Don’t cook meals for the entire week and always have frozen veggies on hand: Dietitian explains how to meal prep like a pro – and it’s NOT what you see on social media
- Dietitian Susie Burrell has shared her three tips for meal prepping at home
- She recommends having key staples on hand and doing more the night before
- ‘Enjoying more home cooked meals has multiple health benefits,’ she said
An Australian dietitian has revealed three easy ways to take control of what you eat by meal prepping a few days before – and how to make the time consuming activity painless.
Susie Burrell, the Sydney-based founder of Shape Me, said meals prepared at home often contain fewer calories and more lean protein and vegetables, an incentive for amateur meal preppers.
‘Taking control of your nutrition and enjoying more home cooked meals has multiple health benefits,’ she said.
Those who cook at home also have a tendency to have a better diet overall.
Susie Burrell (pictured) said meals prepared at home often contain fewer calories and more lean protein and vegetables
Susie said the ‘key to nutrition success at home’ involves ensuring you have healthy foods in the fridge and pantry to prepare quick and easy meals or snacks.
This means shopping more regularly in order to keep a supply of frozen and tinned options available to you and your family, such as frozen fruit and tinned beans.
‘Personally I make a big effort to stock up with fresh fruits and veggies each week at the local markets,’ she said.
‘I keep frozen options such as bananas, vegetables and 1-2 precooked meals on hand so I can throw together breakfast smoothies quickly, and always know that I have a backup meal on hand for nights there is literally no time to cook.’
When meal prepping, Susie says it’s important to ‘ensure that you utilise ingredients you have purchased in bulk but are able to cook 2-3 meals at a time.’ By doing so, you will save a lot of time and money
Susie’s second tip on her meal prepping list involves cooking less frequently but in larger amounts.
She said it’s important to ‘ensure you utilise ingredients you have purchased in bulk but are able to cook 2-3 meals at a time’.
Consider baked goods such as banana breads or muffins for healthy snacks, slow cooked casseroles and pies for multiple meals and plenty of roasted vegetables.
By doing so, your meal prepping will become ‘more about throwing together rather than cooking from scratch’.
‘You will also save time, money and stress when you cook multiple meals at one time,’ Susie said.
Preparing food or organising meals into containers the night before is a great and simple way to save time the next morning
The third and final tip encourages doing more the night before to save time the next morning.
Spending a few minutes each evening planning meals or packing food for the next day is an easy habit to develop into your nightly routine and can be very convenient.
Susie also states how packing meals into containers for the entire week, as seen on Instagram, is ‘not practical’ and is ‘not the best option for keeping meals fresh throughout the week’.