My weekly meal prep.

MHi there! So today I decided to share my weekly meal prep routine.  For some people meal prep means chopping up vegetables you’re going to use in meals for the week but for me I spend about five hours on a particular day cooking from scratch the meals we are going to eat all week. The idea of cook once and eat all week has gotten increasingly popular over the years. It’s something I do not do every week but when I do it really helps save a lot of time and money.

The first thing I do for my weekly prep routine is come up with a shopping list. I put the foods into categories ie carbs, vegetables and proteins. And because we are only a family of three, I don’t have to buy a bunch of stuff and I always try to keep it simple and healthy (for the most part). My meal prep is centered around lunch and supper only. Breakfast is usually pretty easy to put together I don’t see the need to prepare it in advance.

I stick to foods I know we will all eat and enjoy. My husband loves his sadza, vegetables and meat. Just in case you don’t know what sadza is, it’s the staple food in Zimbabwe and other parts of southern Africa. It’s like a very thick porridge made from maize meal/corn meal and usually served with a side of sautéed collard greens and beef or chicken stew. I do not prepare sadza in advance though.

I love my meat and vegetables and the little man is extremely picky but he’ll eat rice, potatoes and some vegetables, SOMETIMES! So I still have to cook certain foods just for him during the week, but that’s OK.

So here’s what I made for this week;

Carbs – Rice, Potato stew, Baked Sweet potatoes

Proteins – Roast chicken, Beef stew, Bean chilli

Vegetables – Sautéed collard greens, stewed cabbage, steamed mixed vegetables

Why do I meal prep?

Saves time The biggest thing for me is the spare time I get when I meal prep. More time to spend with family, catch up on some reading or go to the gym(NOT!)

Peace of mind Trying to figure out what everybody’s gonna have for lunch or supper each day is such a daunting task. It’s really not fun. So when I meal prep, I know exactly what we are having and it gives me so much peace of mind.

Saves money I mean who in their right mind wouldn’t want to save a little money?? When you meal prep, and you stick to it you’re not going to be tempted to buy takeout. You also save money by making sure you cook all the perishable food you bought the for the week and you’re less likely to throw away any unused wilting vegetables at the end of the week.

Stick to a healthy diet  Just as long as the meals you prepare are healthy, you’re less likely to sway from them.

However,

It can get a little boring because when you have set meals, it doesn’t give much room for creativity. One thing I usually do is ‘zhuzh’ up plain rice by making fried rice or my jollof inspired rice later in the week ,when it starts to get a little meh. Roast chicken can be turned into chicken tacos too.

So that’s my meal prep story. Do you meal prep? What are some of the things you like to make??