After a long gruesome year in lockdowns and uncertainty, are you ready for your pandemic pivot? Are you getting ready for the glorious sunshine and beach days of 2021?

This summer is bound to be extra special, with some semblance of safety, normalcy, and stability coming back into our lives.

Well, if there is one pandemic takeaway for us, it is to pay some attention to our personal health and nutrition.  We have seen how quickly the virus can attack someone with underlying health conditions. 

While we cannot do anything about aging (another factor in weakened immunity), we can certainly do something about avoiding underlying health conditions. Typically, this would require lifestyle changes that require commitment and dedication.

So, how do you start your pandemic pivot of getting in shape and being top form?  The answer has always been: Food and exercise. 

The first thing you should focus on is food – because you can’t outrun your mouth.  And the best way to amp up the health factor is by preparing and cooking healthy, nutritious meals at home.

Restaurant takeaway foods are laden with salt, sugar, and fats that give anything but a balanced nutritional diet. The solution? Amp up your home cooking.

This is where meal prepping comes into play.  In this article, we will discuss seven hacks for meal prep to make home cooking a breeze. Check out this meal prep advice for more inspiration.

Hack #1: Dedicate One Day to Cook Your Meals for the Week

People fall into one very common mistake: not having prepared meals ready to be reheated or tossed together for a quick weeknight meal.  This is where the temptation for takeaways and fast food comes in. 

Meal prep is all about planning and preparing for the week.  We recommend you pick one of your weekend days to meal prep for the whole week.

Don’t think of it as a chore, and instead of preparing yourself for the week.  Just like how an athlete would train and prepare for the most significant events of their week, you need to prepare for the most gruesome days of the week – like the day you know you will be overworked and exhausted.

Once you pick your time slot for meal prep, you can organize all of the other actions for making your weekly meals for that time slot. For example, Sunday afternoons are perfect if you work a typical Monday to Friday workweek.

These are your health and nutrition prep hours, and you will be better off for it.  You will chop, dice, saute, bake, and broil everything during these few hours.  You can also multi-task and put a load of laundry in the washer while you meal prep.

You could make a date out of it and include your family or significant other to help you with meal prep.  You can end the meal prep with a lovely Sunday dinner knowing your lunches and dinners for the week are already cooked and ready!

So, skip the cart on your UberEats app and instead book a time slot on your Sunday or Saturday for meal prepping.

Hack #2: Order Groceries Online & Have Them Delivered

There is nothing wrong with spending a few hours at the grocery store picking out your own fresh produce and foods – if you have the time for it!  Inevitably, our busy lives leave us very little time for food shopping. 

This is where we end up making bad food purchase decisions – like going for prepackaged foods.

So why not try healthy, well-packaged nutritious foods online. But make sure to buy only from reputable online stores, such as Proper Good.

Online delivery has brought a sigh of relief, especially during the pandemic. But even when this health crisis is over, food delivery services are still expected to grow because it proves to be more convenient for people who are always on the go.

So, our advice is to take advantage of the beautiful convenience of online grocery shopping and have them delivered to you on the day of meal prep.

The beauty of online ordering is that it eliminates all the hunger-induced impulse purchases or overbuying of food.  You can pick exactly how much food you will need. 

Look up your favorite recipes, multiply with the number of times you want to make that dish, then add those ingredients to the shopping cart.

This hack has saved me THOUSANDS in 2020, and I’m sure I’ll do the same in 2021!  So, try it out and save on time, money, and energy.

Hack #3:  Go for Pre-cut Fresh Produce

Pre-cut fruits and veggies honestly get a bad reputation for being too expensive.  Yes, they are pricier than the whole fruit or vegetable, but the time you save on chopping and dicing makes a world of difference.

If you make most of your meals at home from scratch, you are bound to save hundreds of dollars from takeout and frozen meals. 

We recommend you invest some of that savings into the magical convenience of pre-cut, fresh produce. 

These foods are rich in natural vitamins and mineral sources—keeping you healthy, strong, and fit.

Any nutritionist will tell you the more fresh fruits and vegetables you incorporate into your diet, the healthier you will be. Aside from that, pre-cut fresh foods are still cheaper than canned, processed or take-out food.

So, go ahead, and splurge a little extra to get the pre-cut produce.  Just make sure you use up the pre-cut fruits and vegetables within the week to avoid waste.

Hack #4: Process Your Groceries the Same Day

When we buy groceries, we tend to store them in our fridge to process them later for our consumption.  Eventually, the lack of motivation to cut, wash, and chop the food makes the fresh food go bad.

I had to throw out a whole pack of chicken breasts a few times because I never took care of them after buying them.

We recommend you process your groceries on the same day. If you have purchased chicken breasts, bake them or cook them all the same day. Enjoy freshly bought, prepared, and served food with your family every time.

It is far safer to refrigerate, or even freeze them, cooked food than to leave the raw chicken in the fridge for a day or two.

So, keeping with the Sunday theme, if you have followed the first three hacks, this hack should be easy peasy!  Just cook up everything that needs to be cooked.

Of course, some foods need to remain intact and raw until eating – think cucumbers or apples.  For these foods, opt for foods that last longer – apples last longer than peaches, for example.

Following this hack will ensure you enjoy the food ingredients at their freshest, most optimal state.

Hack #5:  Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Freezer

Get acquainted with your freezer. This will be your most valuable asset. 

You can meal prep and freeze foods for weeks! If you make a big batch of curry or chili, just freeze some for the next week. 

You could essentially even start meal prepping weeks in advance if you have the extra time.

While in the freezer section, be sure to grab some frozen veggies – which are the ultimate convenience for meal prep. 

If you have frozen veggies stocked in the freezer, you know you can always whip up a quick stir fry as a side dish to your mains you cooked and stored away in the freezer.

You can also take this opportunity to experiment with leftovers and whip up a healthy appetizer in your kitchen.

Hack #6: Cycle a Few of your Favorite Meals

While most of us love a variety of dishes and foods from all cuisines across the world, everyone has their top favorite dishes.  Depending on the time of the year, the favorite dishes also change.

We recommend you pick the top 5 foods you love and then meal prep and cook them ahead of time to be cycled throughout the week. 

Think Taco Tuesday, Meatless Monday, Fish Fridays, and so on.  Make the same five recipes every week, or swap one favorite with another.  The idea is to get fast at making your favorite dishes which you can whip out when desired.

For example, if you have a curry night, make the curry ahead of time, have it ready in your freezer, and take it out on curry nights of the week.

This is also a great way to make your meals exciting. You will find yourself motivated and always looking forward for the next meal prep.

Hack #7:  Cook in Large Batches

The most efficient way of cooking food is cooking them all at once.  Maximize every square inch of that oven, use all the burners you need to, break out your slow cooker, pressure cooker, and the air fryer for even more cooking options, and have them all run simultaneously.

If you are baking two different kinds of chicken recipes, bake them together in the oven simultaneously.

This hack will maximize your time spent waiting for food to cook. So, cook in large batches and cook together to optimize your meal prep time on Sundays.

The best thing about cooking in large batches is that you can store healthy portions in cups or containers, place them in the fridge, and reheat them in the microwave when you need to eat.

And if you need to go to the office, you can simply grab a portion from your fridge and reheat your food in the office. Aside from getting a healthy meal, you also get to save a few bucks as well!

Final Thoughts

We are what we eat, and our path to good health starts with what we put in our bodies. 

Your own kitchen is your number one source for the healthiest meals. 

Apply some of these hacks (among many more) to make meal prep easy and fun.  

Stay away from refined sugars and processed foods. Incorporate plenty of high-fiber food and lean proteins, and start cooking from scratch – in batches!

Bon Appetit!