Meal planning is essential if you plan to change your diet and focus more on healthy eating. Without a meal plan, it’s easy to make a quick stop at a drive-through or order delivery food because everything in your home is still frozen. Many people are discouraged with meal planning because they don’t know the answer to the question of how long do meal preps last. They also don’t realize how many meal prep options they have.
Like any lifestyle change, it takes a little time to get used to it, but once you do, it will help you lead a healthy and happy lifestyle.
Meal planning allows you to become more organized with your food options and start with frugal meal prep plans. It also ensures no food is being wasted in your household, and you save a lot of money eating proper food, as opposed to buying fast foods.
How Long Do Meal Preps Last: Consider Planning Weekly Meals
Meal planning is not stressful if you have a system in place.
Even when you want to make ahead gluten-free meals, it could be a breeze. The trick is planning your meals a week at a time. A week is a manageable amount of time, and it makes it easy to do your grocery shopping and plan out how you’ll use leftovers.
Prepping is the most vital part of meal planning, may it be vegetarian meal prep recipes or keto recipes — preparing them ahead of time ensures you have everything in place in your fridge, and all that is left to do is warm up the food.
Planning can take around 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Keep Your Meals Simple
Now that you know what you will eat for a week, the next thing to do is to review and ensure that your meals are not complicated. How is this possible? You can choose to prepare one meal that will last for two to three days.
For example, for lunch, you can have sesame chicken, rice, and broccoli. For dinner, you can prep a shrimp taco meal.
Choose four to five recipes, and you can mix and match them throughout the week so you don’t have to cook and get tired. You can spend little time and meal prep sandwiches that you’ll eat for the day. This step can last for a few hours, but you only need to do this once a week.
Grocery List Ideas for Family
Another important thing to do when meal prepping is to create detailed grocery lists.
If you have your list ready, it won’t take you long to complete your grocery shopping. Plus, planning before buying is a great option for those who have a budget to follow. Without a list, you won’t know what to buy and will buy more than you should.
Pre-Cook Your Meals
Lastly, pre-cooking saves a lot of time for you during the week. This way, you only have to warm the food when it is your mealtime.
For instance, cook a huge batch of rice or quinoa and store it in the fridge in portions.
For all those who want to do veggie meal prep, you can pre-cut your veggies and store them in airtight bags or containers for cooking. It is much easier to make one huge mess in the kitchen instead of several huge messes throughout the week.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know the answer to the question of how long do meal preps last, make sure to always have your healthy snacks prepared for the week.
This ensures you have something healthy to munch on in between meals or in the morning as you rush to work or school.
Remember, an adequate meal plan will help you focus on your health and what goes into your body. Take time to research fun meals to eat each week, and once you get comfortable, you can try new recipes.