No matter what your nutrition goals may be, being prepared for mealtime is key. Yet, trying to figure out what to eat all week for every meal can feel like such a daunting task! With meal planning and prepping, meals can be delicious, nutritious, and stress-free.
There are so many benefits to meal planning and prepping. Many find it saves them both time and money by maximizing time spent in the kitchen, wasting less food, and spending less on takeout. Others prefer meal prepping because they can customize their meals to fit their nutritional needs and taste preferences.
There is no one right way to plan and prepare meals for the week. Sometimes meal planning looks like mapping out what you’ll eat for every meal, every day. Other times, it looks like having a list of meals and deciding what to make and eat on the day of. For some, meal planning may mean picking out recipes for batch cooking and eating leftovers throughout the week, and for others, it may mean planning different meals to cook for each day.
The thing to remember is that everyone is different and you have to find what works for you (sometimes through some trial and error!). Meal planning and prepping doesn’t have to be hard. With the right strategy and tools, you can prep fast, easy, budget-friendly, and healthy meals to keep you filled and fueled all week long!
The Basics of Meal Planning
Setting realistic goals
The first thing you’ll want to do is take a look at the week ahead and assess what types of commitments you have coming up. You’ll need to plan around activities like work meetings, date nights, sports practices, and more. This will help you decide what and when you’ll be cooking throughout the week.
Next you’ll decide how many times you’ll be cooking over the course of the week. If your schedule is very busy, you may only have time to cook once or twice, so on those days you might prepare larger portions of food or multiple meals at the same time. If you have more free time, you may decide to cook more frequently.
Choosing recipes that make sense
When deciding what to eat, you’ll definitely want to choose recipes that sound delicious– but that’s not the only deciding factor! You’ll also want to consider how long a recipe takes to prepare, level of difficulty, expense, and if that recipe supports your nutritional goals. Sometimes it’s fun to choose recipes that you’ve never tried before, though you’ll probably want to also incorporate some dishes that you are familiar with for ease of preparation.
Creating a weekly or monthly meal calendar
The final step is putting all your meals together in a calendar for easy reference. By using a calendar, you can map out exactly when and what you are cooking, as well as when you are planning to eat leftovers, or eat out (yes, eating out and eating takeout can be a part of your meal plan too!).
You may find that sticking to a weekly routine makes planning easier. For example, every Monday is Meatless Monday, every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday, every Wednesday is Pasta Night, and so on.
We made meal planning easy by breaking it down into 9 simple steps for you to follow!
Efficient and Budget-Friendly Grocery Shopping for Meal Planning and Prepping
Making a comprehensive shopping list
Once you have a plan, it’s time to put together a grocery list. Write out the ingredients you will need for the recipes you are preparing. Then determine if there are other items you need for the week as well, like milk, juice, eggs, coffee, snacks, etc. Take inventory of your fridge and pantry and cross off anything you already have on hand. This is a great time to clear out any old or expired ingredients that are taking up valuable space in your kitchen.
Choosing fresh and seasonal ingredients
Did you know that many fruits and vegetables are seasonal? This means they are only available at certain times of the year in certain areas of the US, or, depending on where you live, in the world. If they are available out of season in your grocery store, they may be more expensive or not taste as fresh because they’ve traveled a long way to get to you. Spring and summer are great times to explore farmers’ markets for local, in-season produce that is often less expensive than the grocery store!
Exploring affordable options
Speaking of less expensive options, sticking to a budget may be an important part of your meal planning process. There are several ways to spend less at the grocery store and still have plenty of healthy foods to eat all week.
One way to cut costs is shopping for canned and frozen foods. Buying canned or frozen fruits, vegetables, meat, and seafood is a great way to spend less and ensure your ingredients don’t go bad before you have the chance to use them. Buying frozen prepared meals can also help stretch your dollar as well as save you time on prep.
Another way to save money is to buy food in bulk at your local warehouse store like Sam’s Club, Costco, or BJ’s. Buying pantry staples like pasta, rice, beans, cereal, oats, peanut butter, canned tuna, and more in bulk can ensure you always have food on hand to make meals and snacks.
Making certain ingredients, like your proteins, stretch farther (especially if you can buy them on sale!) is another great way to stick to your budget. For example, you can buy one rotisserie chicken and make meals for the entire week. Or, a value pack of ground turkey, which can become turkey burgers, turkey meatballs, turkey chili, turkey meatloaf, shepherd’s pie, or turkey and kale soup!
Essential Meal Prep Tools and Tips for Meal Planning and Prepping
Time-saving kitchen gadgets
Having the right tools in your kitchen can make prepping easier and faster. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll want to invest in the basic pots and pans that you’ll use most often. These include a large skillet or frying pan, a saute pan, a stock pot, and saucepan. If you’ve got the basics covered, you might also add a wok (great for stir frys), and a dutch oven (for slow cooking both on the stove and the oven). For batch cooking, you’ll find casserole dishes and sheet pans helpful to cook large quantities of food all at once.
You’ll also want to invest in a sharp and durable knife set to make chopping, slicing, and dicing a breeze. Other time-saving kitchen essentials include cutting boards (more than one, so you don’t have to clean between cutting meat and produce), a meat thermometer (to eliminate guesswork), a salad spinner (to wash and prep your produce in advance), and a blender/food processor (to chop or puree with ease).
Cooking more than one meal at once can also really help maximize your time in the kitchen. With the right tools, it’s not as complicated as it sounds! Using items like a crock pot, instant pot, or air fryer in addition to your oven and stove means you can have multiple meals cooking all at once with minimal effort.
Investing in quality storage containers
Storage containers are a meal preppers best friend! Having storage containers of several different sizes are perfect for storing leftovers, prepping ingredients in advance, and traveling with your meals to work or school. Invest in a high quality set that is easy to clean, dishwasher and microwave safe, and keep foods airtight to reduce spoilage.
Prepping for the Week Ahead: Multiple Approaches
Designating a day to prep all your meals
The most popular day to meal prep tends to be Sunday so you have meals ready to go for the week ahead. However, you can prepare meals any day of the week that works best for you and your family’s schedule.
Setting up your meal prepping environment is key to making meal prep day run smoothly. Plan your grocery trip in advance of your meal prep so you have all the ingredients you’ll need. You’ll also want to start with a clean kitchen, an empty sink and dishwasher, and enough time to finish your cooking. Make your meal prep environment even more pleasant by playing music or your favorite podcast while you cook.
Batch cooking and its advantages
Batch cooking, or preparing a large batch of food all at once, is one meal prep approach. Batch cooking cuts down on the amount of cooking you need to do during the week because all of your meals are fully prepped and put into containers in advance. If you find that you have the most time to prepare meals on the weekends, but very little time to cook during the week, batch cooking could be right for you.
One huge advantage of batch cooking is having leftovers that you can either eat or freeze. Meals that keep well for leftovers or freezing include soups, casseroles, stews, curries, and chilis.
Prepping ingredients for the week
Another approach to meal prep is to spend time prepping ingredients that can be cooked or assembled into meals later in the week. This method is great if you have time during the week to cook and prefer to eat foods fresh, not leftovers. Doing tasks in advance like washing, chopping, and storing vegetables, grilling chicken, or steaming a pot of rice can make meal preparation later in the week go much faster.
Ingredient prep can also sometimes allow for more meal variety. For example, you could bake chicken breasts on Sunday and use them over the course of the week to make salads, sandwiches, wraps, soups, stir frys, casseroles, and more.
Building a Balanced and Nutritious Menu
Incorporating a variety of food groups
When meal planning and prepping, it’s important to choose foods that are going to fill and satisfy you. The best way to promote fullness and satisfaction is to incorporate foods from multiple food groups, including protein, carbohydrates, fats, and produce. When eaten together, protein, carbs, fat, and fiber provide long lasting energy to power you through your busy day.
What might a balanced meal prep look like? Consider a dish of stuffed peppers to prep for dinners, packed with quinoa (carbs), ground beef (protein), cheese (fat), and bell peppers (produce). Or scrambled egg cups to prep for breakfast, with eggs (protein), cheese (fat), spinach (produce) all neatly baked in tortilla cups (carbs) for easy eating on the go.
A common complaint about meal prepping is that the food gets boring week after week. Beyond nutritional value, incorporating a variety of foods from all the food groups means you’ll always be experiencing new flavors and textures so your meal prep never feels tired or repetitive.
Catering to dietary restrictions and preferences
When you’re doing your own meal prep, one of the best aspects is being able to customize your meals however you like. Find a recipe that looks good but it contains brussels sprouts, which you hate? No problem! Swap them out for something you like more. When you’re utilizing various cooking methods, like sauteing, baking, grilling, air frying, or slow cooking, the same ingredients can take on different textures and flavors.
For some, eating to manage a chronic condition like hypertension or diabetes might be a priority. Choosing meal prep recipes from a reliable source that are low in sodium, high in fiber, or low in carbohydrates can help you reach your health goals while keeping meals easy and delicious.
Meal Planning and Prepping Recipe Ideas and Inspiration
Breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Eating a filling and satisfying meal in the morning before getting your day started can keep you fueled and energized for all your various activities.
Stuck in a breakfast rut or feeling like your morning meal is never balanced or filling enough? Try any one of these 15 healthy meal prep breakfast recipes to shake things up. We especially love muffin tin eggs, overnight oats, and blueberry waffles! Need breakfast on-the-go? Try freezing homemade breakfast sandwiches, making a tray of copy-cat Perfect Bars, or freezing individual servings of fruit and vegetables to throw into a blender with yogurt and milk for a delicious breakfast smoothie.
Lunch
Whether you’re going into the office, school, or working from home, having lunch prepped and packed in advance can make your day run much smoother. Some people prefer cold lunches like salads or sandwiches. Mason jar salads are great for meal prepping so your ingredients don’t get soggy. Have leftovers from a rotisserie chicken? Prep chicken salad for sandwiches or pasta salad, to eat all week long.
One of our favorite meal prep lunches is a more sophisticated take on the childhood classic, Lunchables. Simply pack a lunch box with your favorite meat, cheese, crackers, fruit or vegetable, and assemble together when you’re ready to eat! Elevate the ingredients by adding charcuterie board classics like crostini, prosciutto, brie, olives, dried fruit, and more.
Other people prefer hot lunch, and that’s ok too! Meals like stuffed bell peppers, creamy cilantro lime chicken and rice bowls, or savory lentil curry are easy to cook in large batches in advance and portion out into containers for meals all week long. We also love using short cuts for lunches, like picking up pre-prepared or frozen items from Trader Joes to make into easy and delicious meals.
Dinner
Evenings can be an especially chaotic time, which doesn’t always make it easy to prepare elaborate meals from scratch. We love prepping freezer meals in advance so all you have to do is thaw, heat, and eat. Meals like black bean enchiladas, spinach and ricotta stuffed shells, and spicy Thai pumpkin soup are perfect to take from freezer to table in a snap.
The slow cooker is also a great way to prep dinners in advance. You may be surprised at the variety of dishes you can prepare in a slow cooker, like BBQ pork chops, beef teriyaki, chicken pot pie, lasagna, and even carnitas tacos! Want to take your slow cooker meal prep to the next level? Pack up ingredients and freeze them ahead of time to throw into the slow cooker at a later date! Have an Instapot? Cook some of your favorite dishes in a fraction of the time, so dinner is on the table well before 7pm.
If having a meal schedule makes you feel more confident when planning your week, you might try theme dinner nights. For example, meatless Monday, taco Tuesday, one-pot Wednesday, pasta Thursday, and pizza Friday. Remember– if you make enough to have leftovers, you can eat them another night or for lunch the next day!
If you’re ever caught in a bind with nothing prepared in advance (it happens!), don’t be afraid to use frozen and convenience items to prepare a healthy, balanced meal fast. We love the orange chicken, Thai shrimp fried rice, and spaghetti cacio e pepe from Trader Joes!
Snacks
Let’s not forget about snacks! Snacking between meals can help keep energy levels high, especially if your meals are longer than 4 hours apart. Having snacks prepped ahead of time can take some of the guesswork out of snacking, especially when you’re in a rush.
Snacks like energy bites pack a ton of nutrients into a small package. These no-bake snacks come in fun flavors like chocolate peanut butter, matcha pistachio, and vanilla almond strawberry. Roll a batch at the beginning of the week and enjoy all week long.
Other snacks that are easy to prep in advance include chia seed pudding cups, roasted chickpeas, almond granola bars, chips and guacamole, and oatmeal banana cookies. You can also pack up balanced snacks like apples and peanut butter, cheese and crackers, yogurt and granola, hummus and vegetables, or dried fruit and nuts for easy snacking on the go.
Of course, you don’t have to make all your snacks at home from scratch. Planning ahead can also look like buying snacks at the store. Some of our favorite balanced store-bought snacks include protein bars, meat jerky sticks, Chobani flips, Sargento Balanced Breaks, or Sabra hummus and pretzel cups.
Meal planning and prepping can make reaching your nutrition goals easy and stress-free. With the right strategy, you’ll find you can save both time and money by cooking more efficiently and throwing away less food. Choosing a variety of recipes can be a fun way to incorporate lots of different flavors, textures, and cultural cuisines into your week so you never get bored. And while meal planning can involve cooking more dishes from scratch at home, it can also include planning meals made from convenient, frozen foods and even ordering takeout!
Get Started on Your Health Journey: Contact Our Dietitian Today!
Kristin Jenkins is a dietitian nutritionist based in Maryland. She has been involved in the field of eating disorders and disordered eating for over 6 years and brings both personal and professional experience to her work serving clients who struggle with their relationship with food and their bodies.