Meal Prep Like a Pro

Your Sunday prep mission: Get something in the oven, something on the stove and everything in the fridge. From prep to bake to clean up, spend 1 ½ to 2 hours of kitchen time and build out food for the start of a busy week. Yes, you can!

I really try to do a twice weekly meal prep method, which relies on focused time chopping, stirring and cooking, using the kitchen thoroughly for a couple of hours to set my family up for delicious food for days.

A couple of meal-prep keys I’ve learned over time:

1. Sit down and figure out what you’re making and what groceries you need the day before. That way, when you start to cook, you have EVERYTHING you need.
2. When you cook, keep going. Overlap your efforts with all guns firing. Meaning, while something is baking, chop for another recipe. When veggies are sautéing on the stove, eggs are blending, etc.
3. The goal? Calm, delicious, mealtimes that come together quickly. Time at the beginning of the week and again mid-week keeps you organized, separates your ‘food life’ from all the other aspects of your busy week, and keeps you in your own kitchen for meals, which is SO helpful for sticking with your personalized nutrition plan and ensuring health goal success.

Starting the week out with food in the fridge is a HUGE relief. Here’s what I did in 2 hours on a Sunday morning:

Menu:
Breakfast: Denver egg bake
Lunch: Creamy broccoli soup with leftover chicken chunks
Snack: Pumpkin muffins
Dinner: Chicken shawarma with cauliflower rice

Here’s How it Actually Happened:

1. First, I chopped the soup veggies and started sauteing them on low/med with about 2 tbsp of olive oil.
2. Next, I chopped the veggies for the egg bake. Started them sauteing on low/med with 2 tbsp olive oil on a different burner.
3. When soup veggies were soft, I added chicken broth to the soup pot and let soup simmer.
4. While the bake veggies were getting soft and caramelized, I chopped the chicken for the shawarma. I added spices to the chicken. Put the chicken mixture into a container and into the fridge. That’s done.
5. Next, cracked eggs into a blender and put the breakfast veggies in an oiled rectangular baking pan. I added the blended eggs and put them in to bake.
6. Next, I washed the cauliflower and grated it into a big bowl. Could have used a food processer here. Put it into a container and into the fridge. Done.
7. Then, I finished the soup by adding GF flour and coconut milk, and immersion blended until smooth. Soup is finished. Into the container and into the fridge it goes.
8. Finally, I started the muffins. It’s a one-bowl recipe. I was running out of time, so instead of making muffins, I put pumpkin mixture into a 9×13 baking pan and then added the topping, (will cut into squares for portion control).
9. When the egg bake came out, I added the pumpkin bake to the oven. ALL of that took me about 1 ½ hours. The pumpkin bake and final clean-up took me to 2 hours total.

Here’s What I Accomplished: A breakfast (egg bake), a snack (pumpkin squares), lunch (broccoli soup with chicken) and chicken with cauli rice to start the week. It won’t get me all the way through the week, but will give me enough food to get going on a healthy foot.

Next up, I’m planning on making Mediterranean fish and sheet pan veggies for dinner. When I cook fish, I like to get it day of, so I’ll stop at the store on Tuesday to make that for Tuesday night’s dinner. On Tuesday, I’ll also figure out what I need for Wed. and Thurs. night, and something else for breakfasts and snacks.

One weeknight meal usually ends up being very quick (a rotisserie chicken with a bagged salad — done!) or something similar. And that’s OK. It’s homemade enough.

Meal planning and prepping is tricky. Don’t think it’s not. But, as a working busy mom, if I can do it, so can you!

XO
Robin

Healthy Nest’s Natural Weight Loss Program

At Healthy Nest, we’ve identified that creating new habits is a cornerstone of forever diet changes. It’s one of the main reasons that the Natural Weight Loss Program’s expectation is low and slow weight loss and not a 30-day fast weight loss program.

The low and slow philosophy allows you to create your new habits and then solidify them over time as you lose pounds. When you’ve completed the weight loss piece, you’ve also created the lifestyle piece, seamlessly. Works like a charm and we’re proud of it.

Want more? Reach out! We’re here for you. Schedule a free consult with a holistic nutritionist.