Instead of spending several hours in one day to meal prep for the week (which I do love to do from time to time), let me introduce you to what I call “micro meal prepping” – Small yet effective steps taken throughout the week which conveniently aide in the prep work for future meals, reducing overall cooking time and cleanup.
Here’s what to do:
- Identify which meals for the week have the same ingredient(s) as another meal.
- On the first day of making a meal that also shares an ingredient with a future meal(s), prepare enough of it to use for the future meal(s) later.
Let’s say this is your meal plan for the week:
Monday – Buffalo chicken taquitos and fruit salad
Tuesday – Beef tacos, black beans, and cilantro lime rice (because Taco Tuesday, of course!)
Wednesday – Chicken rice stir fry
Thursday – Veggie fajita soup
Friday – Bean burgers and baked fries
Saturday – Baked potato bar with leftovers for toppings and sides
Using the meal plan example above, micro meal prepping would look like this:
Monday – In a slow cooker, cook the chicken for both the buffalo chicken taquitos for that day and for the chicken rice stir fry on Wednesday.
To cook the chicken, leave breasts whole that will be for the taquitos since they will be shredded, and dice the remaining chicken for the rice stir fry. (Pictured below) For seasoning, just drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of the slow cooker, add a little water or broth, and put salt and pepper on the chicken. The rest of the seasoning will be added when assembling the meals.
After it’s cooked, make the complete meal for the taquitos with the shredded chicken and place the diced chicken into a dish in the fridge to use for stir fry on Wednesday.
Prepare enough fruit salad to easily add to other meals and snacks throughout the week.
Tuesday – Cook rice for both the cilantro lime rice for that day (adding the cilantro and lime after cooking and dividing) and stir fry on Wednesday.
Prepare enough black beans to also be used in the veggie fajita soup on Thursday.
Wednesday – Chop/slice onions and bell peppers for both the stir fry for that day and veggie fajita soup on Thursday.
Friday – After baking the fries, do a pan of baked potatoes. Even though the preparation is different, you will still have the potatoes out to wash, a pan out, and the oven already heated, so it still saves some overall time and clean up. The potatoes can bake while you are eating dinner and then let them cool and put them in the fridge for future use on Saturday.
(See my blog post and video for perfect baked potatoes)
Keep In Mind
The more overlapping ingredients for a weekly meal plan, the better. I use this philosophy with meal planning in general so I can save money buying in bulk and simplify prep work and cleanup. (I will be doing a post in the future that explains how to do this in rotating 2 week intervals for super easy menus)
Keep food handling/storage safety in mind so you don’t prep something so far in advance that you won’t end up consuming it before it goes bad. You may also freeze most prepped items if there’s a concern or if plans change, because life happens!
What It Looks Like
Here’s pictures I took slow cooking chicken 1 time but for 2 dishes. Namely, for the buffalo chicken taquitos and stir fry mentioned earlier. They aren’t the prettiest pics but they show what cooking really looks like without staging and professional lighting. (Which I hope to learn how to do in the future!)
How the chicken is arranged and seasoned prior to cooking.
After it’s cooked. Realistic but not super pretty. (This was done on low for 5 hours)
Fat skimmed
Whole chicken breasts moved to a bowl to be shredded.
Remaining diced chicken gently separated, stirred, cooled, then put into a container in the fridge. (not shown)
Shredded chicken before being mixed with buffalo sauce, etc for taquitos.
Voila!
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Bonus Additional Week Meal Plan
Monday – (Brinner) Pancakes, Turkey bacon, fruit (double up the batter and make waffles at the same time for Wednesday’s meal)
Tuesday – Chicken tacos, Spanish rice, beans (double up chicken, rice, and beans for Friday’s meal. Prep enough toppings for Friday and Saturday’s meals. Cook some plain rice for Thursday at the same time or reserve some before seasoning the Spanish rice)
Wednesday – Chicken and waffles with honey mustard sauce, scrambled eggs, fruit (reheat the waffles in the oven to crisp them up again) (I use packaged battered chicken for this but you could easily use chicken from taco day instead)
Thursday – Italian chicken and rice (use the rice from Tuesday)
Friday – Sheet pan nachos (use the chicken, rice, beans, and garnishes from Tuesday for some of the toppings)
Saturday – Mexican quinoa bowls (use the toppings from Tuesday)
Bonus Slow Cooker Chicken Idea
Cook 5-6 breasts in slow cooker with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
Remove 1/2 of the breasts, slice, and mix with stir fry sauce. Use in Asian inspired dishes, such as rice bowls or stir fry, during the week.
In a different bowl, shred remaining chicken and mix in BBQ sauce. Use it to top baked potatoes, loaded baked sweet potatoes, in Tex-Mex taquitos, burrito bowls, or sandwiches.
What are some of your favorite meal prep hacks or menus?
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