Food prep and quantity

The only prep my wife and I really do is she might make some quinoa or something on Sunday that lasts us for 2 or 3 lunches. I typically make extra of whatever I'm making for dinner so that we can take it for lunch the next day or possibly a third day depending. That's usually for the warmer months when I grill a lot, so we grill up a bunch of chicken, have some for dinner and save the rest for the next days lunch with some of the quinoa or something. This time of year we do a lot of stews and casseroles and such for dinner so we have plenty leftover for lunch the next day or two.

I have a "thing" about prepared food being more than about 72 hours old. I've had food poisoning from leftover food on more than a few occasions, so I definitely don't do the prep for the week thing. I guess my one exception would be that I eat boiled eggs for breakfast on the go most morning, so I "boil" them in my Instapot on Sunday for the week.

If I were to do meal prep I would only do it for a couple of days at a time. As it is, I like to cook and I like for at least my dinner to be freshly prepared.

i only do it for my work days. Im a nurse and work 3 12 hour shifts a week. I meal prep lunch and a dinner. I have a protein drink for breakfast. It depends on what you cook, and how it will last. If I work 5-6 days a week i prep for all those but make it something I can freeze and take out later in the week.

It really depends on what works for you and your schedule

I don't prep entire meals, but I do prep and freeze ingredients for a faster meal prep. I weigh and portion fresh meat and often cut and freeze it in marinade. I'll peel, chop, blanch and freeze potatoes. I grate summer squash and freeze it in amounts that correlate to winter baking recipes. I freeze homemade soups in 1-3 serving sizes. On any given day, I can put together a healthy delicious meal in well under 30 minutes. Since everything is pre-weighed and portioned, it is easy to mix and match ingredients to work with my calorie budget.

Today, I chopped fresh veg for stir-fry and pulled out some pre-weighed and portioned marinated pork from the freezer. Tomorrow, the meat will be thawed and marinaded and making dinner will happen in less than 15 minutes. Tonight I made overnight oats topped with frozen blueberries. In the morning, it will be ready to eat. I also keep grated carrots in the fridge for snacking. Grating releases the carrots' sugars, making them taste sweeter.

I prep breakfast and lunch for the week, and make dinners that will yield leftovers (easy when you're cooking for 1-2 people, less so if you have a family to feed).

My breakfasts make 2 weeks' worth of meals per batch; for most of the past year I've been making breakfast burritos, but recently started rotating in baked oatmeal, which has been a nice change of pace. It's also easy to make both in a single day, so then I have breakfast sorted for a month. I make my burrito filling mixed all together, then portion that out into the soft-taco-sized tortillas, wrap them in parchment paper and chuck 'em in the freezer. The current batch has eggs, potatoes, onions, jalapenos, chicken breakfast sausage, and pepper-jack cheese. Frozen burritos go in the microwave for a minute and a half. The baked oatmeal gets cut into 8 roughly equally-sized bars, which then get wrapped in foil and frozen. I toss one in the toaster oven to warm up while I make my coffee (~10-12 minutes), and then I have a little cup of yogurt dipping sauce (vanilla Greek yogurt, or plain Greek yogurt mixed with some maple syrup, maybe some cinnamon).

Lunches are on a six-week rotation; that's long enough that I don't get bored, without having to juggle a million recipes and spend a fortune on groceries. I do sometimes change it up, if a dish isn't working or if ingredients are hard to come by or whatever. Right now my rotation is this:
1. Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli
2. Cabbage rolls (lately I've been doing this more like a casserole/lasagna, layering cabbage leaves and filling, rather than making rolls because my cabbage leaves don't want to peel off the head neatly >:[ but it still tastes good)
3. Kielbasa and veggies with a grain (this one is kind of freeform - in the summer I did it like a pasta salad, with quartered turkey kielbasa, diced pepper/mushroom/onion, sliced black olives, and Italian vinaigrette over orzo; more recently it was roasted butternut squash, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and kielbasa over barley; I've also done roasted tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, and kielbasa over chickpea penne. I didn't care for the chickpea pasta, though I may have undercooked it.)
4. Chicken salad and crackers (or celery sticks, because I bought way too much f***ing celery that week by mistake - use your favorite chicken salad recipe)
5. DIY Chipotle salad/burrito bowls
6. Japanese curry (I use a box mix for the curry roux, Golden Curry is the brand, but it's not hard to make; the protein varies; sometimes over rice, sometimes not)

I don't do much meal prep. There are just two of us so we usually make four portions for dinner so we can have leftovers for lunch the next day. I used to make 10 breakfasts every Sunday night (which we ate at work) and froze most of them but that was more when we were eating potatoes and eggs for breakfast. Now my partner tends more towards smoothies or yogurt and fruit. Sometimes I'll make him oatmeal for the week. He doesn't mind eating it for five days but personally I prefer it fresh. I'm retired so I eat whatever I feel like.

I see people prepping for 5-6 days and that's too long. Like someone else here wrote I don't like to eat anything that is more than a couple of days old. From what I've read five days is a max for most leftovers but often that is too long especially if whatever you cooked had a shorter expiration date. I prefer to eat rice leftovers within 24 hours and I find it doesn't do well in the freezer. If I do a slow cook roast I freeze most of the leftover meat.

I try to meal plan but am not very good about sticking to it because it often ends up to be too much excess food so the plan has to be modified. I'm making a strong effort to reduce waste. I like to have a handful of meals in the freezer for those nights when we don't have any leftovers. That way my partner can still have something for his lunch the next day.

@MsCzar, by all means! I've also made DIY Lunchables (or "charcuterie boxes," if you want to feel ~classy~), with the basic cold cuts, slice cheese, and crackers, but that's not really substantial enough for Hubs' needs, and if I'm honest it leaves me wanting more often than not as well. Maybe if I aimed for something closer to Starbucks' protein box (hard boiled egg, slice cheese, little pita rounds or heartier crackers, and peanut butter), it would work better. I don't know.

I did my first food prep yesterday (Sunday) I prepped for the next 7 days. 3 meals and 2 snacks. I am keeping 2 days worth in the fridge and 5 days in the freezer. I think it will be a brilliant way to do this. I know exact calorie count for the whole week. Then next week I will probably change it up just a little for variety.

On a Sunday I will usually make a big pot of soup for lunches throught the week and cook some sort of cereal for my breakfasts such as buckwhet, wild rice or pearl barley. I like to roast a some meat and vegetables as well which can be eaten as a roast meal or turned into salads or other leftover meals. I also like to boil some eggs and make a curry/wet dish to heat up later in the week. Apart from the soup there's no real set plan but I will always do something to make it easier each night.

I pre-plan my menu for the week, and go buy exactly what I need to buy to make it happen.. no extras.

Then I divide veggies, and meats up into single serving bags.. 1 cup of veggies.. 6 oz. portions of beef, chicken, or fish. So I can grab a bag of 1 cup of broccoli, and 6 ozs. chicken, and put it in fridge to thaw, then throw it in a wok, with some butter or EVOO.. and cook it up in 10-15 minutes. some meals I throw in the crockpot, and let it do the work. I tend to do this with beef meals.

I have a menu, and I'll be shopping in a couple hours, and then when I get home, it all gets divided and put in freezer. Then, I'm good until next Saturday.

I also cook for a couple days at a time ( sometimes ) .. I will cook 2 days worth of beef stew meat, mushrooms & onions today, and 2 days worth of GB, tomatoes, & green chiles.. for dinners, and lunch. I could do this and freeze some meals, but I prefer just eating back to back.. or this Tue/Thur.. I will be eating chicken & broccoli.. the food is fine on Thursday night, if I cook it Tuesday night.. no more than 2 days though. Most often it is 2 days in a row. That way tomorrow, I will have lunch & dinner already cooked, and only need to cook breakfast, and I'm all set for the day.