How to Make a Meal Plan and Prep with Success

Creating a weekly meal plan and prep can save you time in the kitchen and make cooking less stressful. In this post, I walk you through the details of doing both.

Meal planning has been part of my life for many, many years. I started planning the week’s dinners when I was in my twenties…I will be 40 in a little over a month(yikes)! At first, it helped me to not have the “oh crap, what’s for dinner” moment at 5:00 pm. Having that stressor gone was a blissful feeling!

When I started to transition to a whole foods diet and cooking even more from scratch, meal planning and prep helped me to stick with it and be organized when in the kitchen.

Over the years, I had seasons where I let the habit of meal planning and prep slip…I usually regretted it because of the chaos it created in the evenings. I have also shifted through varying degrees of the process.

Currently, I make certain that I plan out the week’s dinner and lunch proteins for everyone in the house. At the very least, I make sure I take the time to wash all the produce so it is ready to use or eat as a snack…my toddler is currently wanting all the apples to snack on! If time allows and I can get some produce prepped, great! If not, at least I can skip the washing step when preparing a meal.

What is meal planning and prep

Simply put, meal planning is when you determine the meals you will eat. Meal prep involves the process of purchasing all the ingredients, and taking steps to prepare the ingredients for a meal or cook the meal, either partially or fully.

You can plan a menu for a few days, a week, or even a month! This is completely up to you and what works best for you. For me, tackling one week at a time works great.

Meal prepping itself can be done to varying degrees. You can prep ingredients, batch cook, cook some ingredients, or prepare for meals.

The amount of prep and the way you do it can vary too. You can block off a couple of hours to do all the prep for the upcoming week or you can just prep a portion of the ingredients from each meal. Heck, if you are working from home you could even block off half an hour in the morning to prep for that night supper. The possibilities are endless!

Let’s take look at how each of these ways differ.

• Ingredient prep – This is where all the ingredients for prepped but not cooked. All the peeling, chopping, and dicing is done and portioned out per meal. This means at mealtime, you simply have to gather everything together and cook.
• Batch cooking – For batch cooking, full meals are prepared. At mealtime, you simply have to reheat the meal.
• Assembled meals, but do not cook them – This works great for stocking your freezer with meals you would pop in your crockpot or Instant Pot.

It is totally cool to mix and match how you do prep. I think that is one of the best parts, meal planning and prep can be adjusted to fit your life and cooking preference!

Benefits of meal planning and prep

Meal planning and prep has a host of benefits!

Meal planning will help you to stick to eating healthy, real foods and avoid processed foods that do not nourish you and your family.

It can reduce your grocery budget. Beacuse you will have made a list of exactly what foods you will need for the week, you will spend less….no more buying random items you never use!

Food waste is reduced because you are purchasing only what you will eat. And since you have prepped the food, you will actually use it! No more limp broccoli hanging out in your crisper.

Furthermore, cooking meals will go so much smoother! Who doesn’t love less stress?! With a plan in place, you won’t be standing at the frig at 5 pm with a hangry family circling waiting for food. You can get in the kitchen and get your meal made in no time flat!

How to plan a menu for the week

If meal prep is new for you having a game plan on how to tackle the job is very helpful. When you feel prepared to begin with, you will be successful in meal planning and prep!

Let’s dive into the how to!

• Pick a specific time each week to dedicate to planning your meals, grocery shopping, and prepping ingredients or meals. You can spread this out across a few days. For instance, you can plan meals on Thursday, then grocery shop and prep on the weekend.
• Plan all meals for the week. Breakfast, lunch, dinner…and don’t forget about snacks.
• Make a grocery list based on all the recipes you will be making.
• Shop your frig, freezer, and pantry first. Remove any items from the grocery list that you already have on hand. This helps you stick to a budget and reduce food waste.
• Go shopping.
• Determine how you will prep and organize your prep time. Going into prep time without an agenda will extend the time you need in the kitchen. You want to tackle the longest first, like roasting a chicken, and work on the smaller tasks while that item is cooking.

Additional Resources

Here is a great article on mistakes that you want to avoid in meal prep.

This glass storage set with locking lids is perfect for portioning out ingredients.

My Crispy Salmon Cakes are perfect for meal prepping, they heat up quickly.

Is meal planning and prep part of your week? Let me know in the comments why you love it!

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