Sunday is the most important day of the week for me. It’s the day when I hit the reset button and prepare for the upcoming week. I make sure that I have a clean apartment, clean laundry set and ready for the week, and most importantly, I make sure that I have my meals prepared for the upcoming week.
Meal prepping has slowly become an essential aspect of my life. By meal prepping, I make sure that I’m set on food for the week. When I say food for the week I mean food for my lunch at work. For dinner, my girlfriend and I usually make something together that’s healthy. If you would like to know what recipes we make leave a comment down below.
Meal prepping can be intimidating for beginners because you may not know what to make, how much to make, and how to make it. In this guide, I’m going to show you my secrets when it comes to meal prepping and how minimalistic my process is.
The Basics to My Meal Prepping
Meal prepping I like to keep it minimalistic. Some people like to make multiple meals for the week including different proteins, carbs, and vegetables. That isn’t for me. For me, I choose the same protein, carbs, and vegetables for the week, but the thing I do differently is that I use different sauces. By choosing different sauces for the week I get a different taste but enjoy the macro-friendly meals at the same time.
Here is the breakdown of my meal prepping and why I chose these in particular.
Carbohydrate: Rice
I chose rice as my carbohydrate for the week because I have 40 lbs of it. It’s cost-effective and I don’t have to buy it again until 4-5 months. Rice to me is also more filling than other carbs. When rice is digested it often expands in your stomach giving you the feeling of fullness. So, 150 grams of rice isn’t too much in person but when you pair it with vegetables and protein it can be filling.
Vegetable: Broccoli
Broccoli is simple to make and very cheap in stores. You can spend $3 on two heads of broccoli and it can last you for the entire week. When I make broccoli I don’t do anything special to it. I cut up the heads of broccoli and I boil them until they’re fresh. More about this process later. [TALK ABOUT VITAMINS AND BENEFITS OF BROCCOLI]
Protein: Ground Turkey or Chicken BreastsÂ
Chicken breasts and ground turkey are very lean proteins. Both are simple to bulk cook, are very macro-friendly, and you can use any type of sauce on them. These two proteins paired with rice and vegetables make for a very filling meal.
The Process [H1]
Prepping the Chicken
The first task I do when I meal prep is to cut my chicken into thinner pieces. Chicken breasts sold in grocery stores tend to be sold in thick pieces. If you’ve ever tried to cook a thick piece of chicken on a hot pan you know what I mean when I say that it TAKES FOREVER.
That is when my dad taught me that cutting the chicken into thinner pieces makes it cook easier and faster. So when I prep my chicken I cut each breast in half. By doing so they’re thinner and they’ll take slightly less time to cook compared to it being thicker.
After Cutting the chicken I place all the breasts into a big bowl and I add the following:
Mrs. Dash Seasoning
Red Cayenne Pepper
Salt
Black Pepper
Garlic Powder
I usually don’t measure it I tend to eyeball it. If you prefer one taste over the other then you may want to add more of that ingredient.
Prepping Broccoli
Cutting broccoli is the easier part of prepping. Of course sanitary first so you want to wash the cutting board you were cutting your chicken on. Then after you clean the cutting board you want to lay the broccoli on the board and cut the stem off. Once you near the head of broccoli I usually start ripping parts of the head of the broccoli. The more you rip the more you can cut the stems off. This seems a little wasteful IMO but I’m trying to look into finding a way to reuse the broccoli stems.
Then once you have all your broccoli cut up place them all in a large bowl. Now we can move on to the cooking portion.
Cooking the food
Chicken
When it comes to bulk cooking chicken I found that a portable grille is a lifesaver. My girlfriend recently brought one down for us to use and it’s saved me so much time meal prepping. Here are ways that I cook my chicken.
Portable Grille:
Set the temperature to 350 degrees
Lay chicken on the grill. Make sure to cover all of the grille
Cook for 25 mins and flipping halfway
Oven Baking:
Preheat oven to 375
Spray the cooking sheet with nonstick spray
Space chicken evenly on the baking sheet
Bake for 40 minutes flipping halfway and draining the water
Pan Fry:
Set stove to High setting
Spray pan with nonstick cooking spray
Spread chicken evenly throughout the pan
Flip when you notice the chicken cooking turns white
To test if done cut a little inside to check if the inside is white or if you have a food thermometer to make sure that the internal temperature is 165
Broccoli:
While the chicken is cooking boil some water. You can add salt to the water while it’s boiling to add flavor. Once the water is boiling, dump the broccoli in. Stir broccoli occasionally and make sure all broccoli is submerged in the boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes then drain the broccoli in the sink with a colander. Sprinkle in some salt and pepper for extra taste.
Clean As You Go
Since working at Chipotle they’ve always taught me to clean as you go. I still follow this rule to this day. As the food is cooking, I like to use this time to wash dishes and clean up my area so I don’t have to do it later. This saves me time at the end and reduces my stress with my surroundings.
Portioning
When everything is set and done cooking, I like to lay out my meal prep containers. I have my food scale out and I begin to weigh everything out. I make sure I have 6oz of chicken in each container and I spread my broccoli out evenly throughout all of my meals. I don’t track my vegetables because they’re not dense in calories. I like making my rice first thing in the morning. At this point, I know that one cup of rice is roughly about 250g of rice so that’s what I go with in MyFitnessPal.
You’ve completed your meal prep for the week. Cap everything up place it all in the fridge and clean your remaining pots and pans. I hope my walkthrough of meal prepping helps you prepare for your upcoming meal prep. If you have any questions about this please don’t hesitate to reach out.