Meal Prepping with AlmostFabMe
It's Sunday beautiful people, do you know what that means?!? No, not Sunday Funday. Not Sunday Blues either...Okay maybe a little bit of those but it's MEAL PREP DAY! (And new blog post day). YAY!
To be honest I haven't always felt too excited about Sundays or meal prepping in general. I definitely still experience my fair share of Sunday Blues as I'm thinking of the whirlwind of a work week ahead, but Sundays are also a beautiful day of preparation.
If you've been with me and following my journey for a little while now you know that the grocery store has always given me anxiety. Before doing Whole30 a few years back, I used to wander the aisles aimlessly, thinking about what I can and cannot eat, what's "healthy" and "not healthy" and always ended up buying a bunch of random nonsense that didn't go together and certainly didn't produce meals. Which would only induce more food-related anxiety.
However, shoutout to Whole30 for getting my grocery store game right and bringing me into a new age of confident grocery shopping and meal prepping. Sure there's little tweaks here and there but this creature of habit has found her grocery store game and now shops the aisles like a pro!
I actually just finished my cooking for the week and realized I've never really shared my meal prepping routine. Like I said, it does vary from week to week slightly - for example, this week I made homemade granola, something I've never done but have been wanting to try - but for the most part there's a solid core group of meal prepping steps that happen on Sundays.
That being said, I wanted to share that go-to routine for my meal prepping Sundays with all of you in the hopes that it can show you how easy meal prepping can really be if you're still on the fence about it. If you're wondering how long this normally takes, I would say 2-3 hours. If you can prioritize it in the morning or early afternoon, then you still have the rest of the day to relax and get your mind ready for the week ahead.
Alright, enough chatter, let's get down to business. Let's meal prep y'all!
Hard Boiled Eggs. I usually hard boil about 6-8 eggs for the week. These are great for my lunchtime salads, evening bowls or even a morning or afternoon snack.
Cucumbers, Bell Peppers and Tri-Colored Carrots. I buy 2 bell peppers, 1-2 cucumbers (depending on size) and a bunch of tri-colored carrots at the store to use in my lunchtime salads or evening bowls. Cutting the cucumbers, bell peppers and carrots and putting them in a tupperware is always part of my meal prepping.
Quinoa. Cooking about 1-2 cups of quinoa for the week is something I've recently implemented in my meal prepping Sundays but so far it's been a great addition. It's nice to have a salad for lunch and be able to eat a greens and grains bowl for dinner.
Potatoes or Sweet Potatoes. I love the bundle of small tri-colored potatoes you can find at Ralph's or Trader Joes. I usually prep these on Sundays either to be used during the week with a plant based pasta dish for dinner, in my salads or greens and grains bowls.
Overnight oats. I'm still looking for the best overnight oats recipe (please share if you have a good one!), but I've recently been prepping 5 servings of overnight oats, each in their own mason jar, to enjoy in the mornings with some berries and almond butter on top.
There you have it, I'm officially meal prepped! Doing all my cooking on Sunday truly sets me up for success during the week and ensures I always have some kind of healthy food available in the fridge whether it be for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Do you meal prep?! What does your meal prepping look like? Let me know if you want me to dive deeper into my grocery store list and what I eat during the week.
(Originally Published March 1, 2020)