How to meal prep for the week

Meal prepping quickly became a trend that gained traction with the rise of visual social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. With carefully curated images of colourful vegetables, aesthetically crispy potatoes and fluffy rice, all lined up nearly with military precision in glassware tubs, it’s easy to think of meal prep as a vanity exercise to simply attract views and followers.

But meal prep makes physical, economical sense and should be a part of everyone’s weekly routine. Saving you time, energy, and reducing the mental load as well as waste (!), meal prep can be the answer to ensuring you and your family have healthy go-to meals ahead of the week.

In this post, we’ll talk about the best ways to meal prep for the week ahead.

We recommend carving out just 1-2 hours on the weekend (or before your week begins), to cook up your meal prep. This initial investment of time will save you time later in the week as well as mental energy.

This also frees up space in your calendar for other fulfilling activities such as hobbies, time spent with friends and family, or just relaxation and regeneration after a day at work.

A basic way to start meal prepping is to begin with protein. Then build your meal from there.
We recommend choosing a carbohydrate such as potatoes, pasta or rice, before moving onto your fats and vegetables. These may include hummus, cheese, or avocado.

A well balanced meal contains protein, fats, vitamins and some carbohydrates.

But meal prep isn’t limited to dinner time. People often forget to prepare meals for breakfasts and lunches too. Overnight oats, homemade granola and pasta salads and wraps are healthy options that you can store in your fridge too, ready to go for a busy morning. You can find more meal prepping tips and tricks here.

Pasta salads are a fantastic option as you can use hob energy just once. Cook up a batch of pasta, then add additions of your choice. Red bell peppers, red onions, tuna fish, sweetcorn or mayonnaise are all great options and require no additional cooking.
Once your pasta is cooked and cooled, simply mix in your salad options and box up. Setting aside one day, morning, or afternoon per week to do this is incredibly energy efficient.

Traybakes are an excellent choice too since you can cook them all in one go in the oven instead of having the oven on multiple times throughout the week for smaller portions. Some great options include: pasta bake, shepherd’s pie, lasagna, parmigiana, or even sugar free flapjacks for a healthy grab & go snack or breakfast!

Big Box freezers, or our fridge freezers with XXL capacity make for great ways to organise your food. You could portion your meal prep out into individual tubs of each component like salad, rice, meat or even use a bento box to store a whole meal cooked together in one go. You might also prefer to store individual ingredients separately allowing you to mix and match and build a meal of your choice later in the week. It’s really down to personal preference but having storage capacity is essential to successful meal prep.

Either! Depending on how many meals you’ve prepped, you may wish to store some in the fridge and some in the freezer. Those in the freezer will last you 3-6 months. Bosch fridges and freezers have flexible interiors with clear shelving and spacious boxes, so you can comfortably store your prepped food and always have a clear view of what you have to look forward to for the week.

Depending on the ingredients, most prepped food will last 3-5 days in the fridge. Some up to 7 days. Pasta salads for example, can last up to 7 days. If you are reheating your food, make sure it is piping hot through before serving. With VitaFresh, your fresh food portions such as fruit and salad will last that little bit longer thanks to specialized climate zones.

Whether you’re a meal prep pro or you tend to cook as you go, batch cooking and prepping is a great way to reduce stress, waste and save time and money. But having the right appliances and storage capacity to support the exercise will help you get even better results. You can view the full range of Bosch fridge freezers here.