Prep All Your Ingredients At Once For Easier Weeknight Meals

Meal prepping is great for saving time, and money, and being more mindful of what you're eating. It's highly beneficial from a nutritional perspective because you can carefully review your food options to create healthy and wholesome recipes. Establishing a meal prep routine makes weeknight dinners a breeze since you can simply reheat food in the evening, as opposed to creating whole meals from scratch. To make things even more efficient, work smarter when preparing your meals by reviewing your recipes before getting started.

Try to identify common ingredients in your weeknight meal prep recipes and prepare these ingredients in batches. With something like vegetables, you can peel and cut as many as you'll need to cover multiple meals. As for meat, you can cut, season, and cook it all to ensure you have enough for the recipes you're making. When deciding on your recipes, it's best to focus on versatile ingredients that can be used in many different dishes.

When working on meal prep, keep in mind that making the same recipes every night is bound to leave you feeling dissatisfied, and may even derail your healthy and efficient eating plan. Fortunately, certain ingredients can be used in multiple recipes to keep weeknight meals interesting. Rice is a great choice for meal prepping as it belongs in a variety of dishes. It can be incorporated into a soup, used in stuffed peppers, or combined with beef to make a hearty casserole.

When it comes to your protein selection, you can't go wrong with chicken. There are hundreds of chicken recipes ideal for dinner, as well as other meals. As for vegetables, carrots, bell peppers, and kale are great choices thanks to their versatility and nutritional content. Cheese, sauces, salsa, and sour cream can also play a role in your meal prep process, as these ingredients ensure that your recipes are bursting with satisfying flavors and textures.

The lifespan of your prepped meals typically depends on the ingredients used in them. When it comes to rice-based dishes, you usually have about four days in the refrigerator before quality begins to degrade. As for soups and stews, they last about five days in the refrigerator. However, you can easily freeze soups for about three months, provided that you place them in an appropriate airtight container or freezer bag.

When it comes to your container selection, certain options can make the storage of prepped meals a lot easier. Make sure any foods you store in the freezer are placed in freezer-safe containers, as these are best for maintaining quality. When it comes to refrigerator storage, reusable containers with compartments are ideal when you want to keep ingredients separate until you're ready to cook your meals. Fortunately, there are ample food storage and organization options that can help keep your meal-prepping plan on track from week to week.