Each week I try to make meals and cook food to have on hand for quick, healthy meals. It saves me time during the week and saves me money by having lunch ready so I don’t go out to eat. I hope that I provide you simple and healthy meal prep ideas for you to incorporate into your routine.
I come up with some meal prep ideas on my own, but Pinterest is also very handy. Browse Pinterest to find simple recipes to throw in your slow cooker (like I did last week) or for healthy ways to prepare vegetables. If you’re looking for ideas for meal prep or food prep then check out past Grocery Shopping & Meal Prep posts as well.
We get really busy at work between Thanksgiving and Christmas. You might have noticed last week and you’ll see this week that I have not wanted to do as much cooking on the weekends. I still want healthy options to choose from during the week, but I lean on convenient foods like pre-chopped vegetables or I’ll let my slow cooker do the cooking while I am away! Incorporate some of these meal prep ideas into your schedule, even if you are short on time.
Grocery Shopping:
- Boneless, skinless chicken thighs and lean Italian seasoned ground turkey
- 2% Greek yogurt and unsweetened almond milk
- eggs
- broccoli/cauliflower mix, heirloom baby carrots and green onion
- bananas and lemons
- Soleil lime sparkling water
Meal Prep:
Every Saturday from Thanksgiving to Christmas we have stuff to do work-wise. Last week I made a chicken curry in my slow cooker while I working and it was really convenient! This week I decided to use my slow cooker again, but to cook plain chicken thighs.
(boneless, skinless chicken thighs – raw)
I added 1/2c water to the slow cooker and layered the chicken in the bottom. I set the slow cooker on low and let it cook while I was working, or roughly 6 hours. Once I got back I shred the chicken a little using metal tongs, drained the liquid then seasoned the chicken with salt.
(boneless, skinless chicken thighs – cooked)
If you are short on time then the slow cooker is the way to go! Sometimes I forget to use it, but they are so awesome. It takes 5 minutes to throw everything in (or 2 minutes in this case) and then your work is done.
After finishing the chicken I roasted the broccoli/cauliflower mix and carrots at 375° for 30 minutes. The broccoli/cauliflower mix was a little low in the cauliflower department….meaning there were like 2 small pieces of cauliflower in the whole bag! Oh well, I like broccoli.
This picture below is from a different day — I forgot to take a picture during meal prep #foodblogfail
As the vegetables were roasting I made some mini frittatas. In each egg muffin cup I put some diced zucchini and feta. Next I whisked together 12 eggs and 12 egg whites, then divided that among all the muffin cups. I baked the frittatas at 375° for 20 minutes. Each mini frittata cup is 50 calories. I made these this week because I’ll be gone next weekend. After the frittatas cooled I put them in freezer Ziploc bags and froze them. Next week I’ll be able to pull them out to take for a snack.
While the mini frittatas cooked I mixed some yogurt and protein powder together for my mid-morning snack. I topped the yogurt with sliced banana and cinnamon. Then I packed puffed kamut (similar to puffed brown rice cereal), pepitas and chopped pecans to sprinkle on top before eating. You might notice this is my go-to mid-morning meal, especially when I am short on time.
I’m out of the office in the afternoon quite a bit this time of year, so I don’t pack a mid-afternoon meal. Instead I pack portable snacks, like Quest bars to take along and eat on the go.
I did get some new meal prep containers to take my meals in. They are MealPrepster containers, which are microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe and stackable. I’ll let you know what I think, but so far so good!
Well that is everything that I made this week in terms of meal prep and food prep. If you have any questions then feel free to email me at eatliftplayrepeat@gmail.com. I’d love to hear about your meal prep ideas and also your strategy for finding ideas for meal prep.
