Meal Prep Ideas: Quick, Easy, and Healthy Meal Planning

If you're looking to up your fitness game, the best place to start is in the kitchen. That's why you need healthy meal prep ideas!

Watching what you eat can be a sensitive subject, and it can be hard to adjust your diet in favor of healthy foods instead of guilty pleasures and comfort food.

But it's not about a “diet” — it's about eating good foods that are also delicious and good for you. And one of the easiest ways to do that is with some great healthy meal prep ideas.

To some, meal prepping sounds like a super structured way of eating that's only for bodybuilders. To others, it sounds like something that takes a lot of time and effort. In reality, it is one of the most time-saving and financially efficient ways to structure your diet around recipes you already love.

Meal prepping will ensure you've always got healthy meals ready to go, reduce the number of times you have to clean your kitchen, and remove mealtime headaches from your day-to-day life.

That's a win-win-win situation!

Read on for some nutritious and delicious meal prep ideas that will help you structure your cooking, store your meals strategically, give you more control over your weekly diet, and lead to weight loss.

Here's a guide to easy meal prep for you and your busy family!

The Benefits of Meal Prepping

Here are our five favorite things about meal prepping.

1. It Trains You To Make Healthier Decisions

At a minimum, you eat 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. That's 21 meals that you have to plan for and prepare. Unless, of course, you run out of time and grab unhealthy fast food on the go because you're short on time!

Meal prepping allows you to eliminate the decision-making process of what you should be eating. You would already have healthy meals prepped and ready to go — morning, noon, and night.

2. It Saves A Ton Of Time

While meal prepping requires you to carve out one or two evenings preparing meals in your kitchen a week, it saves you hours of time each day.

Just think about it — instead of having to rush home to spend an hour cooking and cleaning up every day, you can come home knowing that dinner is just a reheat away. And that there are no big dishes that need handwashing!

3. It Gives You Financial Insight

When you don't have time to plan meals, you get to deal with hungry kids in the backseat who need to eat NOW. And the nearest fast food joint is usually the sanest option.

With meal prepping, you will have more insight into how much you're budgeting week-to-week for food. You'll be able to make smart choices for your family, giving you more flexible cash for fun family activities.

4. It Helps With Portion Control

When you cook and store your meals in advance, it's easy to portion your veggies, carbs, and proteins out appropriately. You can designate different containers for parents and kids so that you know that everyone's getting the right amount of nutrients.

By consistently eating the portions you need for weight loss, you'll be able to meet your fitness goals more easily than if you didn't portion out your food choices.

5. It Inspires A Variety Of Recipes

We've all panicked at the grocery store and bought all the ingredients for the easiest meal we know how to make. But prepping in advance will allow you to make more exciting choices with your cuisine!

You'll be able to master new recipes that your family will love without the stress of coming up with them on the spot. Also, you'll be able to explore healthier recipe options.

Easy and Healthy Meal Prep Ideas

Ultimately, you could find a way to make just about any of your favorite recipes work in a meal prep manner. But as I'm sure you've heard before, “work smarter, not harder!”

We have a few tried-and-true meal prep recipes that are easy to prepare, familiar, and that heat up well.

Omelet and Banana: 351 calories

Start your morning out with this delicious omelet! Filled with the natural protein of eggs and spinach greens, you'll be full until lunchtime.

• A 3-egg omelet made with 1 cup of mushrooms plus spinach leaves mixed in: 241 calories
• 1 medium banana: 105 calories
• 1 cup of black coffee: 5 calories

Salmon and Salad: 338 calories

Once lunch rolls around, you'll be ready to eat this light but filling meal. No matter how you like to prepare your salmon, it will pair great with a bit of brown rice and salad.

• 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice: 124 calories
• 3 ounces of grilled or baked salmon: 155 calories
• 3 cups of leafy greens topped with 1 tablespoon of oil-based dressing: 51 calories

Chicken Cobb Salad: 338 calories

End your evening with a loaded Cobb salad! You can mix and match different vegetables to change this recipe.

• 3 cups of leafy greens topped with 1 tablespoon of oil-based dressing: 55 calories
• 2 ounces of grilled chicken strips: 84 calories
• 1 hard-boiled egg, sliced: 72 calories
• 1/4 cup of whole-grain croutons: 46 calories
• 1 small apple: 93 calories

You can mix and match foods for delicious, and never the same, meal-prepped cuisine in countless ways. We just wanted to show you that it's possible to meal prep every meal of the day.

The Best Meal Prep Process

Now that you've seen that meal prepping is delicious and efficient, we can dive into how you can structure it for yourself. Four basic steps will get you on your way!

• Choose your prep days. Many meal preppers like to take one day out of the week to plan, buy, and prep all of their food. Saturdays and Sundays tend to be good days for that. Others like to do two days to break up the week.
• Design your menu. Be intentional and choose healthy recipes that you know your family will enjoy. Think about produce that's in-season to ensure you're not paying too much for a certain item.
• Hit the grocery store. Now that you have your list, all you have to do is purchase! We like segmenting our lists into produce, meats, dairy, and dry ingredients so we can minimize our time shopping.
• Cook and store. All that's left is cooking your meals and storing them! We recommend cooking proteins, vegetables, and carbs in batches instead of going meal by meal. If you cook for a full 7 days, we recommend freezing the last 3 days of the week so that they stay fresh.

Storage and Containers To Use

You might be thinking that meal prep will take over too much real estate in your fridge. And while there certainly will be quite a few containers in your fridge or freezer, you'll find that the overall amount of food in your kitchen is really the same.

Meal prepping doesn't create MORE food for you to store; it just better organizes and prepares the food you've already bought. That being said, there is definitely a method to the madness.

Here are some of our favorite storage containers and how to utilize them in your kitchen.

• Glass storage containers. Knowing that heating food up in plastic containers isn't recommended, we opt for glass. Glass containers also have the benefit of not getting stained with whatever you choose to store.
• Freezer and storage bags. Taking food to work is usually easiest in storage containers. But many at-home dinners can find a perfect home in a freezer or regular ziplock bag! Just zip it and place it in your freezer or fridge, ready to reheat.
• Jars. Soups, salads, granola, and trail mix can all find a great home in jars. Freezable and sealed tight, they're another great storage option that can help maximize space and avoid plastic.

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on healthy meal prep ideas.