Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros
Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros
Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros, macro tracking, and more
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January 15, 2024
Trying to eat healthy, home-cooked meals all the time can be a challenge, but developing a good meal prep habit can help tremendously. Efficient meal prep can help minimize food waste, save you money, and improve your nutrition. There are several tools that can assist in this process. Below are some helpful tools and tricks for meal prep to avoid wasting food.
Meal planning apps can help you organize your weekly meals, create shopping lists, help you find new recipes, and more. Our own meal planning app will even tailor the meal plans towards your nutrition goals. Plus, using one will get you into the habit of having the week planned out in advance to reduce last minute scrambling.
Food storage containers are a great way to store prepared, or partially prepared, foods. Whether it’s for leftover soups, stews, and sauces, or cut up fresh fruits or vegetables, food containers come in handy. One cheap and versatile option is to take a page from what most restaurants do and use deli containers. They come in a variety of sizes, are easily stackable, all use the same size lids, and can be bought quite cheap. Pick yourself up a set such as these and you’re good to go!
Vacuum sealers are a great way to extend the shelf life of your foods. They can be used for meats, fruits, and vegetables to help prevent spoilage. They are particularly great for freezing meats that you won’t be using in the near future, as they can extend the shelf life by years! There are plenty of vacuum sealers on the market, with one of the most popular being FoodSaver brand, like this one.
So if you followed the previous advice on this list, and you have leftover food stored in containers in the fridge and freezer, how can you tell what’s what? You could use a marker of course, but another (more neat) option is to use a label maker. For best results, put both the name of the item, and when it was made or how long it’s good until on the label.
Similar to food storage containers, freezer bags and ice cube trays can be a great way to store foods for use later. Soups and sauces in particular work great for this method. They can even help to elevate your cooking if you make good use of them - frozen cubes of homemade stock will add great flavor to your dish! To freeze ready-made portions of dishes like soups or stews, larger ice cube style trays like these ones work great too.
A kitchen scale is a huge help for a bunch of reasons. It helps you to make recipes more quickly and precisely (especially when baking!), track how much you are actually eating if trying to control portion size, and reduce food waste by not having to throw away food if you prepare too much by mistake. Pick one up today, you won’t regret it!
Blenders can be a great way to make use of overripe or excess fruits and vegetables. Got some browning bananas? Perfect for a smoothie. Tomatoes that are going a bit soft? Perfect to blend into a soup like Gazpacho. Both smoothies and pureed soups are also very versatile, with countless combinations that will all taste great in a finished product. Get yourself a good blender and get started. But remember, we said overripe fruits and vegetables - not rotten! If you have produce that is going bad, always either throw it away or compost it.
The last item on this list is an absolute meal prep staple. Prepare pre-portioned meals for the week in advance by storing them in meal prep containers with multiple compartments like these. You can mix and match meat, veg, and starch options to mix it up a bit for the next few days. Some meals can even be frozen for longer term storage, but be careful since some dishes may be ruined by doing this.
