This week, I randomly ended up with a few free hours on Saturday afternoon and decided to do some meal prep!
It’s been a while since I did a really intentional meal prep, and I enjoyed easing back into the habit in an impromptu kind of way.
My groceries were pretty well stocked, but the fridge was a bit of a disaster when I started:
Judge me if you must, but yes, my fridge does have labeled shelves and drawers.
I find it is a simple way to give most items a general location to “live” and helps make it simpler to find condiments and assess our leftover situation.
Plus, A. gets his own designated “ready-to-eat” shelf so he can grab and go when he needs a lunch or dinner to take to work.
Still, our fridge explodes into chaos just like everyone else’s.
Since I needed to remove a multitude of ingredients in order to meal prep anyway, I decided to empty most of the shelves and get things wiped down and reorganized while I cooked.
Before I dove in, though, I started a pot of steel cut oats on the stovetop, dumped a bunch of dried beans in the pressure cooker, and set some brown rice to cook in the rice cooker.
As most people will tell you, one key to successful meal prep is to use all the small appliances and cooking space that you have!
I was glad I ended up emptying the fridge this week. The shelves were pretty gross!
I try to wipe them down whenever the fridge is fairly empty/right before I do a grocery restock, but some weeks it gets missed and the layer of “ick” sets in.
What are all those mystery spills in the fridge anyway?
I started simply by divvying up spring mix and topping it with the few chopped raw vegetables I had hanging around in the fridge (bell pepper and cucumber). I ended up with extra cukes, so those went into a smaller container for snacking.
I also divided up the remaining breakfast casserole since the large 9×13″ pan was taking up a ton of room in the fridge and individually portioned containers would be simpler to take to work during the coming week.
By the time I finished portioning up these containers, the steel cut oats were also finished cooking.
I used my new wide funnel to scoop these into mason jars, added some extra oat milk and different seasonings and add-ins to create two different flavors: chocolate almond (cocoa powder, chia seed, cacao nibs, almond extract and almond butter) and “chunky monkey” (cocoa powder, cacao nibs, peanut butter, vanilla extract, coconut flakes). When ready to eat, I’d add in thawed mixed berries from the freezer and/or freshly diced banana or apple.
Once I had the oats jarred, I cleaned out the large pot I had cooked them in and refilled it with water to boil pasta.
This was turned into two different things: two small containers of penne with spinach and pesto for quick-and-easy meals for A., and a 9×13″ pan of baked penne (which would become the kids’ and my mom’s dinner on Wednesday night).
(I used the same pan that the breakfast casserole was in and just washed and dried it before I dumped in the cooked pasta and sauce that had been leftover in the refrigerator).
I highly recommend using the same pots and pans during meal prep whenever possible to minimize the overall number of dishes you’re cleaning at the end of the prep session. Much less to dry and put away!
I froze the tray of pasta just to ensure it would be fresh four days later, but it probably would have been fine sitting in the fridge. I’ll thaw it out the night before and then bake it in the oven Wednesday evening.
The other key to meal prep is to utilize all of the time wisely.
While I was waiting for the pasta water to boil and then the pasta to cook, I was still preparing for other dishes.
I made a chocolate tofu mousse in the blender and split that into small mason jars, washed and cut potatoes and carrots for a vegan cheeze sauce that I planned to cook after the pasta was finished, and started working on the tofu ricotta I wanted to make for a meal later in the week.
I was able to get all this food prepped and the fridge cleaned and reorganized in about two hours. I waited for the brown rice and the beans to cool off before I packed those up to store for later in the week too.
There is something really satisfying about starting the week with a clean and well-stocked fridge. Most of the preportioned items will be used up by Wednesday, but this gives us a smooth start to the week.
Plus, I’ve started some of the elements for meals that we’ll have later in the week. The parcooked beans will become baked beans; tofu ricotta will be dolloped on top of the baked penne; and the vegan cheeze sauce will pair with chili I’ll thaw from the freezer to make chili cheeze loaded potatoes.
I’d love to hear about your meal prep tips and some of your favorite foods to stock in your fridge. Leave us a comment below!