Learn how to meal prep for the week in just one hour thanks to ingredient prep—it's a great time-saving method that works for busy people.
Ingredient prepping will let you combine the food in numerous ways to create a whole bunch of different meals. Really, this makes dinner for busy people a breeze.
Why you'll love this guide
- Massive time savings: Prepping ingredients in just one hour will free up more of your valuable time!
- Stress-free meals: You won't have to worry about what to make for dinner again.
- Budget-friendly: Ingredient prepping helps control your grocery spending by using what you prep.
Meal prep vs. food prep
Contrary to popular belief, you only need an hour to food prep in order to get organized for the week ahead. That's right – just 60 minutes over the weekend can make a massive difference in helping you stick to cooking healthy and homemade meals during the week.
So what's the difference between food prep and meal prep?
Meal prep is cooking everything ahead of time. Check out my top meal prep ideas and my guide on how to meal prep for busy people for more inspiration.
Food prep is prepping ingredients and sauces only. It sometimes also includes cooking some meat or some rice/quinoa ahead of time as well. Check out my Food Storage post to discover how to make your ingredients last the longest!
How do I start food prepping?
Start by downloading my 7-day meal plan and watching my Youtube video embedded in this post. It will take you through food prep step-by-step. Take a look at the food prep checklist to help follow along with the video, then you will be good to make the recipes in the 7-day meal plan using all of your prepped ingredients.
DOWNLOAD YOUR 7-DAY MEAL PLAN HERE.
Why should you food prep?
The best part of food prep is that you are essentially dividing your tasks up to make them more manageable and sustainable. Food prep is the best of both worlds, because you don't need to take up an entire afternoon of your weekend cooking food ahead of time and making a huge mess, and you also don't need to spend an hour cooking each night.
Plus, when you have taken the time to prep ahead on a weekend, you are more likely to follow through with cooking during the week, because you know that it won't take you a long time to cook and you won't want to waste the ingredients you spent time preparing.
Dinner Prep Pro customers love following the included prep instructions with their weekly meal plans because it helps them save time, money and energy. Just like one of our users, Melanie, said, “…put on your favourite music and you will be amazed at how much you can have ready in an hour!”
What are the best foods to meal prep?
- Proteins such as chicken, steak, legumes, tofu, boiled eggs, bacon, etc.
- Grains such as rice, quinoa, oats, pasta, etc.
- Vegetables that you can chop up ahead of time such as onions, garlic, ginger, bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc.
- Sauces, dressings and dips such as a stir fry sauce recipe, salad dressing, special sauce for burgers, etc.
- Spice blends made from spices in your spice drawer
- Grating cheeses or other little kitchen shortcuts
BONUS
- Making breakfasts such as overnight oats or breakfast sandwiches
- Making lunch bowls such as mason jar salads, rice bowls, etc. – this is advanced though, so only if you have time
How to food prep
Follow the instructions below to prep your ingredients for 5 meals that you will eat during the week from Monday to Friday. You'll see me prep everything in order in my video tutorial, and you can find the recipes in your free meal plan PDF download.
If you want to start ingredient prepping for other recipes, check out this post on How to Create a Meal Prep Plan. I'll walk you through how to build out a custom prep checklist.
Free 7-day meal plan
Download your PDF 7-day meal plan that accompanies the video in this post. It comes complete with breakfast, lunch and dinner for the entire week. Watch the video to learn how you can prep your ingredients ahead for the week, then make the recipes fresh each night in just 15 minutes using your PDF meal plan. Click here to download your free meal plan.
Here are the recipes you'll be prepping ahead for:
Ingredient prep checklist
Follow this prep ahead checklist in order to make dinners come together fast during the weeknight.
Step 1: Grains
- Cook 1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water for the Bibimbap-Inspired Beef Stir Fry.
Step 2: Proteins
- Cook 1 lb. of chicken breasts in a large pot of boiling water for the Chicken & Kale Caesar Wraps, then shred the cooked chicken.
- Cook 1 lb. of ground beef for the Pizza Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.
- Mix 1 tbsp. of Italian seasoning with 1 cup of flour in a large bowl, then coat 1 lb/ of chicken tenders in the mixture for the Olive Garden Chicken Scampi. Store in a container and cook fresh the night of.
- Slice the beef thinly for the Bibimbap-inspired stir fry and toss with 2 tsp. of baking soda.
Step 3: Cheeses
- Grate 2 cups of mozzarella cheese for the Pizza Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.
- Grate 1 cup of parmesan cheese (1/2 cup for the Olive Garden Chicken Scampi and 1/2 cup for the Chicken Kale Caesar Wraps).
Step 4: Sauces
- Mix together 1 cup of light mayo, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 2 tbsp. of lemon juice, 1 tbsp. of Worcestershire, 1 tbsp. of Dijon mustard, 1 tbsp. of minced capers, 3 cloves of minced garlic and 1/2 tsp. each of salt & pepper for the Chicken & Kale Caesar Wraps dressing.
- Microwave half a block (about 4 oz.) of cream cheese, then stir in 4 minced jalapenos and 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese to make the filling for the Hasselback Jalapeno Popper Chicken.
Step 5: Vegetables
- Remove the mushroom stems and scrape out 8 portobello mushrooms for the Pizza Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.
- Dice 1 green pepper and 1 small red onion for the Pizza Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms and store both in the same container.
- Slice 1 red pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 1 green pepper and 1 red onion for the Olive Garden Chicken Scampi.
- Slice 1 cup of shiitake mushrooms, and cut 1 carrot and 1 zucchini into matchsticks for the Bibimbap-Inspired Beef Stir Fry.
- Thinly slice 1 red onion and wash/chop kale for the Chicken & Kale Caesar Wraps.
Step 6: Put it all in the fridge and relax!
Want more prep instructions like this? Check out this free Prep Once, Eat All Week Meal Prep Plan.
More meal prep resources
Ingredient prep containers & tools
- Grab some glass meal prep bowls.
- I get all my free-range chicken from Butcher Box, conveniently delivered to me frozen.
- Use these Ziploc bag holders for marinating and freezing protein.
Comments & Reviews
Laura says
Do you have a system for deciding what to eat when? I find a lot of veggies for example will go slimy if they are chopped to far in advance. Thanks!