Food prep for the week… Check! Some people are more hardcore and actually make complete meals ahead of time. I’m not there yet. I just like to make sure I have plenty of options to grab quickly – options for both snacking during the day and prepared foods that can quickly be turned into a dinner.
I have to give my friend the credit for this post — her food prep picture (seen above) popped up in my newsfeed and her comment perfectly describes why you should prep: “Even though I’m a SAHM of one kid, we’re pretty active and so I like to be prepared! Even if you just clean and rinse your produce or chop up a veggie, every little step that saves you time over the week helps you to make better choices instead of grabbing that quick, convenient bag of chips!”
So to help us all out, we made a list of 11 simple food prep ideas for both dinners and snacks!
11 Simple Food Prep Ideas
Dinner Prep:
1. Chicken Stock — make a big batch next time you cook a chicken and then freeze 2 cups of pre-measerued stock into a ziplock bag. Label it with a Sharpie and pop it in the freezer.
2. Shredded Chicken — cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, shred it up and freeze 1 cup of pre-measured meat into a labeled ziplock.
3. Cook Ground Beef — this is one of my favorites! It can be turned into SO MANY THINGS! I usually make something like spaghetti the first night of the week – I cook extra meat then, and store it in the fridge or freezer for a meal another day.
4. Pre-Made Salad — Washed and ready to go.
5. Salad Variations — Broccoli salad, or my personal favorite, combining cucumber, tomato & feta — I just add Balsamic Vinegar on top whenever I’m ready to eat it.
Snack Prep:
6. Carrot Sticks — We like to buy whole organic carrots and then we simply wash and chop them into nice-sized sticks.
7. Pre-Wash your Fruit and Berries — so they are ready to go and easy to grab.
8. Homemade Popsicle Sticks — we make our with 100% juice and use these convenient, reusable popsicle molds.
9. Hard Boiled Eggs — These are the perfect snack to fill up hungry kids and a great lunch when made into egg salad. We steam our hard boiled eggs to make them easier to peel. Check out this post for instructions!
10. Cubed cheese — We buy the big blocks of cheese and once a week (when I’m making something with cheese anyway), I cube up the rest of the block for a quick, easy snack.
11. Single Portion Baggies of Mixed Nuts — I love making these in the small snack sized ziplock.
Do you have any ideas to add? We’ve love to hear about it in the comments!
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