Meal Prep

I don't know about you but one of mine and Kals daily problems used to be what to have for tea. We would spend that long going back and forth every day that eventually it would get to late and we'd end up getting a takeaway. We tried making a weekly meal plan but we found that if we didn't fancy a meal on a certain day we just wouldn't cook it and once again we'd order a takeaway. Kal then came across the idea of meal prepping and after finding The Meal Prep King on TikTok we decided to give it ago. Well we are now 8 meal prep weeks later and I think it's safe to say we are quite enjoying it and after sharing some of our meals on Instagram I got a few requests for ideas. So, for the next 7 days I'm going to share 7 weeks worth of our meal prep, what worked and what didn't and hopefully give you all some ideas/inspiration.

So, first off I thought I'd explain a little why we do it and how we do it. As I mentioned it was a daily disagreement of what to have for tea and meal prepping completely takes that away. We make 7 different dishes and 4 portions of each dish a week - that leaves us with 28 meals. We split those straight down the middle which gives us both 14 meals for the week which is a dinner and a tea everyday. This does mean that we have 2 meals the same every week but with 7 different meals to choose from you literally pick whatever you fancy on that day and for example say one meal is lasagna, I might have one for tea on the Monday and then not have one again until Saturday dinner so it really works quite well. It also solves the problem of wanting a different meal to each other - I could have my lasagna for example and Kal could have Tuna Pasta and it literally makes no difference as it's all cooked and ready to go.

So as I said, we make a menu of 7 different meals we want for that week (we try to mix some 'dinner' and some 'tea' specific meals in the mix) - we make a shopping list of only items we need to make those meals and our breakfasts for the week (making exceptions for things like toiletries, essentials, etc - breakfast is usually granola and low fat yoghurt) and we usually go shopping for that stuff on a Friday. We've found it's been costing us about 30/40 a week (including essentials) which I think is quite reasonable considering if we bought a takeaway one meal would cost £10/£20 on its own. Then, on a Saturday we cook all 7 meals - portion them up into glass containers (we bought these from Ikea but I do know you can get actual meal prep containers if you wanted) and then at the end of the day when everything is cooked and cooled we pop 3 days worth of meals in the fridge for us both and everything else gets frozen. Then, for example, when we are on day 3 we will pick day 4's meals from the freezer, pop them in the fridge and do the same everyday onwards.

Whilst actually meal prepping we make sure to only cook the recommended serving sizes (so for example 75g of rice/pasta is a recommended portion) and we're finding that these are just right and it also means Kallum particularly isn't overindulging. We have been finding we cook for about 5ish hours on a Saturday depending what the meals are but then once all is cooked and all the pots are washed, that's it for the week. No precious time wasted cooking and cleaning the kitchen after work - simply grab your meal, heat it up and then wash the single container it came from. 

I must admit at the beginning I was so sceptical and it did take us a week or two to get used to A, spending all that time cooking and cleaning on a Saturday and B, finding meals that worked well. I must admit though, it is a trial and error as to what meals freeze and reheat well and I think that will just be an ongoing thing. 

I fully appreciate these posts won't be for everyone - but for anyone interested in meal prepping as I said I will be sharing 7 weeks worth of our meal prep for he next 7 days. Also, if you meal prep yourself I'd love to hear any tips/tricks you've learnt along the way and what your favourite meals are!

Disclaimer: This blog post is in no way sponsored and all opinions and photographs are my own.