Are you struggling daily with your busy life in the UK and don’t get enough time to prepare healthy and delicious food for your family?
Keeps on craving varieties in food items, but has to eat monotonous food or unhealthy packaged foods to extinguish their hunger due to the shortage of time?
We understand that it is tough to manage your office and home at the same time, and at the end of the day, when weariness embraces you, it is very tiresome to go to the kitchen and spend hours there.
But every problem has a solution! Why sacrifice eating tasty and healthy homemade meals when you can have the option of meal prepping?
Yes, prepping your meals and storing them in appropriate containers can keep your food fresh for days, and you will also get the taste of healthy foods during your office break!
Wanna know about some healthy meal prep ideas? Well! Let’s go for them…
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Healthy Meal Prep Ideas – Their Benefits
- Planning and preparing your meal ingredients beforehand saves you time.
- You get to eat healthy foods and don’t have to rely on outdoor junk foods for your living.
- The healthy foods made in advance at home force you to control portions so that the food lasts for several days without getting exhausted. This indirectly controls your weight.
- Cooking a meal by pursuing healthy meal prep ideas reduces your stress, as you don’t have to manage cooking and official jobs on the same day. You can cook in advance on the holidays and store the food properly to enjoy the food throughout the week.
Healthy Meal Prep Ideas – Top 10 Ways To Do It
1. Cook in a More Quantity
Cooking every night for your meal is a tiresome job. So, why not do healthy meal prep for a few days? Cook the food in more quantity than you need for today.
Store them for 2 to 3 days in a proper container, and after the food is over, you can cook again. This way, you don’t have to cook every day, and you get some extra time for taking rest or completing your other pending work.
2. Find Simple Recipes
Going through draining days due to office pressure? Hate to spend too much time in the kitchen these days? Why not go for simple recipes?
Leave the complex ones. Many simple recipes, though they take less time to get prepared, don’t compromise on taste. Search for healthy meal prep ideas for such recipes.
Also, many options of nutritious foods are in the market nowadays. Some of them are instant noodles, salads, mac and cheese, etc. Purchase them and prepare them at home within minutes. Your hunger will get satisfied without going for anything unhealthy.
3. Allotting a Particular Time for Cooking
Looking for more healthy meal prep ideas? Keep time for cooking every day, no matter how small the interval.
It not only gives you some mind diversion from your office work but also an after-work refreshment as well. In the meantime, you will get some time to arrange the cooking ingredients for the next day.
4. Prepare Everything Beforehand
Have any idea about the most tedious part of the cooking process? It’s slicing the vegetables and arranging the cooking ingredients. What if you cut the vegetables in advance? Do it in your free time?
Storing them and other ingredients in your fridge for the entire weekend will benefit you very much. It will save a lot of time. Isn’t it one of the best healthy meal prep ideas?
Just take the ingredients out of the fridge and put them in the cooking vessels…that’s it!
5. Collect Stable Recipes
There are some staple recipes for every family that the family members love. Why not turn them into frequent healthy meals for your family?
After all, the ingredients of the staple recipes are readily available. It makes the meals ready within an hour or less.
6. Collect Groceries in Bulk
Purchasing grocery items daily from the shop before you cook also consumes a lot of time. It also makes the cooking more tiresome.
After shopping for groceries and chopping vegetables, your energy gets drained. So, very little energy is left to cook the meals.
Why not make this complex process simple by following the healthy meal prep ideas? Purchase groceries and vegetables for the entire week in advance and store them in the fridge. Will the remaining job turn out easily for you?
7. Shift Your Mindset
Don’t consider cooking a chore. Instead, consider it an art of making delicious foods. Once you start appreciating it instead of hating it, the cooking process will be easier and relaxing for you.
After a while, you will find that the cooking process acts like a mind booster for you after the entire day’s work.
8. Habitualize Yourself
When you start doing something, it feels like an added responsibility and becomes quite taxing for you. Take it slow. Do it gradually.
Prepare some meals in advance for the next few days and give yourself some time. Instead of making 4 or 5 meals a day, reduce it to one or two and gradually increase it. Soon you will find that cooking has become your habit, and it is no longer tiresome.
9. Make it Fun
Love to hear music? Make cooking more relaxing by playing music or a song in the background. You can also cook while enjoying your favourite TV series or movies.
It is considered one of the best healthy meal prep ideas ever. By doing it, cooking will feel more like a fun activity for you than a chore.
10. Bulk Cooking on Weekends
Are you too busy on weekdays? Use your free weekend time to cook meals for the entire week. Prepare 3 or 4 meals and store those meals in your refrigerator.
For the next few days, you can reheat those foods and eat them. Eat the meals alternately. Don’t eat the same meal daily to avoid feeling bored with your meal.
Store each day’s food in different containers so that they don’t get stale.
Healthy Meal Prep Ideas – Some Fast-Prepared Meals For You
1. Quinoa Vegetable Salad
Ingredients:
- Quinoa (several vegetables mixed, including bell peppers, aubergines, etc.).
- Feta cheese.
- Olive oil.
- Lemon Juice.
The Process:
- Roast the vegetables and mix them properly.
- Put crumbled feta within it.
- Spread olive oil over them.
- Add lemon juice to enhance the taste.
Storage: Store it in a rectangular airtight container made of glass. The container must have snap locks.
2. Chicken Caesar Wrap
Ingredients:
- Grilled chicken breast.
- Caesar dressing.
- Romaine lettuce.
- Parmesan cheese.
- Whole wheat tortillas.
The Process:
- Cut the chicken into pieces.
- Toss them with lettuce.
- Spread cheese on it.
- Dress it with the other ingredients.
- Wrap the entire food in a tortilla.
Storage: Store it in an airtight, round container made of glass. The container must comprise snap locks.
3. Mason Jar Greek Salad
Ingredients:
- Cherry tomatoes.
- Cucumber.
- Olives.
- Red onion.
- Feta cheese.
- Olive oil.
- Balsamic vinegar.
The Process:
- Dress the base ingredients of the salad at the bottom of a jar.
- Put the other ingredients in different layers.
- Dress the salad.
Storage: Store the salad in a glass container. The vessel must be vented to allow the air to pass through it.
4. Spicy Tuna with Avocado
Ingredients:
- Canned tuna.
- Avocado.
- Brown rice.
- Soy sauce.
- Sesame oil.
- Chili flakes.
The Process:
- Put the tuna in the pot.
- Pour some soy sauce into it and mix it well.
- Now spread some sesame oil over the dish.
- Dress it with chili flakes.
- Now spread the cooked dish over the rice.
- Dress it with avocado slices.
Storage: Store the dish in a glass container. However, the vessel must have at least two compartments. It is needed to separate the tuna from the rice.
5. Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients:
- Butternut squash.
- Vegetable stock.
- Onion.
- Garlic.
- Cream.
The Process:
- Roast squash.
- Put onion slices and garlic paste within it.
- Stir them well.
- Put the other ingredients in and keep stirring until they blend properly.
- Do this same until the dish seems smooth.
Storage: Store the dish in a round vessel made of glass. Use an airtight snap lock so that no leak happens.
6. Chickpea Spinach Curry
Ingredients:
- Chickpeas.
- Spinach.
- Coconut milk.
- Curry powder.
- Onion.
- Tomato paste.
The Process:
- Saute the onion in the pot.
- Pour in different spices according to your taste.
- Put tomato paste into it.
- Put the chickpeas and spinach into the pot.
- Pour coconut milk into it.
- Mix them well.
Storage: Store it in a rectangular container made of glass. The container must be ideal for reheating.
Conclusion
So, managing healthy and delicious homemade meals even on the busiest days of the week is no longer a big deal.
By following the above-mentioned 10 healthy meal prep ideas, you will become a great manager of both home and office in no time.
Cooking will no longer feel like an extra tiresome responsibility for you. Your life will change for the better. Happy Cooking!
