Beginner Food Prepper

Hi Lauren, best of luck finding something that works for you. I love to make salads on Sunday for lunch for the coming week. I buy my veggies fresh on Sunday and they stay fresh all week. I do use cherry tomatoes to help keep the moisture down. I add dressing when I am ready to eat. It takes 30 minutes or less to make 5 salads and I don't think about lunch again. Copy and paste from day to day.

I love to put chicken in the crock pot and cook ahead for Tex mex wraps. I use ole extreme fiber tortillas, wk corn and black beans, a little cheese and left over Taco Bell packets - finally a use for all of those floating around!!! Super yummy and about 135 calories the way i make them.

Stalk your friends diarys. I have found many tricks there

You might check out Fit Couple Cooks; the make some tasty meal prep foods that are easy. They have a channel on Youtube.

My husband and I typically have a protein shake for breakfast, and I have portioned out the chocolate protein powder and PB2 so all I have to do is dump everything in a blender bottle. I sometimes make a green smoothie that I can prep the night before. You can also make mini crustless quiches or just boiled eggs and keep them on hand.

For lunches I will grill a couple of plain chicken breasts, and portion about 3-4 oz. per day. I can add different seasonings or sauces each day so it's not the same thing and I don't get bored.
Also, I portion out raw or blanched vegetables so I can just eat them as is or microwave a bit. Same with fruits, I do those in containers of 2-3 oz. Basically I just grab and go in the mornings, makes things so much faster.

I do the Greek yogurt parfait thing too - fat helps me stay full so I do Fiber One cereal and chopped nuts. When I pack my lunch - I also "pack" breakfast. The night before work, I dump yogurt in a large covered soup mug and add 1/4 cup frozen raspberries (lemon yogurt & berries yum!). In the a.m. I throw in 1 zip-lock baggie & stir.

Egg McMuffins. I bake 9 eggs + 9 egg whites in a 9" square pan. I cool, cut into squares & freeze with a slice of Canadian Bacon. The night before I take a zip-lock baggie out of the freezer. In the a.m. I microwave (medium or low heat) the eggs, toast a high fiber English muffin, add a piece of 2% cheese and I'm out the door.

I do tons of chicken over the weekend. That way I have individual portions for salads and wraps. Iceberg lettuce is horrible for multiple day use. Select something more hearty - romaine is my go to.

Crock pot soup (or stew) is always nice for leftovers. You can even buy disposable freezer containers (Reynolds at Wal-Mart).

lccherry12 wrote: »

Would anyone mind helping or sharing with me recipes for weekly meal prepping? I'm not quiet sure how much to cook for myself or portion sizes, etc. would very much appreciate the help!
Thanks so much,
Lauren

My approach is pretty simple
- I made a double batch of steel cut oats (8 servings) and divide up into Tupperware stored in the fridge
- I made a pot of lentil curry soup (20 cup servings) and divide up into Tupperware, stored in freezer & fridge

My advice it to cook in batches and store in containers that make it easy to estimate/control your serving size. I always have some leftovers I can reheat along with frozen mixed veggies that I can steam up

I also have an unhealthy obsession with food containers. Lately I've been into Sistema divided containers. They hold everything I mentioned in my previous post in almost exactly the proportions I gave and they fit nicely in my lunchbox. I love containers so, so much!

I prep things more than full on meals right now.
Example of last week.

I made a massive bin of mixed green salad (spinach, lettuce, spring mix, carrot, radish, cucumbers, onions), cooked pinto beans, quinoa, and a few russet potatoes, made some zoodles, cooked beef taco meat and chicken breast and boiled eggs, cut fruit (berries and apple slices soaked to not brown for my toddler) and carrot and cuke sticks.

SO from these things we had, berries in our oats or with greek yogurt or toast and eggs for breakfasts. We had salads with chicken breast or eggs and quinoa, avocado toast with boiled egg and veggie sticks, taco salads, soup with chicken breast, carrots, pinto beans and zoodles for lunches. For dinners we had chicken on pizzas with salad, taco salad with pinto beans, taco stuffed potatoes, chicken with pasta sauce and zoodles, taco beef egg pie and salad, taco meat and pinto beans to make chili and then a few eat up the rest days. Snacks were fruit, smoothies, veggies and eggs.

Hardly any of these meals took longer than 20 minutes to throw together, we ate a lot of veggies that otherwise would have gone bad.

I like to make big batches of grains, meat like chicken, taco beef, crockpot taco chicken, beef pasta sauce, etc and use it for the mains though out the week. I will prep veggies and fruit once at the start and once in the middle of the week as we go through them fast.

Edit to say for portion sizes, I just go by how many calories I have that day/ week and how hungry I am etc. So if I had a longer workout, I might have 5oz of chicken vs 3oz or 2 cups of pasta vs 1.