8 Great Meal Prep Ideas For The Busy Family

In order to slow down your life, you need to find out where you can save time. These meal prep ideas will help you do just that. Spend less time on chores around the house and spend it more on activities that are more meaningful. You may find cooking relaxing and it is certainly meaningful – who doesn’t like a good homecooked meal – but maybe you don’t enjoy cooking all day and you’d rather spend less time on it. Maybe my post on meal prepping will help you.

How To Meal Prep

The organization is key here. To meal prep effectively you need to know which meals you want to prepare and what do you need to prepare these meals. I like to restrict myself to a few recipes and then expand slowly and test more recipes and expand my options. You don’t want to always eat the same meals but if you have a list of tried and tested recipes it makes meal prepping so much easier as you already know what quantities of ingredients you need and how long these meals will last. So decide on maybe 5 – 10 recipes. You will find a few of my favourite meal prep ideas further on in this article.

Storage

If you meal prep you need you quality storage containers. If your meals are being eaten quickly you can store then in the fridge. If you want to make them last a bit longer, freeze them in the right protion size required.

If you love eating bread – like me – have a look here for specific advice on how to store bread.

So the best is to have a few containers of varying sizes that are easy to stack in your fridge or freezer. Ideally these should also be microwavable if you like heating up meals in the micorwave. I usually just heat them up on the stove but either is fine.

I like glass or durable plastic containers. Try not to buy any flimsy containers that may break easily as you will just have to buy new ones all the time. I’d rather spend a bit more but they will last me a long time. If you don’t have that much money have a look in charity shops or platforms where people give away stuff for free. I always see good storage containers being handed down if people move or if they replace their old kitchen equipment with newer items.

Meal Prep Ideas

My favourite recipes for meal prep for breakfast are granola and oat bars. The granola I just prepare at the weekend and then store in a Kilner jar. It lasts a few weeks in the jar. It’s my go-to breakfast option during the week when I don’t want to prepare anything for breakfast usually. Alternatively, I will have some oat bars which I always have in my freezer. I make them with the leftover oat pulp from making oat milk. Just defrost them a little bit after taking them out of a freezer and they make an easy breakfast option.

If I feel like something a bit more special, I will have English breakfast muffins. They take a bit of time to prepare and rise so I make a bigger batch and freeze them until needed.

For lunch or dinner, I either whip up a simple meal or have some of my meal prepped lunch options that I will usually have in the freezer. My favourites are vegan chickpea curry, soups like this simple leek and potato soup or this roasted tomato soup or empanadas as a side option. I also enjoy some homemade freshly baked bread. Sourdough is my favourite and I will always have a sliced loaf in the freezer. These are frozen in small batches so we only take out of the freezer what we can eat in one or two days.

As snacks, I usually have these sourdough crackers stored in a Kilner jar. They are easy to make and last really well

If you enjoyed the meal prep ideas and want to find more head over to my recipe section and join my Facebook Group which focuses on homemade vegan recipes that are affordable and healthy.