Sunday Meal Prep
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Meesamoop
Posts: 31 Member
Hello everyone! It's Sunday which means it's meal prep day!
I've found that spending part of my Sunday to prep some food for the week really helps! Meal prepping can be as simple as planning your lunches and/or dinners for the week and making sure you have all the ingredients available or cooking up a few entrees and storing them in the fridge to eat during the week.
My meal prep varies from week to week, but at the minimum I make sure my fridge is stocked with vegetables and tofu/chicken. Sometimes I will cut up my veggies on Sunday so that I save myself that prep time during the week. I'll also pre-marinate some chicken breast so that is is full of flavor by Monday or Tuesday's dinner time.
One trick I've learned, with chicken breast, is to weigh and portion it out on Sunday then wrap the portions in plastic wrap (or a freezer bag in a marinade) and put the chicken in the freezer. Move the frozen chicken from the freezer to the fridge the night before you plan on cooking it. If the portion is wrapped in plastic wrap be sure to put it on a plate in the fridge or else you will get chicken juice on the shelf!
My favorite and easiest meal prep recipe is roasting a bunch of vegetables on Sunday. I've found that the roasted veggies can last 4-5 days in the fridge and it's a great way to try out that one vegetable you have yet to cook with before. Just chop up some vegetables, toss them with a tablespoon of olive oil and seasonings of choice, and roast them for 45 minutes at 400-425 degrees Fahrenheit. After 35 minutes check them to see if they're cooked enough for your preference.
Some of my favorite vegetables to roast are leeks, radishes, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, onions, and sweet potatoes. I've been known to add some chopped turkey bacon and Panko breadcrumbs for the last 15 minutes of roasting time. I always weigh all my veggies for the roast so I know how much nutrition I'm getting and you'd be surprised at how large and filling a serving of roasted veggies can be compared to the amount of calories!
I'm interested to hear if anyone else has some meal prep tips too
I've found that spending part of my Sunday to prep some food for the week really helps! Meal prepping can be as simple as planning your lunches and/or dinners for the week and making sure you have all the ingredients available or cooking up a few entrees and storing them in the fridge to eat during the week.
My meal prep varies from week to week, but at the minimum I make sure my fridge is stocked with vegetables and tofu/chicken. Sometimes I will cut up my veggies on Sunday so that I save myself that prep time during the week. I'll also pre-marinate some chicken breast so that is is full of flavor by Monday or Tuesday's dinner time.
One trick I've learned, with chicken breast, is to weigh and portion it out on Sunday then wrap the portions in plastic wrap (or a freezer bag in a marinade) and put the chicken in the freezer. Move the frozen chicken from the freezer to the fridge the night before you plan on cooking it. If the portion is wrapped in plastic wrap be sure to put it on a plate in the fridge or else you will get chicken juice on the shelf!
My favorite and easiest meal prep recipe is roasting a bunch of vegetables on Sunday. I've found that the roasted veggies can last 4-5 days in the fridge and it's a great way to try out that one vegetable you have yet to cook with before. Just chop up some vegetables, toss them with a tablespoon of olive oil and seasonings of choice, and roast them for 45 minutes at 400-425 degrees Fahrenheit. After 35 minutes check them to see if they're cooked enough for your preference.
Some of my favorite vegetables to roast are leeks, radishes, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, onions, and sweet potatoes. I've been known to add some chopped turkey bacon and Panko breadcrumbs for the last 15 minutes of roasting time. I always weigh all my veggies for the roast so I know how much nutrition I'm getting and you'd be surprised at how large and filling a serving of roasted veggies can be compared to the amount of calories!
I'm interested to hear if anyone else has some meal prep tips too
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Replies
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Thanks for posting this...I just realized another reason I'm not able to drop weight...when I roast veggies, I have never measured the olive oil!!! lol. I will begin today!2
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Hi Meesamoop
This is a great a great topic and you've dished up some solid tips and advice.
I'm learning that the saying "failing to plan is planning to fail" couldn't be more true when trying to stay on track and keep yourself in check with your diet. When hunger strikes it can leave you in a vulnerable state susceptible to quick hits and easy fixes if you haven't prepared in advance. I think the best defence against hunger is not to let yourself get hungry and planning and preparing meals in advance is the best way to achieve this.
My top tip would be to Freeze. So much can be popped in the freezer taken out the night before you need it ready after a min or 2 in the microwave.
I like to batch cook wholemeal pasta, brown rice and sweet potato mash I then bag it up in to portions and freeze. Perfect partner for a piece of protein and a few frozen vegetables.
The other thing I do is to eat the same meals for a few days in a row which makes logging on MFP easy. I have quote a few staples and I just rotate.
Anyone else with tips or ideas please share. .. knowledge is power after all and we all need as many weapons as we can get our hands on for the battle we all have ahead.
Bless x2 -
Hi!
Just finished my Sunday prep- I roast a large chicken, which lasts me for 5 lunches. I make some sort of carb/veg medley (today was roasted chick peas, with cous cous and cauliflower cous cous, plus diced veggies), and then add a bunch of spinach and it's a tasty, satisfying lunch
I also prep breakfasts- mostly high protein yoghurt, some fruit and a bit of muesili, all weighed out and ready to take to work
Currently I'm mostly eating ready meals for dinner (not great, I know) because I'm busy with work, but I'll try to start prepping dinners too over the next few weeks
Hope you've all had a lovely Sunday!2 -
redvellvett wrote: »Thanks for posting this...I just realized another reason I'm not able to drop weight...when I roast veggies, I have never measured the olive oil!!! lol. I will begin today!
Yeah, that olive oil can be sneaky! A little bit goes a long way. I watch a lot of cooking videos on YouTube and I'm always amused when they say "Add a tablespoon of olive oil" and then they proceed to pour three tablespoons worth
A tablespoon is enough for me to roast two baking sheets worth of veggies!
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@pmason79 I'm all about freezing! At my grocery store, in the meat department, they have a manager's special area where they are selling meat at up to a 50% discount because it's reached it's sell by date. I always go look at what they have on sale, and on more than one occasion I've bought multiple pounds of organic free range chicken breast at 50% off. Once I get home I portion it out and put the meat in the freezer. Another trick I've used to to look at the sell by dates on the fancy meats and then go back to the grocery store on that date... Yup! Fancy meats at 50% off
Also, searching for "crock pot freezer meals" online opens up a whole new world of meal prep!
@hollytrolly91 Roasting a chicken is an excellent meal prep idea! I also save the bones in a freezer bag with parts of veggies that I cut off (hello onion skins!). Once that gallon bag is full I make homemade chicken stock. Even if I don't have chicken bones I still save up all my veggie cuttings and make vegetable stock from them. My boyfriend has learned not to throw any food cuttings away, it all gets frozen for soup stock!2 -
my meal prep usuall consists of baking 4-6 large chicken breasts, boiling 2 cups of rice, heating or steaming 2 bags of frozen broccoli, and then hope for the best! Usually enough for a few days worth since I cant prep for more than 1 week (no room in fridge/freezer and no time for all that lol) some times i'll throw turkey burgers on the skillet or some ground beef. Going to try chicken stir fry tonight and also cook steaks on the skillet..should be fun!1
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Here's a Tuesday Sunday meal prep update:
On Sunday I found a recipe, on the Epicurious app, called Polenta and Vegetables with Red Pepper Sauce. I had purchased a bag of polenta a couple weeks prior and I wanted to make a dish with it ( I love polenta!).
I added all of the ingredients to my shopping list and went grocery shopping on Sunday. The Epicurious app also has this really awesome easy shopping list feature!
Tonight I created the dish (holy moley soooooo good!).
I weighed/measured my ingredients as I prepped. This is a must if you are trying to loose weight!!! Make it second nature/automatic to weigh your homemade food/snacks/alcohol. You start to intuitively learn portion sizes this way. After a few years of doing this you will be a food portion maestro I can now tell an approx 28 gram (1 ounce) portion of cheese and 4 ounce portion of wine by sight. Yass
By tomorrow's end I will create a new recipe for my polenta dish in MFP (4 servings of tasty) and learn how much nutrition each serving offers. I will then add it to my food diary.
Based on the amount of vegetables the dish called for I already know it will be a filling caloric win. Plus it gave me a chance to cook with eggplants, one of the vegetables I haven't really experimented with yet.0 -
Sounds good! Can you grill polenta ?0
