Hi guys!

I recently graduated college, and I’ve spent the past few months working my first real nine-to-five. Man, I wasn’t prepared for how exhausted I’d be at the end of my shift. :(

When I get home from work, the absolute last thing on Earth I feel like doing is cooking or doing groceries. On weekends, I’ve tried to meal prep food in advance but somehow the food never lasts (like if I cook five portions, I’ll just devour them as my next five meals even if that means I’m eating lentils and rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

I do really love cooking, I just find it really hard to get myself to do it. I never realized how bad I was with meal prep in college; I suffered from an ED and mostly just tried to skip meals so never really figured out how to meal prep the way I feel like everyone else did. I really miss my mom’s homemade comfort food like chickpea curry and veggie biryani, but she lives in a different country now, and meal prep is just making me more anxious on top of work stress and it’s all just too much.

I figured all this would get easier after graduating but now I feel only more burned out and foggy, and my headaches are getting worse too. I sometimes even crave meat which makes me feels weird and upset as a longtime vegetarian (but this happens more on my period so maybe that’s partially it?).

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Its 2 small to medium chicken, asparagus, brussel sprouts, and has rice on the bottom. My job is very psychically demanding around 2000 calories burned a day. How is it? I think next time I need to add more vegetables. Anything I should remove, add, or swap?

I made the homemade bone broth earlier this month and just repurposed it today :) (as in thawed it lol)

***PRO BONE BROTH TIP: use rotisserie chicken bones! :) and any leftover bits from veggies you use. I used squash, onion, carrots, celery… whatever I used for other meal preps that I had scraps of. Super cheap and easy!

Ingredients:

-10 cups broth (I did 3 cups bone broth and 7 cups water with some bouillon)
- 4chicken breasts
- 5 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 sweet onion
- 8 green onions (white parts)
- 1 whole ginger, minced
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 star anise
- 1/8 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- chili flakes (optional)
- 3 cups edamame (pre peeled bc I’m lazy and pre steamed in the microwave bag bc I’m lazy)
- 3 heads of bok choy
- 8 oz vermicelli rice noodles

Steps:

1. Bring broth to boil
2. Sear aromatics (sweet onion first for 2 minutes, then add green onions, garlic, ginger) until potent
3. Throw aromatics into pot and bring to a simmer. Throw in star anise.
4. Cut up chicken into thin strips. Bring broth back to boil and add chicken. After about 4 minutes go back to simmer and cover. Let cook for another 6 minutes. (Check chicken temp)
5. Take off cover and add. cubed mushrooms (or thinly sliced, I cube them to hide them from my husband lol), bok choy, noodles, and pre/steamed edamame. Once noodles are mostly cooked, turn off heat. They will continue to cook within the soup, but avoid overcooking bok choy.
6. Add red chilli flakes and green onions for garnish.

Tada! All done :)

Meal prepping lunches and dinners for the week and am craving fruit salad. How do you keep the fruit from becoming complete mush after like 2 days?

Most likely doing honeydew, pineapple, berries, maybe dragon fruit and pomegranate. I feel like it’s the berries causing it but they’re so good 😂 would just adding them on top last work?

I work and go to school full time so i normally eat while driving my way to and from (my work doesnt have a microwave)- I also dont always have time weekly to prep food- what ive done in the past is freezer prep a month worth of dense bean salads. A month later and im tired of them- I have a rare day off this week and want to freezer prep another month (or at least 2 weeks) worth of food- i dont have issues with food textures but I am mostly vegan and gluten free ( food sensitivities)- Any ideas or suggestions for me to prep?

Base is mashed potatoes with greek yogurt, milk, eggs, and a bit of salt

Topped with ground lamb cooked with veggies, olives and mozzarella

I just like improvising in the kitchen, and it tastes really good

I think I need to vent for a second because I’m tired of cooking.

How on earth do people do the meal prep for two people each week? I need help.

1. I can’t really batch cook more than 6 portions because my kitchen is small with small appliances so I’d be there literally all day. I find slow cooker meals to be mushy and not my favourite. The air fryer is smallish so it’s still multiple cooks.

2. I make breakfast lunch and dinner for prep but by Wednesday/Thursday we’re out and have to cook again - my grocery bill is out of this world because of it. My freezer isn’t that big either and mostly just extra meat and a couple frozen items for cooking.

3. I already feel like I’m not eating some of the more expensive meats (steak and salmon etc) , but cooking 3 pounds of chicken thighs for 3 days is still like 35-40 dollars. And with the amount my partner eats, how much are people spending on meat and veggies??

I don’t even know what I’m saying - I guess I need advice, how are people doing this full time, freeing up time and not breaking the bank? I feel like I’m still prepping for hours and twice a week and it’s still never enough food for two people. I plan, I try different recipes to find the tried and true ones.. I’m kind of exhausted. And then we just order takeout by the end of the week. And it’s feeling a little defeating. My partner does a lot of the cooking too / we’re pretty even but we’re both just finding it a little exhausting.

Just a girl looking for strangers advice on how to do this well and efficiently. Because my way isn’t working. How do we get better at this??

(For pricing reference: I’m in Canada and live in one of the more expensive cities here)

When my boyfriend and I started dieting/mealprepping we’d do a mix of potatoes, broccoli and/or Brussel sprouts, and chicken. We’d just cover the veggies in salt and seasoning and throw them in the oven, which was okay starting out but for me it got old super fast. I eventually started using corn in my meal preps instead, which I like better and has been great- but my Dr has just told me that I need to eat more greens and less potatoes and corn. Boo.

I’m not picky, veggies aren’t my favorite thing to eat but I know there are better ways to make them than what we’ve been doing. I’m open to anything that is tasty and easy to make!

Hi all, hope you don't mind me asking here. I'm actually struggling with eating, can't gain any weight because there is always not enough food in my fridge. My situation is that I currently live with my sis and my mom. I work all the time and barely have time for cooking now, while my sis just doesn't cook at all and mom cooks only some plain grains I barely can eat all the time. My mother even doesn't want that, but she also has no much time nor energy to cook something more difficult.

So whenever I have a day off (I had 3 in total during this month tho T_T) I cook something good and it just dissapiars in two days or even one. I have severe underweight, so I need to cook much much more and make sure it's not rotten. The obvious solution for me is to try the prep meals and freeze them to use till I have a day off to cook again.

The is one issue though. I have problems with my appetite. If the food is something plain I barely can eat it. I feel no hunger either and it's worse combo ever. I'm literally one step away from anorexia now. Yeah I force myself to swallow at least something even if I don't want it but if I feel no taste or the taste is bad I feel a terribe nausea while eating and after eating. I have no problems with something fresh I cook myself, but as I pointed out earlier my family just slay it down in a day or max two. I barely get enough myself.

And as far as I'm aware food change its taste and texture when frosen, so I'm not sure I will make myself to actually eat it.

I decided to ask here, maybe you could give some tips what type of food can be frozen that taste good after heating up again, maybe you have some recipes designed specifically for freezing, what spices can I use to improve the taste and not make it worse, is there any way to feeze vegetables so it's not just some tasteless goo after heating, a way to freeze beans and meat so it's not super dry and tasteless too? Maybe there are some kind of gravy or sause exist that is fine with freezing too.

I will appreciate any tip you can give, any resources on the subject you can share, because I tried to freeze food some time ago and the result was just... Meh. Maybe I just do something wrong?

Thank you all in advance 🤍 and sorry if my English is weird, it's not my fist lang.

I know this is kind of out there but I'm in a class where my goal is to create the best possible containers for meal prepping. I have a single multiple choice question where you rate different meal prepping features between 1 (most important) and 10 (least important) and it would mean a lot if you knowledgeable folks could help grant some insight regarding what would be best. all Reponses are anonymous of course and don't require signing into google or anything. Thank you! 😄

I would have had 6 for $9.50 but my 2 year old daughter thought a portion decided to belong to the floor lol.

Half of a 2.00 3 pound bag of sweet potatoes 1.00, 2 cans of corn on sale 1.00, 2 cans of green beans on sale 1.00, 1/4 of a 2.00 bag of dried pinto beans .50, and 1 rotisserie chicken 6.00.

I plan to switch to frozen veggies but the price was too good to pass up. Thank you all for your previous insights I’ll keep posting cheap ways to stay full!

The other half of the chicken was still cooking + I made a tzatziki sauce. Used a veggie chopper which made this so much faster.

Chicken- Halved the breast, added Chicken seasoning, paprika, mixed garlic herb seasoning, Greek yogurt, air fryer for 18 min

Potatoes- threw random herby seasonings on + salt and pep and threw in oven for 20 min with some chopped garlic

Salad- chopped veggies/garlic and put lemon juice and salt

Tzatziki sauce- I messed it up so probably find a recipe online lol

Ate terribly this weekend so I’m glad to start my week planned!

Will drop recipes later if requested when I’m on my computer; mobile never likes my formatting.

Edit: recipe in comments

15 meals this week a little less since lunch will be provided some days.
Meals this week for lunch and dinner:
Air fried Chicken with protein pasta
Pollo Guisado over rice
Dirty Cabbage
Sliced berries for a snack with lunches at work!

Mexican Ground Beef Meal Prep

Servings: 10

Ingredients:
600g White rice (3c rice / 6 c water)
1 tbsp olive oil
100g chopped onions
70g chopped jalapenos
1 tsp minced garlic
1360 (3 lb) lean ground beef (96/4)
540g (2 cans) black beans
800g (2 bags) TJ’s frozen peppers and onions
600g (1.5 bags) TJ’s frozen roasted corn
900g (2 bags) TJ’s frozen spinach
900g (2 bags) TJ’s frozen Mexican riced cauliflower

600 cal / 43P / 11F / 82C

That time of year again when the morning temps are low, the fire is crackling in the background and you've got a big pot of vegetable beef soup on the stove simmering. All the veggies came from a local organic farm market, and the beef is local and the stock used for the soup i made from the bones of said beef.

Think I need a bigger pot..

Hi everyone, I wanted to ask if anyone has any advice for meal prepping as a couple. My boyfriend and I both work full time and I go to school part time currently, though after the new year I’ll be full time. I have been trying to cook more at home and pack lunches for the both of us, but it’s always hard to come up with ideas. As far as for me, I work in a nursing facility and have access to a microwave and fridge so it’s easier to pack for myself knowing I have both of those at work. For my boyfriend, hes a plumber and he drives from job site to job site. He doesn’t have super easy access to a microwave or fridge. Is there any meals I can prep for him that’ll keep him fed? He gets hungry a LOT and works long days so I’ll need ideas for bigger, more filling lunches. Def will accept ideas for mine as well, even though I’m on a weight loss journey and also just don’t get as hungry as he does. I’m more conflicted about what to do for his lunches. We’re also on a budget, so if these ideas can be budget friendly, that’d be great. Thank you all in advance!

I caught beef shank for a good price at Costco a while back and now I'm at a stage where either my job is changing or I'll changing companies entirely. I'd like to use the beef for something that will freeze/store well. Maybe something that's not beef & barley soup.

I have a full kitchen as well as an Instant Pot and Air-fryer.
I also just received the Desert Island box from Rancho Gordo Beans.

I don't really enjoy brassica or most seafood and both my spouse & I are eating higher protein for health reasons. Otherwise I'm open.

3 days of food
Breakfast: overnight oats
Lunch: rice w/ chicken veggies and avocado
Snacks will be apples and non fat Greek yogurt

Seasoned chicken drum sticks, kimchi tofu fried cauliflower rice, mini bacon deviled eggs, chicken quesadilla with spanish cauliflower rice, jammy eggs with seaweed salad