An Ode To Meal Prepping

Dear Meal Prepping: 

You are so fun and I love you. Thanks for making my lunch life better every week.

Love,

Taryn

Wait, what?

Yeah, I said it. I love meal prepping. And I mean it too, that’s not sarcasm. 

The idea of preparing your meals ahead of time for the week, otherwise lovingly known as meal prepping, has gotten a pretty rude reputation recently. For some reason, the perception of meal prep is that you’re going to make and eat the same boring thing for a whole week which honestly sounds terrible and no wonder everyone hates it.

In reality, meal prep can be literally anything you want, it’s just something that is made ahead of time. I like to make three big batches of things so I can alternate them for lunch and dinner and I don’t have to eat the same thing more than twice a week (at most), which means I don’t get bored. 

Technically, meal prep could be anything from cheese quesadillas to quinoa and salmon to kale salad to spaghetti and meatballs. If you really wanted, you could make queso ahead of time and microwave it at work and call it lunch. That might start to feel a little gross on your insides but it would still be meal prep. As long as you made it for a meal at a later date, it counts. My point here is that just because you’re making your week’s lunches on a Sunday doesn’t mean they have to be sad and boring, or that you have to shovel the same pot of unseasoned brown rice down your throat every day. There are even ways to make three or four different dishes from the same list of ingredients!

It’s also important to consider the intention for meal prepping. Do you want to save money or are you doing it for health reasons? If you’re like me and you have a tendency to let your eating habits slide out of balance when the options are endless every single day for lunch, then meal prepping is a fantastic idea. Same if you’re trying to save money, especially here in NYC where a simple sandwich can be over 10 bucks. 

When you’re considering what you want to eat for the week, sticking with one protein can be much more cost effective, and can be versatile. If you’re having chicken or fish, try making two batches with different seasonings or marinades on each. This applies to vegetables too. You can take the same ingredients and do very different things with them for each meal. If you are really that into kale, do a fresh salad with lemon and crunchy raw veg for one meal, bake it up for chips in another, and then saute it and have it with some grilled chicken for a third. One ingredient, three ways. 

The major key to meal prepping is remember to SEASON everything! You can change up the flavor profile of the same exact ingredients by selecting different seasonings. Always stick with salt and pepper but maybe go with more Mexican style flavors like cumin and cayenne for one meal, or Italian with garlic, onion, and oregano on the other. Even if you are eating the same batch of quinoa all week, it’s going to be a lot worse going down if it’s bland.

What a lot of this comes down to is having a solid staple pantry which is essential to any consistent cooking habit. If you have to go out and buy items like spices or oil every single time you cook, you’re going to get exhausted and just give it up. I mean no one wants to deal with the grocery store any more often than they have to, let’s be honest. You can check out my blog on stocking your pantry here! 

Or, you could contact me directly, and we can work on some customized cooking lessons that will focus exclusively on meal prepping techniques and ideas. I once helped a friend make an entire week of lunches and dinners, plus dinner for us that night, and we only spent about $60 at Whole Foods. Click on that handy Contact tab at the top of the page for more info!