What is Meal Prepping?
Well I think that the definition by Susan Irby, the creator of The Bikini Chef, pretty much sums up the entire process. Meal prepping is “the act of washing, chopping, often pre-cooking foods and packaging them so that they are easy to access for snacks, meals, and on-the-go meals for work or other activities”.
But something else that is equally important to the process is meal planning. This involves activities such as selecting recipes and actually shopping for ingredients. You can learn more about the entire process of how to meal prep and about different meal prep ideas in my post Meal Prepping for Beginners: How to Meal Prep.
Meal Prepping and Meal Planning Benefits
Be Frugal. Save Money.
Trying to learn how to be frugal? Well, if you are, meal planning and prepping is for you! One of the best benefits of the process is that it allows you to save money on food. It can do this in a number of ways.
As mentioned above, meal planning involves choosing recipes and buying ingredients before you prepare them. This is beneficial because you will only buy the ingredients needed to create the meal(s). So, you won’t have a fridge and pantry filled with items that you don’t need or are not planning to use in the near future.
Another way that meal prepping helps you save is because it helps to decrease the amount of times that you eat out. Since your food is already made and nearby, you will likely eat it over going to a restaurant. You might also be motivated to eat your meal prep meals because of the work it took for you to make it.
One of the last ways that the process helps you save is through ingredients. When you meal prep, you likely will purchase ACTUAL ingredients, not pre-made food. This is beneficial because food on the perimeter of the grocery aisles tend to be much more affordable than other pre-packaged food. If you want to know more about saving money while shopping you can read my post 12 Ways To Save Money And Shop Smart.
Save Time
Another great benefit of meal prepping is that it helps you to save time. This happens because, once you find great meal planning recipes, you’ll be able to bulk cook all of them. Although this might seem like a giant hassle and might be difficult at first, you’ll eventually learn how to cook multiple dishes at the same time. This will drastically cut down on the time it takes for you to prepare your meals. You might also consider picking a day specifically for meal prepping. This ensures that all of your food for the week is prepared on the same day.
It also helps you to save time because when you’re hungry, or ready for a meal, all you have to do is just pop your food in the microwave or oven. Also, if you store your food in meal prep containers, it will be extremely easy to bring it along with you to work, school, and other places. Just make sure that you have a refrigerator nearby to store it. If you need some meal prep containers, you can check out some on Amazon here.
I enjoy meal prepping because of those exact reasons. I remember when I was in college, I would create a meal meant for multiple people and store it in the fridge or freezer all the time. Although I didn’t have a large variety of meals for that week, it was nice to know that around lunch or dinner time, I could just pop my meal prep container in the microwave and be ready to eat in less than 3 minutes.
Be Healthy
Do you want to know another reason why you should start meal prepping? It could be one of the healthiest decisions that you could ever make. Now, not all of the recipes that people choose to meal prep is technically healthy. But when you make food from scratch you can use fresh ingredients, avoid artificial preservatives, and choose to use healthier alternatives for ingredients in recipes. And, as mentioned earlier, this is so much cheaper.
It is also more likely to be convenient for you to eat what is already in your refrigerator rather than ordering out for food or eating at a restaurant. This is great because you will eat a complete meal and will probably be full because of it. So, you will be less likely to snack on a lot of foods with empty calories.
Stop Food Waste
One of the final benefits of meal planning and prepping is that it helps to decrease food waste. When you meal plan, you only get what you need to create a meal. And when you meal prep, you only create how much you want to eat for either a work or full week. So, all of the food items will be used.
And if you don’t want to finish what you meal prepped for the week, or if you prepared a little too much, you can freeze it. This is great because most food items can be frozen from between three to six months. If you want to learn more about how long to freeze your food you can check here.
Happy Meal Prepping!
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Hannah Roberts is the creator of Do. Live. Study. She loves to learn new things and hopes to help others as they go throughout their journey as an adult. You can connect with her below.