Wellness Wednesday emails are designed to provide you with simple tools, information, and resources to encourage positive and healthy lifestyle choices. As a proud recipient of The Healthy Arizona Worksite Award, The Be Kind People Project is committed to the health and wellness of their employees, friends, and family.
Meal prep is defined as a time dedicated to cooking and preparing meals for the upcoming week for yourself or your family. Meal prep can be as easy as pre-chopping vegetables or as advanced as making a full gourmet meal!
A Beginner’s Guide
So, you want to get started with meal prep but don’t know where to begin? The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Meal Prep is a great resource to help you understand the basics of meal prep and how to get started. Let’s break down the process into 3 basic steps.
- Find Your Motivation: What is currently making your mealtimes stressful? Are you running late in the morning and not having enough time to make a healthy breakfast, or would you like to save money on lunch by bringing instead of buying? Pick your biggest concern and let it remind you why you’re starting your meal prep journey.
- Decide: Can you make one large batch of a meal to eat throughout the week? Or would you rather prep certain components of a meal, like pre-chopping veggies, cooking grains, or portioning your protein ahead of time? Choose an option that works best with your schedule.
- Organize: To wrap up the planning stages, create a list of what you want to make and the groceries you’ll need to make your dishes.
- Lastly, purchase your food items and prepare the meal!
Storage, Storage, Storage Galore!
After preparing all your beautiful food, it is important to have clean and easy-to-use containers to hold (and show off) your tasty creations.
- Mason Jars: These Pinterest-worthy containers are trendy and cost-effective, you can even repurpose old jars! These are great to use for salads, overnight oats, smoothies, yogurt, soups, and even burrito bowls. Click here for even more amazing mason jar meal prep ideas!
- Glass Containers: This is a great option for larger dishes or meals that need to be microwaved. Glass is also a great alternative to plastic! If you’re worried about breaking glass or limited space, bamboo or steel containers are good alternatives as well. Click here for more container options!
No matter what you decide to use, make sure that you know how to clean your container and if it’s microwave safe!
More Tips!
Meal prep can be an intimidating task, so here are some additional tips to help you feel ready. It’s all about making your life easier. Don’t compare your unique creations to the picture-perfect content you see on Facebook or Instagram. Here are things to consider when picking a recipe:
- Can most (or all) of the meal be made ahead of time?
- Does the recipe include prep work, like cutting or chopping produce?
- Will the final product keep well in the fridge or freezer? Does it reheat well? Can it be made in a large batch?
Try to meal prep around the same time(s) every week so that it becomes a part of your routine!
Meet the author- Amanda Torrez, School Wellness and Event Intern at BKPP!
Amanda is a Tucson Native, attending the University of Arizona graduating in May 2020 with a degree in Public Health. Amanda hopes to use her passions for nutrition, fitness, and a balanced lifestyle to inspire kids to be kind to their bodies. Amanda has an interest in Be Kind School Lessons, Move Across America, and even hopes to get her hands in school garden programs. Amanda’s favorite skill of the Be Kind Pledge is Be A Friend.
“Life is full of ups and downs and Everyone needs a friend to go through the good and bad. Being a friend not only helps others but it also helps me. They help me remember what really matters in life are the people we connect with.”
Questions? Comments? Want to contribute to the Wellness Wednesday Bulletin?
Send your ideas to Krysta Flores at krysta@bkpp.org.
