How to start meal prepping?
For people that work, are responsible for the household and/or have to raise children, it can be challenging to come up with a healthy meal in the evening. Eating take-out every night is not very healthy, and expensive! But there's a healthy alternative: meal prepping. Cook for one day and eat it for a whole week.
The word "meal prepping" means little more than preparing food. The idea is simple: you prepare your meals in one day and store them per portion, after which you eat them during the week. The big advantage is that after a busy day you (almost) no longer have to make food. You just need to heat it up.
Is it for me?
Whether meal prepping is actually something for you is entirely up to you. For example, it is questionable whether you have the time and desire to cook extensively for one day, or whether you would rather spread it out over the week. In addition, with meal prepping you often eat (partly) the same food for several days. If you prefer some variation during the week, meal prepping is not necessarily for you. And of course you have to store all the food, which means your fridge is full of containers.
But meal prepping also has many advantages, in addition to the fact that you don't have to cook much or even no more during the week. It ensures that you eat healthy and prevents you from deviating from your own plan for eating. After all, the temptation to order a pizza is a lot better to resist if you already have a nice meal in the fridge. So if you're on a diet or want to stay within a certain budget, meal prepping can help you stick to it. And because you store the food per measured portion, the chance of food waste is also smaller.
Where to start?
If you want to get started with meal prepping, you can first go to the store. After all, if you make your food in one day, you have to keep it somewhere. And that means you'll need a lot of containers, jars and the like, depending on what exactly you're making. A good option is to use glass containers with lids for your dinner. They keep your food nice and fresh and are also easy to clean after use. For example, if you want to prepare solid fruit and cornflakes for your breakfast, you can also store them in glass jars.
Meal prep: you can do this!
Then, of course, you need recipes to actually make. That can be quite a challenge: the undersigned finds it difficult to think of what she will eat for one day, let alone for several days. That is why it is wise to make a plan in advance, where you have a different menu every week. This way you avoid eating exactly the same thing every week.
Fortunately, there are all kinds of websites that can help you for inspiration. For example, the Nutrition Center has a recipe site for specifically healthy dishes, where you can also search by ingredient. So if there is something you really like or something you have left over, you can search for that ingredient specifically. The Albert Heijn also has a number of recipes that are really meant for meal prepping. And websites like Chicks Love Food and WorkJuice also have tasty recipes that you can use.
Tips: start small and vary
Once you have the containers, made a plan and bought all the ingredients, you can get started with meal prepping. But even then it can all feel a bit overwhelming to cook for a whole week. That's why the tip to start small: prepare solid food for one day or start with just one recipe that you make a larger amount of. See how you like it and if that goes well, you can start preparing for several days, if you want.
In addition, it is important to ensure variety. A schedule for each week can help with this, but you can also vary per day. The Nutrition Center gives broccoli as an example: you can cook a whole pan of broccoli and eat it with something different every day. For example, one day you choose a dish with chicken, the next day you choose a vegetarian salad in which you use the broccoli.
The Nutrition Center also emphasizes that you must store the food in the right way. That means: let it cool outside the fridge for up to two hours, put it in sealed containers and keep it in the fridge for up to two days. If you want to keep food longer, put it in the freezer. And when you heat it up, make sure it's really steaming hot too.