Weekly Food Prep
A LOT of you shared that you were interested in hearing more about healthy eating, wellness and keeping a balanced life (in midst of a chaos). I was excited because it’s something very close to my heart and easy to talk about it. In case you’re new here, you can read why I went gluten-free here. And later why I chose to cook grain-free at home.
For the past few months, I’ve been real hit or miss. Either I’m eating out 24/7 (Chipotle, french fries, salads to-go, lots of Indian food) or I’m eating pretty clean. I define “eating clean” as eating food that’s not processed and if it is…I can at least pronounce or identify its ingredients.
Starting next month, I’ll be sharing my meal prep recaps towards the end of the weeks in hopes that it’s helpful if any of you like to prep over the weekend. I figured I’d share the first one today to see what else you’d like to see/questions you have!
First, I plan the meals
Last week’s meals looked a little something like this:
Sunday dinner: Homemade grain-free pizza (I use this pre-made crust and bake in my ceramic skillet)
Monday dinner: BBQ pulled pork, leftover coleslaw and sweet potatoes
Tuesday dinner: Southwestern chicken wraps from Against All Grain
Wednesday dinner: Spaghetti squash and meat sauce with grain-free biscuits
Thursday dinner: On the road/traveling
*Breakfasts for me consist of smoothies and black coffee (gotta get that fiber!)
*Lunches for us consist of grain-free tortillas, pb and banana, shredded sweet potatoes and ground beef
Once the meals are planned, I create my lists and shop
My list this week: sweet potatoes, spinach, kale, avocados, lemons, fresh dill, fresh chives, fresh parsley, garlic, ground beef, bacon, pork tenderloin, pepperoni, parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, potato starch, tapioca starch, tomato puree, honey, tomato paste, peanut butter (Adam came with so anything else he wanted)
We hit up Aldi first. All of the above cost $67.45. The priciest item(s) being the grass fed ground beef ($5.99 for 16oz).
We rounded out the list at Kroger. I usually don’t get tapioca and potato starch every time I shop but was out. I do most of my baking with almond flour, coconut flour and tapioca + potato starches. I think everything cost around $70.
As you can see, a few items not on my list made it into the cart: Brussels sprouts, pizza sauce, La Croix, olive oil spray, almonds and cashews and goat cheese.
Finally, I try to prep as much as I can to make eating at home easier
- This week I skinned and shredded about 6-7 sweet potatoes. I store it in a large casserole container (pictured above) so I can add a handful to any lunches or dinners.
- I also whipped up a batch of Against All Grain‘s herb ranch dressing for salads/dipping/wraps.
- Like always, I made My Heart Beet’s Paleo naan. I can usually get about 10 tortillas out of her recipe. We use these to make tacos, crepes, chips + more. They are THE BEST.
- I also made homemade pizza while doing my prep.
All of this took 2 hours and Adam blasted Beyonce super loud. It was fun.
There ya go! What do you do to prepare for the week’s meals? Any recipes I should know about?
A Consideration
A weekly email where I share things that made me stop and consider. Never sponsored, no affiliate links.
Comments (24)
-
-
Yes you do!!! When I do that (sporadically grocery shop) and then I always pick up random stuff when I’m there that I don’t need haha. The only downside is the grocery is pretty busy on Sundays
-
-
Bri
Yes!!! I love these posts!
Do you pre-cook your sweet potatoes? I’ve been trying to figure this out for us–I have yet to land on a good sweet potato prep system.
Great music blasted loudly is for sure the key to a successful few hours of food prep.
-
-
Bri
I’ll try that next week. Do you squeeze the water out of the potatoes or anything?
-
-
-
-
Ooo! Love this post! I’ve started doing my meal planning on Sunday nights and we’re currently in experimentation mode with how we shop and prep for meals! For the past two weeks we purchased a box of meat from our local butcher here in Hilliard (which is going to last us about 20 meals — all locally sourced and amazingly yummy) and all of our produce was delivered through Green Bean Delivery (all organic and dropped off at my door, heck yes!) — for the rest I made one trip to Trader Joe’s and was in and out in about 15 minutes!
Financially, we’re still monitoring it, but for our family of four the weekly cost broke down to:
– Meat: $50
– Produce Delivery: $42
– Trader Joe’s: $48
TOTAL: $140In terms of food prep, I’m working on taking one night a week to make granola bars, smoothie kits, hard-boiled eggs, homemade bread, and prepping all my fruit/veggies for the week. Looking forward to more recipes and tips like this!
-
OMG that’s amazing Alle! I’ve been wanting to try both a local butcher share and Green Bean. Your meat cost ends up being waaaay better than mine so I’m intrigued. What kind of meat?.
-
Our butcher has pre-done meat boxes that I was tempted to try, but there was always one or two things that I don’t normally cook — so, I opted for their Mix and Match Meat Box option! They give you three lists (beef, pork, and chicken with pre-portioned bulk weights for each item) and then you can do 5 things from those lists for $50, 10 things for $100, 15 for $150, etc. So, for our first box, I got:
– 2 lbs. chuck roast
– 2 lbs. beef stir fry
– 3 lbs. customer choice sausage (they have over 40 versions of sausage — we picked their house breakfast sausage)
– 2.5 lbs. boneless loin chops
– 3 lbs. boneless chicken breastThis week, I picked up a box with:
– 3 lbs. boneless chicken breast
– 2 lbs. beef stir fry
– 3 lbs. kielbasa
– 2 lbs. top round roast
– 3 lbs. ground chuckAgain, each box is $50 and I’ve made a meal plan for 20 meals from it — feeding Nate, myself, and our boys!
It’s a bit of a drive from where you are, but if you want to take a peek: http://www.mosleysmeatmarket.com/Meat_Boxes.html
-
Honestly, doing the meat boxes and picking what is coming in my Green Bean delivery ahead of time forces me to be laser-focused with my meal planning and we’ve seen a big decrease in wasted food over the past couple of weeks — honestly, I can do produce a bit cheaper at Trader Joe’s, but it’s a trade-off I’m willing experiment with for awhile.
-
-
-
-
I love this post so much! My husband and I are trying to get our act together and eat more (healthy) meals at home so this is just what I needed!
-
-
Meal planning is serious business! The part I love most is knowing exactly what’s in the fridge and resting assured less food goes to waste (the amount of times I used to mindlessly buy produce and leave it forgotten and uneaten is shameful). The part I don’t like though is how long it takes to plan out a week’s meals — it takes me several stress-filled hours to figure out healthy things we want to eat, how it fits into our schedule and our budget. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me?
Crockpot meals are my secret weapon though. I make a clean white chicken chili and it feeds us for several meals during the week. And I set aside an extra breast for shredded chicken to use in wraps for lunch. :)
-
I am SO ashamed of how much produce I’ve wasted in the past. But yes, it’s hard to figure out what to eat 4-5 days in advance. Especially when you have those stressful days and just “don’t feel like eating ____” Crockpot is KEY. I used mine last night. It makes it easier for me to eat meat too. I hate meat that’s hard to chew haha.
-
-
-
-
I don’t know how I functioned before meal planning! Alex and I do it every single weekend. We’re not meat eaters, so we manage to save $$ because of that. Our weekly funds are mostly for produce and other proteins; we buy our grains in bulk and know that we’ll use them throughout the month. We use an app called Paprika and it’s really, really helpful. You can upload any and all recipes, assign them to a day/mealtime, then have the app break down the ingredients for the week into a grocery list. I totally recommend it! :)
-
I could definitely go for less meat purchases ha! I don’t love meat but can tolerate some of it (mostly crockpot versions). Totally checking out that app. it sounds awesome!!
-
-
Food prepping always sounds like a great idea whenever I see someone talking about it. I just can never get the energy to the prep after I go grocery shopping.
-
I used to be like that too (and still can be…definitely not perfect) but it helps when Adam comes with me or I can multitask while cooking.
-
-
Corinna
I live for food prepping and love to see others way of doing it! Working full time, being a student and trying to make my life as simple and heathy as possible, I like to whip up a soup every Sunday. This usually last us Mon-Wed simply adding a salad to the side or some baked sweet potatoes to try and keep it mixed up. My go to favorites are veggie soup and a kale and white bean stew to name a few.
-
I need to get better at making soups. I made a sweet potato/pork soup awhile ago and it lasted me almost all week! Thanks for the brilliant reminder!
-
-
Kelly Brito
Girl, I need to adopt that method: make weekly menu, make a grocery list, cook.
I do grocery shopping randomly, then have to work with whatever I have at home. Obviously, I end up having to go out to buy whatever else is needed to cook dinner. My crazy counterproductive way is driving me nuts.