Meal prepping was huge for me. FYI: single person household.
Every Sunday morning I prep:
- 6 smoothies, which are 6 pieces of fruit cut up and adding in spinach/kale/cauliflower from the freezer. Pop it all in 6 freezer bags. When you're ready to eat, empty a bag into the blender, add warm water and blend.
- 2 portions each of 3 recipes for dinner. The first 2 can go in the fridge, the others can go in the freezer. Depends on the space you have available and how long your meals will last if only refrigerated. I found great microwave plates with covers for 1,24 euro each. Each morning, take your dinner from the freezer to put in the fridge and then microwave it when you come home.
Both at home and at the office I keep 1 loaf of bread in the freezer, a pack of rice crackers in the pantry and some hummus/peanut butter/whatever in the fridge. I don't have to lug around my lunches every day, just some groceries once every other week.
My meals are prepped for Sunday through Friday. Saturdays I use up leftovers and/or eat down my pantry. Seeing as I do eat at friends or family often, there's always leftovers. Some weeks I only need to prep 4 meals because I have leftovers.
Investment:
- 2-3 hours of a Sunday morning, depending on how fast you are with a knife and a set of pans!
Rewards:
- I don't have to waste a single thought on food during the week.
- Everything is portioned out, contains everything I need and is healthy!
- I only run the dishwasher once or twice a week... max.
- It's unbelievable how much food we buy that we don't consume. Since meal prepping, my grocery spending has gone down loads. My budget is at 180 euro max for a month. On food, I only spend 100-120, the rest is toiletries and such.
- On that note, my eating out budget (previously set at 100 a month) has not gone to mindless cafeteria lunches and drinks (which add up!!) but allowed me to really enjoy and splurge a bit when I do go out. Less stress and more enjoyment all around.
- Spring cleaning is coming up and it'll be easy to empty the fridge and freezer, since I hardly buy excess.
- By doing groceries only once a week, you force yourself to eat down your pantry. This has led me to use up some of those never used items in my pantry. Another win for spring cleaning, I think!
- As a single person, it's sometimes difficult to justify taking the time to cook more complex new dishes. You don't want to buy some ingredients, because you know you won't use them up before they go bad. Meal prepping does allow you to plan ahead, for instance to think of more dishes with that ingredient and freezing those. For instance I've learned that fresh herbs and nuts freeze great!