Meal Prepping Tips and Recipes

Today I’m putting together my tips and recipe inspiration for the kind of meal prepping we’ve been doing during this winter. Most weeks our meal prepping is pretty simple, so I thought I’d share our basic weekly breakdown.

But just to start off, my first tip would be to work towards getting glass containers for your meal prepping. They’re very easy to clean, and unlike plastic containers they don’t hold on to strong flavors/smells. Glass containers have also made refrigerator storage much easier because all the containers work together well, and stack easily.

I’ve found a 3-part approach to meal prepping to be the best for us so far:

1. A breakfast option really helps us stay on track because we have super early mornings. I’ve been having a moment lately with egg muffins like my Make Ahead Sausage Egg Muffins. You can use this recipe as a base for whatever combinations you like, and have on hand. I always use 8 eggs for a regular sized muffin pan, and just add what I have in the fridge. The egg muffins pictured above are a spinach feta combo, with a pinch of Italian seasoning added in.
2. Since it’s winter, and quite cold out, I’ve been making soups often. One of my best tips is to make massive batches of soup, and freeze what you won’t need for future weeks. That way, 2-3 weeks later you have your soup for meal prep already done. (To thaw the soup, take it straight from the freezer to the refrigerator, and let it thaw overnight. It will still be frosty the next day, but soft enough to scoop out, and heat up.) The soup pictured here was a combination of spiralized butternut squash, sautéed onions, chicken stock, leftover spaghetti sauce, and chopped spinach. I spiralized 2 butternut squashes, and then cubed up the bulb shaped end to make roasted veggies with.
3. With those roasted veggies I just mentioned, I also made spinach salads. In 4 glass containers, I placed a bed of spinach, about 2-3 cups per salad. Then once the roasted veggies were cooled, I piled them on top with some frozen cubed grilled chicken I had meal prepped a previous week. (To meal prep grilled chicken, simply grill as much as you want, cut it into small bite sized pieces, then freeze it for up to 1 month.) For the dressing, I used the Herbs d Provence Balsamic from a this spinach salad recipe. I like to use about 3-4 tablespoons of dressing per salad, and the 1/4 cup mini mason jars work perfectly for this. Finally I topped my salads with pomegranate arils because I have loads of them right now! But when I don’t have any on hand, I like to sub in finely chopped apple on the day I’m eating the salad.

So that’s it, my 3-part approach to meal prepping, eggs for breakfast, and an option for soup or a salad for lunch! Most weeks we cook dinner, or have leftovers from recipe testing, so I don’t often prep anything for dinners.

Another tip I always try to use for meal prepping is to keep it simple with similar ingredients. You’ll notice the tops of the butternut squash made the noodles for the soup. And the bottoms were roasted for the spinach salads. I bought one large box of spinach, and then used it in the eggs, soup, and the salads. The leftover spinach went into my green smoothies like this Pina Colada Green Smoothie.

I hope this meal prepping post inspires some ideas to use in your kitchen, and I’d love to know if you’d like to see more meal prepping in the future. I also thought I’d mention that most Mondays, I do meal prepping inspiration over on Insta Stories. Then I write down everything I did, and keep it in the highlights section so you can access the meal prepping inspiration whenever, since the stories disappear after 24 hours.