9 Meal Prep Ideas to Save Time in the Kitchen

With just 1-2 hours of meal prep every weekend you can save countless hours in the kitchen during the week. Today, I’m showing you 9 ingredients that I’ve prepped and several meal prep ideas. It’s easy to combine these ingredients for healthy recipes that take less than 5 minutes to make.

Meal Prep Ideas & Planning Ahead

When it comes to healthy eating, there’s one strategy that works time and again – planning ahead. Because when do we most often throw our healthy eating goals out the window? When we’re busy, right? And when that cookie, cupcake, slice of pizza or burger sounds easy, cheap and well….easy (it bears repeating).

But what if I were to tell you that you could meal prep several healthy ingredients in 1-2 hours on Sunday to save time in the kitchen all week long? Yep, that’s the beauty of meal prep.

The way I do meal prep may be different from most meal prep advice that you see or read about. Most website will have you preparing the same meal over-and-over for 5 days of same same. For instance, chicken with white rice and veggies. Those are your simple meal prep recipes.

Don’t get me wrong, I like chicken with white rice and veggies (in fact, you’ll see it below). But I don’t want that exact same meal five nights in a row. Because let’s be honest, palate fatigue is real my friends.

And if the meals you prepped on Sunday start to sound boring, unappetizing or less than desirable by Thursday or Friday, that’s when you make those previously mentioned poor food choices. Yep, even when you have a healthy meal sitting right there in your fridge.

My Approach: Meal Prep Ingredients Over Full Meals

Instead of prepping the same meal over and over, I recommend prepping ingredients over full meals. Sure, you’ll have to do a little more work than popping something in the oven or microwave. But in most cases we’re talking less than 5 minutes. And that’s just for a little last-minute slicing and assembling, to maintain the flavor and freshness of certain produce items.

The three main benefits of meal prepping ingredients:

1. You’ll save time in the kitchen
2. You’ll have far greater food variety
3. You’ll reduce the stress of “what should I make?”

With plenty of ingredients prepped in your fridge, all it takes is a little creativity to combine them (along with other items you have on hand) in delicious, innovative ways.

The end result: you’ll have greater nutrient variety throughout the week, your tummy will be happy and you’ll spend far less time cooking. A winning combo.

How to Do Healthy Meal Prep

My meal prep changes weekly and based on the seasons (again, food variety). But there’s 5 things I prep every week:

1. Protein: this could be roasted chicken, shredded chicken, baked salmon, slow cooker pulled pork, baked halibut, etc.
2. Veggies: this could be a sheet pan of roasted veggies, spiralized veggies, fresh veggies or any combination of those.
3. Starch: this could be rice, sweet potato, quinoa, lentils, fingerling potatoes and many other things.
4. Snacks: this could be hummus, spinach artichoke dip, trail mix, crisp vegetable sticks, etc.
5. Breakfast: this could be egg muffins, sweet potato toast, hard or soft boiled eggs, chia pudding, homemade yogurt, almond butter, homemade granola, etc.

Of course, I’m not prepping all of those items, but maybe just a couple from each category, depending on what I’m craving in any particular week.

Again, the goal is not to have all meals set and done, but to have enough healthy ingredients prepped that we can assemble most of our meals quickly. And leave room for that unexpected dinner date, lunch with a girlfriend or afternoon matcha latte break. Because, that’s life, right?

In addition to the ingredients I prep, I always have a few key items in my fridge that can easily be combined with virtually any meal. That includes avocado, fresh garlic, tomatoes, baby spinach, fresh fruit and other produce and a variety of nuts and seeds.

Watch How I Meal Prep for the Week

Instead of me telling you how I meal prep, I thought it would be better to show you how I meal prep. Here’s a video below that walks you through my process step-by-step and the 9 ingredients I meal prepped this week.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube Channel for weekly cooking videos!

I hope you guys enjoyed the video and if you’d like to see more meal prep ideas, let me know in the comments below. You can also join my email subscriber list and receive a handy PDF guide of this weekly meal prep, with tips for prep time and storage. Subscribers are always the first to be notified of new recipes, videos, giveaways and other goodies.

Seasonal Meal Prep Ideas

For more meal prep ideas that feature seasonal produce, check out each of these videos:

• Spring Meal Prep
• Summer Meal Prep
• Fall Meal Prep
• Winter Meal Prep

Lastly, my favorite meal prep containers are these Glasslock Containers, Le Parfait Jars, Weck Jars, and Stasher Bags.

With all this food prepped and ready to go, you should have a healthy, happy week with very little time spent in the kitchen. Enjoy!

9 Meal Prep Ideas to Save Time in the Kitchen : Chopped Celery

4.90 from 19 votes

Prep Time: 5 mins

Total Time: 5 mins

Servings: 6 servings

Author: Lisa Bryan

Print Pin Review

You can meal prep so many different vegetables, but one of my favorites is celery. It will last for up to a week when stored this way!

Ingredients

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 bunch of celery
• ▢ water

Instructions 

• Remove the ribs of celery from the stalk and wash them thoroughly.
• Remove the ends, then slice them in half or thirds (if they're extra long).
• Place them in a jar and fill the jar with cold water until it reaches the top.
• Place the jar of celery in the fridge and replace the water every 2-3 days with fresh water. The celery will remain crisp and fresh for up to one week.

Nutrition

Calories: 1kcal, Carbohydrates: 1g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 1g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Sodium: 5mg, Potassium: 17mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 30IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 3mg

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: meal prep, meal prep ideas, meal prep recipes

©Downshiftology. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?Leave a comment below and share a photo on Instagram. Tag @downshiftology and hashtag it #downshiftology.

Originally posted February 2018, but updated to include new information.