The last couple months have been a little nutso- between dog training, small group and volunteering I didn't get home until 9:00 most nights and still had to exercise, walk the dogs and...oh yeah cook dinner! The only way to survive this and stick with paleo (because let me tell you, every single night as I walked home I just wanted to order a pizza) was to set aside a few hours on Sunday to meal prep. Here's what my meal prep usually looks like:
1. Fill out my meal planner template + grocery list, print it and stick it on the fridge (my fav excuse to cheat: I forgot what I was going to make...I didn't have the groceries I need...and of course Harrison not knowing what we had planned and ordering something. This eliminates all those things). So for this example, this is my meal plan for the week:
2. Grocery store run- Wal-Mart generally has the best prices on groceries around here, and our Wal-Mart has a variety of organic veggies and cage-free meats (surprise!). I go to Trader Joe's after work on Mondays for whatever I couldn't get at Wal-Mart.
3. Eat a snack - prepping 10 meals in 2 hours, something WILL go wrong and the hangrier I am the worse it will go.
4. Put a marathon-worthy show on (right now I'm on Good Wife, just finished Revenge. Any other suggestions?).
5. Load up the crockpot with chili (for paleo chili I like this recipe without the beans + a few more veggies) or soup and cut it on.
6. Make breakfast casserole for the week and pop it in the oven.
7. Prep anything else that is preppable (hint: everything is prep-able).
- Chicken wings: cut/separate the wings. Since we're eating this tonight I set this aside to cook last so they're fresh when we eat them.
- Shrimp scampi: make the cashew sauce and store in a tupperware in the fridge, place the shrimps in the fridge to thaw, cook the spaghetti squash and get all the spaghetti'd squash out, put the "spaghetti" in a tupperware and store in the fridge.
- Tacos: cook the taco meat, slice up the veggies, cook any peppers/onions I want to add, separate giant lettuce leaves to use in place of tortillas/taco shells
- Stir fry: slice the chicken, make the cauliflower rice. Store in separate tupperware.
- Salmon + cauliflower mash: make the cauliflower mash, store in tupperware in the fridge. Set a phone reminder to either thaw the salmon or pick up fresh salmon at TJ's on Thursday.
- Chicken strips w/sweet potato fries: slice up sweet potatoes to be used later. I keep my chicken frozen or pick some up from TJ's on the way home from work- not sure how long chicken stays good in the fridge? Anyone know the answer to this?
8. Pour a glass of wine and pat self on the back.
I really like this blog post from Empowered Sustenance on batch cooking. I'm dying to try this beet salad she's talking about!
Do you meal prep?
Meal prepping is the most life saving thing ever. LOL!
ReplyDeleteI did meal planning for one week, and it was the best week ever. we saved money (we eat out once or twice a week without fail and we didn't eat out once) my husband actually waited to eat with me (he finishes work earlier and normally eats before i get home) and we actually used what we bought. it was brilliant. i really need to do it again. it's so worth it!
ReplyDeleteI had a stint of several months last year of great meal prepping and then I stopped. Big Mistake!!! I'm back not though and committed to it. Great post!!! Back to strict Paleo/Whole30 this Friday. I have things to eat and drink up this week first:) Mostly drink up all the wine:)))
ReplyDeleteI dont know how people function without meal planning if they work full time?! I try to hit up the grocery store (or stores) on Sunday and have our entire week planned out so we don't have to go back. I do some prep on Sundays when I get home, but most of the time I cook after work during the week. I feel like it saves you not only time, but money too!
ReplyDeleteI need to get it together with my meal planning from the get go in 2015!!
ReplyDeleteI am AWFUL at meal prepping. I can meal plan like there is no tomorrow, but when it comes down to actually putting things together, I fail. I need to get better!!
ReplyDeleteChicken can stay in the fridge 2-3 days but I don't like to push it to the 3rd day. Probably because I don't always know how long it was already out at the store. I have pushed it to the 3rd day upon occasion but I always do the smell test first and it has always been fine. I just prefer 2 days.
ReplyDeleteYour meals look amazing! And I love that you always food prep.