Today I was thinking about how I can save time in my meal prep for the rest of the week and into next week. These are four tasks I am going to accomplish before the beginning of next week after I go grocery shopping.
Our weekends are filling up with activities, week nights have: practices and puppy classes, and finding time for friends and family. So I need to streamline a little more when it comes to meal prep and you might want to as well.
I don’t think these four tasks will add a lot of extra time to any particular meal prep I am already doing, but I can definitely see the benefits and the time it will save when I do them!
Here are four things I am committing to this week:
1. Vegetables – Prepare snack vegetables for the week by washing, peeling, and cutting celery and carrots. Chop, slice, or dice the peppers, onions, and carrots for the bases of soups and toppings for salads. Wash lettuce and put it in a container with a paper towel to keep it fresh.
2. Ground Beef – Prepare ground beef for future recipes. When making ground beef (or ground meat of any kind) make multiple pounds simultaneously. Separate the cooked beef into 1-pound packages and put them in the freezer for future use.
3. Chicken – Air fry, bake, or saute, chicken breasts, whole or sliced, for the main dish and then take the other ones and put them in the freezer. Pull the already-cooked chicken out when time is low or if you need a quick lunch. I love to put the sliced pieces on lunch salads or wraps.
4. Grains – Find your favorite grains and make multiple servings for future lunches or fried rice later in the week. You can easily add healthy grains to so many dishes which makes the side dish preparation for the week so much faster. If you prepare it in a very basic way you can quickly change the flavor with some additional spices.
I am excited for the week ahead and how smoothly our meal times, packing lunches, and grabbing snacks will go!