I've had a lot of people ask me about my weekly meal prep process so I thought I'd write a nice gigantic blog post on how/what I do! Keep in mind, this is by no means THE way to plan and prep meals and there may be a better way for you to do it, but it's a well-oiled process that I've developed over the past couple of years and works really well for us. The reason behind doing it? It saves me SO much time, and keeps us eating healthy all week. If I have a fridge full of healthy, prepped, pre-washed, chopped and ready to go foods, we are far less likely to eat out on a whim. We don't have those conversations during the week of "what's for dinner" and then scrambling to figure out what we can cook with what we have. This makes my life so much easier, and I think it will help you too. So here it is....

Sunday is my day. It's the day that I get spend at home getting all of my prep done for the week. While I'm drinking my morning coffee, I grab my laptop and plan out our meals and make up my grocery list. I plan our weekly meals based around what we already have (which I keep track of in my pantry/freezer inventory...have I mentioned I have a little OCD?), what's on sale at the various grocery stores I have available to me, and what produce is in season. These are the meals I planned for us this week:

On the schedule I list the meal next to the day, then list all the ingredients with a note about where the recipe can be found (in which cookbook, the link to the online source, etc.). Yes this is a lot, but it works. I print off the sheet and put it on our refrigerator. If I'm at the gym or get home late and need Luke to start dinner, he can and doesn't wonder what we're having or what all he'll need, it's all spelled out. Again, it works for us!

In addition to dinners, I'll plan what to have available for lunches and snacks. Planning out lunch is probably the most important to me. If I have made up meals in the fridge that I can grab as I run out the door, I'll make good food choices and won't run down to the hospital cafeteria and eat crap. This week I'm grilling a bunch of chicken and roasting sweet potatoes, along with prepping a bunch of fresh veggies, and making a skinny chicken salad for something different. For snacks, I'm going to make our usual chocolate peanut butter protein balls and also some apple cinnamon bars. Breakfast is easy because we almost always eat the same thing (oatmeal, eggs, avocado and fruit) and the only prep required is chopping up strawberries.

After I have our meal schedule planned out, I make my grocery list and compare it to the sales that my local grocery stores are having so I know where to find the best deals. I'm lucky that I live in a metro area because I have so many stores in my area and I'm able to shop around. This weekend I went to Hy-Vee and Whole Foods. I almost always go to Hy-Vee because I like the quality of their produce. I would buy absolutely everything I could at Whole Foods but the budget doesn't allow that right now. But they do have good deals and certain things that I like to get there, so I make an exception. Here's my grocery list:


I put a dot in front of the produce that I want to be sure to buy organic. I follow the "Dirty Dozen" list to know which is best to buy organic and basically it boils down to anything that you eat with the skin or peel still on. There are a couple things that once I got to the grocery store I decided I didn't really need, so you won't see a couple things on the list below. Here's how I did...

Whole Foods
Tri-color Quinoa (16 oz) - $7.39
Organic cane sugar (32 oz) - $3.79
365 Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes - $1.99
365 Panko Breadcrumbs (8 oz) - $2.69
Organic green leaf lettuce - $1.99
Organic baby carrots - $1.67
Organic local strawberries - $5.99
Organic gala apples - $3.77
Organic red grapes - $8.66 ($2.17/lb.) - I hate breaking up the bunch so I just take what's in the bag, oops
Organic red potatoes (5 lbs) - $5.99
365 Frozen Bagged Chicken Tenders (2 lbs) - $8.99

Total: $52.92 before tax and bag refunds


Hy-Vee
Cottage cheese - $2.89
Sliced water chestnuts - $0.88
Slivered almonds - $1.89
Unsweetened applesauce - $1.79
Fage plain Greek yogurt - $4.69
Boneless skinless chicken breasts (4) - $15.96
Broccoli - $2.49
Bananas - $1.33
Avocados (4) - $4.00
Lemons (2) - $1.76
Red cabbage - $1.76
Red onion - $1.11
Yellow squash (2) - $1.75

Total: $42.30 before tax and bag refunds


I spent a little more than usual, but there are quite a few things that we'll use multiple times (chicken, quinoa, sugar, Greek yogurt, applesauce, vinegar) so I may not have to buy them next week.

The first thing I do when I get home is wash all the produce. I have a produce wash that I make up in a Mason jar and keep in the fridge. To make it mix together 2 cups water, 1/2 cup vinegar and juice of 1 lemon. I fill my sink with cold water and add about 1/2 cup of the produce wash to it and mix it around. The produce then soaks for about 5 minutes, usually longer because I lose track of time. After they soak, I cut up what needs to be cut up and pack it all away.


For our lunches, I grilled 3 of the 4 packages of chicken and roasted 4 large sweet potatoes. The potatoes are super simple, I cut them into bite-size pieces and toss them with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and spread them out into one layer on a baking sheet. I roast them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, tossing them halfway through. After it's all cooked, I separate them into containers for every day of the week. Our dinners this week didn't really require any prep ahead of time other than cutting up some veggies, so I didn't have anything else to do.

That wasn't too bad was it? In about an hour I had made lunches for both of us for the week, snacks, and gotten all of our produce washed and chopped. I think that hour of my life is a fair trade for eating well all week. I hope you give it a try and formulate whatever plan works best for you and your family! I'll post my plan as often as I can to help give you ideas. Happy planning!

**Tip: It's SOOOO much easier (for me) to start this whole process with a clean kitchen. I make sure the night before I do all of this that the dishwasher is loaded and ran, counters are clean, the stove top is scrubbed and everything is in it's place. When I wake up Sunday morning I just unload the dishwasher and everything is ready for me to get moving!