Meal prepping is just as important as “Creating A Grocery Budget” and “meal planning“. It is the final important step in saving money on groceries with the first step being creating a grocery budget. If you haven’t created a budget yet for your grocery shopping, we recommend you check out our blog “Creating A Grocery Budget” first. Also, if you haven’t meal planned yet for your grocery shopping, we recommend you check out our blog “Meal Planning Tips” second.
Meal prepping helps ensure there’s less time being spent making the meal during the busy days and/or nights of the week. We recommend you meal prep some on the day you get your groceries and meal prep some throughout the remainder of the week as fresh ingredients can go bad faster once they are fully prepared. If you work outside of the home, meal prepping would include making the meals you plan to eat at your work facility taking into account if your work has a refrigerator you can use or not. In our next blog, we will give you on-the-go meal ideas both with those having access to a fridge and those who do not.
Meal prepping includes cooking some of the ingredients for the meals that week and preparing the sides. For example, if you know you are going to have a side salad with your meal at work or at home then you can prepare some of the salad toppings and/or chop up some of the romaine lettuce for your salad. Another example, if you know you are going to be having chili that week you can cook up the hamburger meat and beans (if not canned) and either freeze it to put in your slow cooker or instant pot later that week and get any of the other fresh ingredients you plan to put in your chili ready like diced tomatoes. Place the fresh ingredients, seasoning and beans in the freezer bag with the hamburger meat and place it in your freezer until ready to heat later in the week.
Another meal prepping tip is not cooking or chopping any fresh ingredients you leave in the fridge and don’t plan on eating within the next day or two. In this case, you don’t want to prepare all of the meals as the fresh ingredients can go bad quicker. For instance, you wouldn’t want to cook up your hamburger meat on Sunday afternoon and leave it in the fridge until Friday night’s planned dinner; instead, freeze that meat until Thursday and then place it in your refrigerator for Friday’s dinner to be combined on the stove or oven with the remainder ingredients. The same principle applies to fruits and vegetables. If you make your guacamole, you should plan to eat it within the next day or two as it tends to ripen and go bad faster now that it’s fully prepared. If you chop up all your romaine lettuce, you might have some spoiled leaves by the end of the week. If you plan on using beans or beef or another type of meat in your weekly meal plan, then our tip is to cook up these proteins and freeze them to be added to your meals later on in the week. If you plan on using fruits and vegetables, we recommend you cook or chop what is needed for the next two days and continue this step throughout the remainder of the week as fruits and vegetables take less time to make compared to the remainder of the meal.
Another place you can meal prep is making your dinner meals into dump and go slow cooker meals or instant pot meals (if you have access to either appliance). A dump and go meal is a meal that you simply place all the ingredients in your slow cooker or instant pot on low for 4-6 hours or on high for 3-4 hours and then serve when ready. If you do not have either appliance, we would suggest checking out your local thrift store for a slow cooker as we have seen them there in multiple locations and multiple states or check out Facebook marketplace to see if there is a good deal in your area. Not every meal has to be a dump and go meal, but they can be helpful especially if they are made into freezer meals. We enjoy using Six Sister’s Stuff freezer meal recipes and we will be having a blog next week on how to turn your meals into freezer meals.
Conclusion
We hope you see the importance of meal prepping. Meal prepping is a quick extra step you can take if your busy nights are so busy you need dinner on the table in ten minutes or less. There are some meals that take 15 minutes or less to make from start to finish from food bloggers such as this one by Bethany Kramer 10-Minute Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry – A Simple Palate. In our next blog, this Thursday, we will be giving on-the-go meal ideas for those at work or for those out of their kitchen. Leave a comment for what you found the most helpful and Subscribe so you never miss a blog! Stay saucy!
Comentarios