Weekend Meal Prep

It's Friday evening...and at my house, that means we are all eating something different because we are cleaning out the fridge.  My routine is crazy-organized grocery shopping on Saturday (I go really early to avoid a crowd) and then I cook, chop, crock-pot and bake like a mad woman on Sunday so we are ready for the week ahead.

I'm a pretty good planner, but with teenagers in the house - you can never be 100% sure who is going to be home to eat what meal.  So, by Friday night, I have a little bit of this and a little bit of that...so, that's what we have for dinner.  I get it all out and reheat or stir fry or whatever and it goes up for grabs!

And then I make my grocery list (and clean a LOT of plastic containers!!!)

If you are new to meal-prepping and short on time or energy or even interest.  I want to share a very basic list to get you through your week.  I am making the list for an individual - just double or triple or quadruple it based on the number of people in your family.  This list assumes you will be preparing and eating 3 meals + one snack every day.

 Here's what I ALWAYS buy:

• Red and orange bell peppers
• Yellow sweet onion
• Garlic
• Sliced mushrooms
• 2 Tomatoes
• 3 limes
• 3 lemons
• Avocado (3 or 4 if you're doing anything spicy or Mexican or just love avocado!)
• Red grapes (check your sale flyers...these go on super-sale most weeks somewhere!)
• 2-3 pears
• 2-3 Honeycrisp apples (choose your favorite...that's mine!!)
• Cuties if they are in season...great in spinach salads, sparkling water or as a snack
• Baby carrots
• Celery
• 2 heads of cauliflower
• Salad mix or your favorite lettuces to chop up (baby spinach, romaine hearts, herb mix)
• Butter lettuce or iceberg if you may do lettuce wraps or lettuce "buns" for your burgers
• Parsnips
• 2-3 Russet potatoes (5 pounds will last you the entire month...maybe more)
• Spaghetti squash
• 18 cage-free or organic eggs
• Compliant bacon (nitrate and sugar free) (Sprout's, Whole Foods, Central Market)
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 pound 85/15 ground turkey
• 1 pound 80/20 or 90/10 ground beef
•  Almond butter
• Raw slivered almonds
• Plantain chips (In the bulk bins at Sprout's, in the chip section at Trader Joe's)
• Unsweetened almond or cashew milk (check your labels!)
• 1 bag of frozen green beans 
• 1 bag of frozen stir fry veggies
• 1 jar of sugar free marinara - Aldi has a tomato basil organic, sprout's has a sugar free tomato basil, Winco foods has one too...but I can't remember the specifics...read your labels!
• Coconut oil

Obviously, there are other things I may need to buy if I've run out, but these are the things that are virtually always in my weekly shopping cart.

Once I've put away the groceries - I start cooking.  I break it up into 2 days usually.  I do the snack bags right away - why put the stuff away and then get it back out to divide into baggies!?  I usually dice the onions, red peppers and garlic and put it in plastic containers.  Then I chop the sweet potatoes into fries and cubes and put them in gallon zipper bags.  If I'm making (and not buying) salad mix, I usually only chop half of what I buy since it can go bad quickly.  (Tip:  place a paper towel at the bottom of your container or zipper bag, put your lettuce mix in and top with another paper towel...this will keep your lettuce fresher longer.)

Here's what I ALWAYS make:

• 9X9 breakfast casserole with meat and veggies
• 3 poached chicken breasts 
• 1 pound ground turkey (Asian-style, taco-meat-style, breakfast-style)
• 1 pound ground beef or pork or combo meatballs OR patties (for burgers)
• 1 roasted spaghetti squash
• 1 pan of cauliflower rice
• 1 recipe of root vegetable mash OR 2 baked sweet potatoes for sweet potato mash
• 3 pounds of chopped sweet potatoes (I usually do half "fries" and half cubes)
• 1 diced onion
• 1 diced and 1 julienned red pepper
• 1 gallon bag of salad mix (or buy it pre-made)
• 20 snack-sized bags of carrots, celery sticks, grapes, cauliflower florets, cucumber slices, etc... pick your favorites, but these are great to have to take to work or to a game, movie, etc 
• 1 pint of homemade Paleo mayo (I use this in chicken or tuna salad, on burgers and mix it with hot sauce to put on fries and veggies...you can also use it make Whole30 dump ranch)

I usually cook in the same order - but you can do whatever feels right for you and the size of your kitchen.

I start with bacon...because why not?  I use it breakfast casseroles, salads and to top baked sweet potatoes...so I fry up the entire package.  I cut mine into lardons and cook over low heat so they don't burn and release all that wonderful bacon fat.  I use that fat to stir fry onions, peppers, garlic and tiny cubes of potatoes (and anything else that wants to be sauteed in bacon fat!!!) to use for my breakfast casserole and scrambles or hash later in the week.  I make a LOT...if I'm turning on the stove or oven - I'm cooking!

Aside from the bacon skillet of love, my stovetop is for cooking the ground turkey in whatever form I want it for the week - it's just a matter of seasoning.  I use it to poach my chicken breasts.  I boil my root veggies for the mash 

Then it's on to the over!  And when I roast one thing in the oven, I find a way to fill all the space and roast a LOT of things!  Breakfast casserole bakes at 350, so do my meatballs.  Sweet potatoes bake at 400°, so does cauliflower rice and spaghetti squash.  PLANNING makes your life easier, your utility bills lower and your meal prep shorter!

The food process and I have a love/hate relationship - I love how easy it makes things, but I hate cleaning it.  But I use it every week to make homemade mayo.  I also use it for my root veggie mash and cauliflower rice.  I make the cauli rice first, the mash second and the mayo last because making mayo requires the heavy duty dishwashing cycle to get it squeaky clean!

I don't pre-cook my burger patties or sweet potato fries.  I freeze the burgers in individual freezer bags unless I plan to have them within a day or so and I place the chopped sweet potatoes in gallon zipper bags in the fridge.

I make one head of cauliflower into cauliflower rice and put half in the freezer and half in the fridge.  I do the same with the root vegetable mash and meatballs.

I use the poached chicken breasts for chicken salad, cubed chicken for salads or snacks and may even shred some and mix it with salsa to make Mexi-rice or "burrito bowls"

I spend about 5 hours in the kitchen when I meal prep, but it saves me so much time throughout the week and ensures I will have delicious, healthy food at every meal without sacrificing or being tempted to go back to my old, unhealthy ways.