Weekend meal prep. I used to associate that with the pictures flooding of neat little tupperware boxes, each filled with the same exact meal, ready to grab for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner of the week. “Who has time for that?” I would ask myself as I scrolled past the blog posts of people spending hours in the kitchen every weekend. I used to with the idea, making a batch of granola or balls for the week, washing some lettuce for salads, maybe making a pan of mac and cheese. But I liked cooking dinner in the evenings so it was never something really got into.
Then I started cooking for BF who oddly enough didn’t consider a snack plate an appropriate meal every night. Then we got a dog who wanted to spend 3 hours outside every evening. Then the whole idea of prepping some easy things for the week started to make a little more sense.
Kaner likes to think he’s helpful in the kitchen.
Next thing I knew I had been doing it for over a month and gotten completely addicted. There was something awesome about coming home from work and enjoying an evening running around with the dog, knowing that all I had to do was put a pan in the oven to have a fresh made dinner on the table.
So for those of you doubters out there allow me to present my case. Having very recently been in your same position I get the reasons you are questioning this madness. I was right there with you. But I promise you once you start you will never want to go back to cooking any other way 😉�
Our weekly menu board.
I know I’m not the only one out there who likes lists. Meal prepping on the weekend forces you to make a grocery list and a menu for the week and stick to them. No more running to the store mid-week because you forgot to buy an ingredient. No more turning to take out because you don’t feel like cooking. All the hard stuff is already done so you can literally eat for a week without having to think about it.
You all know that I am trying to get serious about my (those student loans won’t pay off themselves). Staying on budget means I need to plan our food and then actually eat what we plan on eating. Since meal prepping on the weekends involves batch cooking you are able to take advantage of the better prices on bulk foods and not have to worry about re-purposing or storing them until you are actually ready to eat.
Just look at that well stocked fridge.
When you take one day to do all your prepwork and cooking for the week you use a lot of dishes. However, you also get to crank the tunes, fill the sink with water, and have a little kitchen dance party while you get them done. Your weeknight cooking is reduced to baking something off in a pan, throwing something on a grill, or reheating something in a pot. Literally the only dishes you have are whatever container dinner was cooked/heated in and the dishes you ate off of. That means after dinner cleanup takes all of 5 minutes so you have more time to relax or unwind however you see fit.
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