allow you to complete multiple tasks simultaneously.
10. Spilt your time
Planning, shopping and cooking all on the same day is a lot to take on, especially if you’re meal prepping for the first time. Instead of putting so much pressure on yourself, split these tasks for different days of the week.
If you’re on a time crunch, you can get fresh, organic produce delivered from Naturally Best Fresh.
Yes, meal prepping requires you to spend a chunk of your weekend slaving in the kitchen. But it’s so worth the effort!
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