Current Meal Prep Routine & 2 Hour Sample Prep

My basic meal prep routine now is to do a protein source and a vegetable. Those are the main targets I try to hit. Sometimes I will add a another side. I usually use brown rice, potatoes or sweet potatoes as my carb choice. Or sometimes I will use a protein pasta or polenta bake. This basic formula helps me to quickly and easily decide what to make for the week. Polenta bakes, burrito bowls and cauliflower chicken fried rice are staples that I make over and over because they’re quick and I don’t get tired of them.

In order to better understand how I prioritize a meal prep in terms of the steps I take, here is a little sample of a simple 2 hour prep completed with 2 people. So let’s say I have burrito bowls and cauliflower fried rice on the menu for lunches and I want to also get together some snacks, a breakfast choice and roast some veggies for dinner. Here is what I would do to multitask and get everything going.

Step 1

I start by preheating the oven. While I’m waiting for that, I will usually start to wash and chop the veggies for roasting while my meal prep partner (MPP for future reference) starts cooking the ground beef for the burrito bowls. This process usually takes about 15–20 minutes.

Step 2

Once the veggies are in the oven and the ground beef is done, I start to prepare the burrito bowls (see pic below) while my MPP prepares the chicken for the cauliflower fried rice. Burrito bowls and fried cauliflower rice are done and plated in about 20 minutes. So far we are about 40 minutes in and already lunches are done.

Step 3

I usually check the vegetables at this point and maybe roast for another 10–15 minutes and while this is finishing up, I prepare some snacks. My snacks are usually a mixture of grab and go items like protein bars, tuna packets, or popcorn. Then sometimes there are things I actually have to do a little more with to prepare. So for example, I might make some tuna salad and add crackers to containers, wash some fruit to portion off or put things like veggies and hummus in individual portions. While I am doing this, MPP is removing the vegetables from the oven and then whipping up some eggs and chicken sausage for a few breakfasts. This part takes about another 30 minutes or so.

Step 4

So by the middle of the second hour I am usually finishing things up and beginning to clean the kitchen. This usually takes about 30 minutes depending on how much damage we’ve done.

So that’s a simplified look at how I prioritize and carry out a quicker and easier prep.

Tips & Tricks

Prep the ingredients vs making the whole meal

You can still save yourself a lot of time during the week simply by arming yourself with freshly washed and cut fruits and vegetables. If you don’t feel like spending a ton of time cooking on a Sunday but you’d like some quick options to throw together in a pinch, this is a good tactic. Grill some chicken, cut some potatoes, have some things ready and then just throw them together during the week.

Wait for your food to cool before storing

This helps keep the vegetables from getting soggy when they’re stored for a few days. I leave the lids off and let the meals cool down. Then I will cover and store them. I don’t store things in the freezer but you could totally do that too. For me, the food stays good to go in the fridge for the week without tasting old or weird (a common meal prep concern). I usually eat anything with roasted chicken or veggies the first couple days since that tastes the most fresh when I eat it sooner. I save the other meals for the days later in the week. It’s a matter of preference but that’s what works for me. I use Snapware glass containers for most of my meals (pics above) and I use Sistema salad kit container for my burrito bowls. I love the individual compartments to separate my wet and dry ingredients.

Experiment with slow cooker and one pot/sheet pan meals

Throwing something in the crockpot is a super simple way to get another meal in for prep without having to do much extra work. Toss it in and leave it and you have one meal cooking while you’re prepping some others. Same deal with sheet pan and one pan recipes. I just recently made a sheet pan breakfast recipe and it was so quick and easy! I definitely plan on adding them in as part of my usual routine.

Double the recipes you know you enjoy

When I know I love something, I will sometimes make 6 servings of it and have it three times a week instead of one or two. I usually do this with burrito bowls or larger casserole type dishes because I know I like the meal and I can cook it once and get more bang for my buck when it comes to time spent prepping.

Make one meal on saturday night

This tip is for those of you who are Sunday preppers like myself. I just started doing this recently and I’m a huge fan already. Most of my Saturdays are spent on the couch watching Netflix and a glass of wine in hand. I figured I can also get a little head start on Sunday prep at the same time. So I have started making one meal on Saturday nights. Something that I can throw in the oven that requires minimal effort. Then I will usually make sure to eat this meal on Monday and Tuesday since I made it a day earlier than normal. Bonus points if I make enough servings to have it for dinner on Sunday too.

Keep it simple

Meal prep DOES NOT have to be fancy. It only needs to be functional and work with your lifestyle. You can make things go by much quicker if you aren’t super picky (like me) and don’t mind eating the same meal every day. If you really wanted to, you could just prep only 2 different recipes and have the same thing for lunch and dinner every day of the week. My MPP would be totally fine with that but I prefer to spice things up just a bit. What I do is eat the exact same thing on Monday and Tuesday. Same breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes even snacks. Then I will eat the same thing on Wednesday and Thursday with Fridays being a little more flexible. This keeps me in a routine but also breaks me out of a monotonous schedule of eating the same thing every single day of the week. Right when I’m about to get bored with the food, it’s time to switch to the new stuff.

Plan your week in advance

I like to write things down so I have found that using a meal planner where I can jot down prep ideas as they come to me is helpful. Below is a filled out sample of one I have made that plans my meals for the week along my workouts. Feel free to download a copy for yourself if you think it will be helpful for you. One link is for the Weekly Fitness Planner which is meals plus workouts and the other is for Weekly Meal Planning only.

Download Weekly Fitness Planner Here

Download Weekly Meal Planner Here

Hopefully this is helpful for those of you that are interested in starting your own routine and are looking for a little guidance. Happy prepping!