Meal Prep for the Week of July 10, 2023 and How to Implement Meal Planning and Prepping Into Your Routine

It’s already the middle of July! The year is half over! This has definitely been a busy year so far with an outlook of more busy in the second half of the year. I have a lot of things lined up for the Fall. I see a special anniversary trip happening in the Fall for my 25th wedding anniversary. I will be finishing some outdoor home projects when the weather is cooler because I could not finish them in the Spring. I don’t even want to think about what is going to happen at Christmas because it is going to be a crazy time for sure. Not only is there the Christmas hullabaloo, but my son is graduating from college in December and possibly another trip after Christmas to celebrate no more college tuition. With all these plans, I am thankful that I have meal prepping in my routine to make life easier at dinnertime so that I don’t have to fumble around for ingredients and spend time chopping, slicing and preparing those ingredients every day. I get these tasks done in one day, which saves a bunch ‘o time.

If you want to start implementing meal prepping in your routine, but you don’t know how, start with meal planning. Make a meal plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Pick a day to meal plan and do it for a while to get the hang of it and make it a part of your life. What is this going to do? It is going to save you money and time and help you stay on track with any diet plan. That’s what it will do! Many meal plans that you find online only plan out dinners. That may account for some good dinner ideas, but what about all the other times you will eat? Do you have middle school or up boys/young men in the house? They eat all the time! Not to mention if they have friends over. You won’t have any food left in the house. Plan for those growing kids that get the hungries all day. Plan for breakfast, lunch and snacks for every day.

Once you get into the meal plan habit, the next step is to write down all the ingredients you will need to implement your meal plan. I like to divide my ingredient list into two parts: one for fresh items and the other for shelf-stable items and meat that can go in the freezer. Write down everything, including those items you know you have or think you have. I can’t tell you how many times I have left an ingredient off my list, thinking I had it, and when I start preparing, I find that I do not have it.

After you write down your ingredients, you can shop your pantry, refrigerator and freezer. This is where you will save money. You can see exactly what you have, what you need to use up and what must be purchased. Make your list and shop your kitchen at the same time. You can add in a trip to the store for those items you need. If you get ahead on your meal planning, you can shop once a month, every other week or every week. You do whatever works best for you.

Now you can stop there if you are not interested in meal prepping, but if you are interested, you can continue with Step 3 for the meal prepping process. This is another habit to fit into your routine. Before you get started, you need to pick a day to do it. I’m not going to lie; it takes time. You can take a full day or you can split it up into two days. Sometimes, I have to split my meal prepping into two days. What you do not want to do is split it up into more than two days because that defeats the purpose of meal prepping.

Using my meal plan for any given week, I divide my tasks into categories: thawing, chopping, slicing, preparing, making ahead and kitchen tasks pr food preservation tasks. Under each task, I make a list of what must be prepped in that category. I write down the item to prep and meal it belongs to; for example, if onions must be chopped for Taco Soup, I will write “Onions – Taco Soup” under the Chopping category. If I need to marinate meat for Ginger Shrimp Salad, I will write “Marinades – Shrimp for Ginger Shrimp Salad” under the Preparing category. Anything that can be prepared ahead without losing texture or flavor goes in the Making Ahead Category, such as muffins or dips.

Then it is time to implement your meal prep plan. You cannot skip this step without completing the above steps. Trust me, it doesn’t work. Of course, you can adjust this plan to fit your own needs and schedule. Forming new habits is hard sometimes, but once a new habit is formed, you can’t remember what life was like before that habit was formed. The results of your saved time and money are definitely worth it!

The Menu

Thawing

Chopping

Slicing

Preparing

Making Ahead

Food Preservation and Kitchen Tasks