How To Become A Meal Prepping Ninja

Are you the type of person who eats out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because you have no time or energy to cook? You would meal prep but you are too busy? Have no fear I’m going to teach you How To Become A Meal Prepping Ninja! Spend a day with me as I chop and prep for my weekly lunch and dinners.

Welcome to the wonderful world of meal prep ladies and gentlemen. In other words, welcome to my Dojo wheelhouse. I’ve been prepping my lunch and dinners for so long I honestly haven’t a clue as to when I began. Spend a day prepping with me and I’ll show you How To Become A Meal Prepping Ninja!

Typically when I tell people I meal prep they respond, I’m too busy to meal prep but good for you! If you’re too busy to meal prep then you’re the perfect candidate for meal prepping! I’m not talking about folks who eat so spontaneously they only buy groceries on the day they’re cooking. I’m talking about people who grocery shop for an entire week. If you carve out a couple hours on one day for meal prep, it can literally save you hours for the remainder of the week.

I made 10 sausage and veggie lunches for Kieran and me. I also prepped breakfast foods, snacks, and the majority of vegetables I was cooking for dinner throughout the week.

Check out our video below:

Here’s How To Become A Meal Prepping Ninja:

1. STEP ONE – EMAIL YOURSELF A GROCERY LIST

I keep a copy of all the grocery lists I’ve emailed to myself. I copy and paste an old grocery list into a new email. From there I delete and add recipes according to what I feel like for dinner that week. I break down my grocery email list into 4 categories: Produce, The Middle Aisle, Dairy, and Meat. I delete and add ingredients as needed.

Here is an example of my grocery list. What day I eat what recipe doesn’t matter.

Saturday – Out
Sunday – Chicken Skewer Nachos
Monday – Pork fried rice
Tuesday -Blackened chicken with southwest slaw
Wednesday – Gyros
Thursday – 5 Herb Lemon Chicken
Friday – Out

Produce
Berries
2 white onion (for lunch, skewer nachos, and pork fried)
3 avocado (2 for lunch, 1 for skewer nachos)
Cherry tomatoes
5 Red pepper (2 for lunch, 1 skewer nachos,1 for pork fried rice)
3 poblano pepper (2 for lunch, 1 for skewer nachos)
4-5 jalapeno
Cauliflower
Red onion
Fresh thyme, oregano, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, and dill
Lemon
Arugula
Green cabbage

Middle Aisle
Pumpkin puree
Peanut butter
Coffee
Kalamata olives
fire-roasted salsa

Dairy
3 cartons of eggs
Unsweetened Greek yogurt
Feta cheese
Mayo (sugar-free)

Meat
6 chicken drums
2 pork chops
Bacon
Breakfast sausage
1 lb ground lamb
2 -4 packages of cooked sausage (for lunch)

Emailing yourself a grocery list each week is helpful because:

You won’t lose an email but you may lose a handwritten list.
You’re less likely to forget items at the store.
You can copy and paste an old list into a new email so you don’t have to start the list from scratch every week.
You can view old grocery emails for recipes you want to make again.

2. STEP TWO: GET ORGANIZED

Preheat your oven if you’re cooking meat or roasting vegetables.
If you’re cooking pasta bring a pot of water to a boil.
Grab differently sized storage containers and all the groceries you’re prepping and lay them on your table or counter.

3. STEP THREE: MULTITASKING WILL MAKE THE PROCESS FASTER

Start by cooking the hot items like meat, pasta, or roasted vegetables first.
Allow the cooked ingredients to completely cool before storage.
While your meat, pasta, or vegetables are cooking or cooling, prep your other ingredients.

4. STEP FOUR: IF YOU’RE CHOPPING VEG FOR LUNCH YOU MIGHT AS

WELL CHOP THE VEG FOR DINNER
I take a few extra minutes and chop/dice/slice all the produce I’m using during the week rather than only chop the produce needed for lunch. You can have dinner on the table much faster if the majority of prep work is done beforehand. I grab a large storage container for each dinner recipe.

Example:
1 container for Chicken Nachos – I stored my prepped red pepper, onion, jalapeno, and poblano pepper together.
1 container for Pork fried rice – I stored my prepped chopped red pepper, onion, and jalapeno together.

When it’s time to cook dinner I grab the storage container from the fridge and get cooking. This saves me countless hours every week. The types of ingredients I don’t prep are those that brown or sog after they’ve been cut, like avocados, mushrooms, ect. I cut those the night I’m cooking dinner.

5. STEP FIVE: CLEAN UP ALONG THE WAY

Meal prep is considerably more stressful if you finish finding you’re up to your eyeballs in dishes. Tackle some dishes while you’re waiting for something to cook or cool.

6. STEP SIX: WHEN ALL OF YOUR INGREDIENTS HAVE COOLED ASSEMBLE THE LUNCHES

Why? If you’re prepping chicken salad for the week and you put the warm chicken on top of your greens, they will wilt. By the time you eat lunch, you’ll have a gross soggy salad on your hands.

I make variations of salads, DIY instant soups, and veggie bakes most frequently for lunch.

Here is the order in which you want to layer the ingredients inside the storage container:
Salad – greens, chopped vegetables, meat cooked/cooled, and cheese. Kieran brings his favorite salad dressing to work and dresses his salad the day he eats it.
DIY Instant Soup – bouillon paste, noodles cooked/ cooled, thinly sliced vegetables, meat cooked/cooled, fresh herbs.
Meat and Veggie Bake – roasted vegetables cooked/cooled, meat cooked/cooled unless I’m using pre-cooked sausage, and cheese.

Obviously, every week of meal prep is different depending on what I’m making for lunch or dinner, but this is how I meal prep, in a nutshell. Kieran and I are trying the keto diet for 6 weeks so you’ll notice in the video we are eating meat, vegetables, and cheese.

For me, the key to meal prep is multitasking. If an ingredient needs to be cooked for our lunches, whether it be meat, pasta, or veggies, I always start by cooking those items first. While they are cooking/cooling I knock out the other ingredients. Or, I tackle some dishes.

The first time you meal prep will take you the longest. You’ll get faster as you go. I think the first time I meal prepped it took me over 4 hours but now, depending how much I’m prepping, it takes me 2. You may be thinking, Ugh 2 hours of meal prep is too long! I get it, meal prep is a chore. But don’t think of the time it takes to meal prep, focus on the time you’ll save once the meal prep is finished.

Benefits of Meal Prep:
Cheaper
Healthier
Less wasteful
Saves time – in the morning, for lunch, and dinner (fewer dishes to do, too)
Reduces stress – especially after a hectic day

And don’t think you have to prep only on the weekend. If Kieran and I travel I’ll do meal prep on Monday night. Sometimes I’ll cook all the hot items (meat, pasta, roasted veggies) on one day, and finish up meal prep the following. You can also cook up a huge batch of chicken breasts and freeze them until needed. There are so many ways to adapt meal prepping to fit your needs.

What’s that? You won’t meal prep because you can’t stand eating the same thing every day? Although meal fatigue is real, you can be creative and add as much variety as you want. In other words, suck it up buttercup. You may have the best excuse to prevent you from meal prepping but remember you can have results or excuses, not both. You’re health, wallet, and sanity are worth the effort.

Alright folks, that’s a wrap on How To Become A Meal Prepping Ninja. If you have any questions or need advice please leave me a comment below. You will thank yourself repeatedly when you suddenly have more time to spend with your family and friends, the toughest part is getting started. If there is any additional information I can give you – just ask!