It’s without a doubt that the world is moving fast, and so are you. Most times, you’re guilty of skipping breakfast or eating chips and wine for dinner due to inevitable exhaustion. Thus, maintaining a healthy diet can be a challenge. The rat race is infinite, but your diet shouldn’t be on the verge of collapse. Meal prep is a quick and easy method for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Busy individuals can always beat the clock while eating healthy by simply preparing meals in advance. It is much better than spending 45 minutes cooking every day. Once you’ve gotten the hang of meal prepping, you’ll be able to fill up your freezer with freezer storage containers filled with tasty meals to last you the entire week.
Unfortunately, meal prep can get boring and overwhelming. Having chicken and green peas or broccoli becomes quite dull and can leave you yearning for a fabulous meal. A fact about meal prep is that when you hit zero level, you become less enthusiastic before you finally opt out. Don’t stay in that rut for long! Who says you can’t get creative and enjoy easy, taste-bud-tantalizing meals while keeping fit? Yeah, absolutely no one. We’re sharing fun, easy and healthy ways to sizzle meal prep with your favorite dishes. Sit back and enjoy!
1. Invest in the Right Meal Prep Containers
Sure, creativity starts with the mind. However, our dictionary, it starts with finding the best airtight food storage containers for your meals. After all, preparing your meals in advance only works if you have a safe way to store them until you’re ready to chow down. The right containers are the most important tools in meal prepping. They can make or break your meal plans. Arriving at your home to find a leaky storage container is rather depressing and annoying. Prepping doesn’t save you time if you have to clean up messes from low-quality containers.
At the end of a long day, you’re tired from work, and the last thing you need is your meal stressing you out. Always keep in mind what meal you’re trying to prepare in certain storage containers. You also need to be careful to ensure that you have containers that are large enough for your prepped meals. If not, you may not be able to seal them properly, which will likely result in spills and spoiled food. Before you begin your meal-prepping journey, shop for high-quality reusable food storage containers, including ones that are safe for use in the freezer. Trust us; buying a set of durable, reusable containers will save you money, time, and frustration in the long run!
2. Switch Up Proteins
Meat and fish are delicious, and you can easily incorporate them into any dish. We can agree that these two proteins are a fave and the star of any dish. For vegetarians, tofu is mostly a fave protein alternative. Sure, these options are nice, but they can get boring over time. Try switching up your proteins with other forms like shrimp, mollusks, prawns, cottage cheese, yogurt, and beans. The options are virtually endless. Vegetarians can also substitute the frequent tofu with other protein choices like tempeh, seitan, and quinoa with nuts, seeds, and mushrooms. And to keep things simple, nearly all proteins can easily be packed in food-grade reusable silicone bags, which you can heat up in your microwave.
3. Add Some Color
Beige is lovely, but it gets boring sometimes when it’s your food’s only color. Why limit yourself when you can go all out? In addition to making your prepped meals more visually appealing, adding colors can enhance nutritional value, too. There are a number of ways in which you can add some color to your meals. Colorful veggies are an excellent place to start. Fresh carrots, tomatoes, and squash are just a few of the many healthy ways to add color to your diet. Colorful fruits are good too. Just be careful to avoid adding too much sugar to your diet.
4. Be Versatile with Your Ingredients
When shopping for meal prep, we tend to buy different ingredients to experiment with or try out. Unfortunately, this often leads to waste when you only need an ingredient for one meal or discover you aren’t fond of its flavor. To avoid these all-too-common problems, reduce the excess ingredient haul, and try to be creative with basic ingredients. When meal prepping, you must be quite analytical and weigh your options.
It may surprise you to know that household staples are the most versatile ingredients you could ever need. Whether you’re on your way to work or you just want warm and nice oatmeal for the night, you can always switch it up. Basic staples don’t have to be boring! Rice, for instance, is the most dynamic ingredient in meal prep. It takes a few ingredients to bring rice to life in different colors. You can make risotto, fried rice, fajitas, or Jamaican rice, and you can even go for simple plain rice with different add-ons. Sweet potato is another staple ingredient. You can have it fried, boiled, steamed, grilled, or mashed. Top with your favorite veggies or proteins.
5. Make Meal Prep Your Playground
Think of meal prep as a playground. There are no rules when it comes to meal prep, and if push comes to shove, you make the rules. Sure, there are millions of recipes and meal prep guides out there, but, at the end of the day, experimenting and finding the flavors and strategies that work best for you are crucial.
Final Thoughts
Living a healthy lifestyle and enjoying tasty meals every night of the week might not be difficult as it seems. Meal prepping allows you to leverage healthy meal options while being creative. However, every meal-prepping strategy relies on buying effective storage containers that will keep your food fresh until you are ready to consume it. And if you want to stick to your new routine, be sure to experiment with different colors and ingredients to make your pre-made meals more interesting.