For most of December and all of January I have been consistent with my weekly meal plan. If you are on instagram I would highly recommend that you search for the user @mealprepmondays. They have a ton of ideas where real life people prep on any given day (I do it on Sundays) and pictures of the food they prep. Or you can follow yours truly at @run_ratha_run because I take pictures of almost everything food related. My girlfriends and co workers have been asking me for some tips and tricks to meal prepping. Now, I just want to preface this with the statement that this works for ME and everyone does it differently.
Step 1:
Look at your fridge/pantry. What do you currently have? What do you need? What’s on sale? Since I’m on a budget, after all, I’m a poor working lady with 3 kids, husband and a furry child 😉
I also keep a pretty stocked pantry of staples – salt, sugar, chicken stock, canned tuna, spices, etc.
Step 2:
Plan a menu around what is on sale. This is my menu for the week:
A sample of my shopping list for this week is this:
- Protein powder
- Chicken breasts
- Ground turkey
- Carrots
- Collard greens
- Persian cucumbers
- Bok choy
- Eggplant
- Eggs
- Squash
- Red bell peppers
- Kale
- Mustard greens
- Chinese broccoli
- Coconut water (love!)
- Cocnut milk
- Ginger
- Cilantro
- Whole wheat English muffins
- Avocados
This week Safeway has chicken breast on sale for $1.69lb, which is way cheaper than the $1.99 that Costco normally has them on sale for. There is a 6lb limit so I went on 3 different trips and bout 6lb packages each time. I froze the 2 of the 6lb bundles. Ground turkey is also on sale for $3.99lb. I stocked up on that as well.
For veggies, I usually buy ALL of my veggies from the Asian market because it’s cheaper and fresher. I don’t live near a farmer’s market. I’d have to drive all the way out to Snohomish and or go to Seattle, which with my asinine work schedule, I don’t have the time. Occasionally, it’s Safeway and a lot of the times it also includes a trip to Costco.
Step 3:
Time to cook! I am sort of methodical when I cook. I know I’m going to have at least 4 oz of grilled lean meat per each meal I cook it all at once. Anything that needs to be cooked in the oven goes in all at once.
Example: I grilled the chicken breasts on the George Foreman grill while the sweet potatoes & asparagus was cooked in the oven.
After the chicken breast, I grilled my turkey patties. While those were cooking away, I chopped up veggies, made my salads, measured out the almonds, stir fried my veggies. Once all the food is done, I measured. This is UBER important. A food scale is the best purchase I made this year. There is no mistake for portion sizes if everything is measured out. I love that thing!
Picture time from yesterday. Feel free to ask me whatever question you want.
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