Meal prep for your children, I promise, you’ll thank me later. We all have a ton going on these days. Most of us are juggling work, family life and socializing with friends with a fine tooth comb. There is hardly anytime for ourselves but we somehow find a way even for just 30 minutes at the beginning and end of each day. Thank goodness for downward facing dog. If you’re like 90% of the parents out there you’re really being stretched ultra thin by the rising inflation costs and groceries. Have you seen the price of lettuce?! What about the eggs?? What is happening with all the dang on eggs?? Why is there an egg shortage??? What the heck is that even!??!! I have 1000 unanswered questions about this situation that are making my head spin. To take the edge off I really, highly recommend you pick a day out of every month to prep some food, put it in little storage containers and pop them in the freezer.
In the long run, meal prep will save you time, energy and money. It’s Thursday night, you get home late from work and you haven’t even touched the part of your to-do list for the week that says go grocery shopping. You panic and order some food from the local pizza joint just to realize you overspent on take out item you probably will have to wait another hour for and won’t even have any leftovers. Kids love pizza, so while not a total fail, you could’ve done better. Here’s a better option: you pull that food out of the fridge you meal prepped last week, unthaw it in 20 minutes and serve it with a little fresh veg or salad and your children are not only happy but eating something much healthier. Do the meal prep for your sanity, for your families good health and to generally feel better about your parenting style.
I can’t stress the importance of storage space in your freezer when it comes to meal prep. Freezer space is valuable real estate. If there is something inside of there that’s been holding up space for longer than 3 months… throw it away! You’re literally never going to eat it, not even in an apocalypse. Freeing up space allows you to add more options to your meal prep menu so you can swap out things to avoid the kids growing tired of one meal or another. Meal prep different food groups. I like to do savory stews. One stew will have legumes and veggies only, another stew will have shredded protein and veggies. Why stews?? Because they freeze and unthaw very well and usually taste exactly the same as the day you made them. Avoid starchy pastas and rice dishes. They usually turn to mush after unthawed. Soups are another great thing to add to the freezer in bulk, especially in the winter. Don’t underestimate the power of a few good mason jars filled with chicken noodle soup. You can cook the pasta al dente when you make it so that way when you re-heat it you don’t overcook the noodles. Once you get the hang of meal prepping you’ll realize how quickly you can turn pro.
A few tips to get you started: Find glass jars can be easily stacked in the freezer. Try to make the portions small enough to feed one child… so one container is one serving. This makes it easier to unthaw quickly. Always taste the food before you serve it to ensure quality control. Throw out anything you don’t use within 3 months. Some foods go from fresh tasting to freezer burn quicker than that so just be mindful. Meal prep as often or as little as you’d like and remember sometimes Monday night’s leftovers can be stored in the fridge just as easily as meal prep goods can. My family struggles to eat leftovers the next day unless something was just mind blowing, so by default a lot of what I make ends up in the freezer the next day. Cook in bulk. It makes more sense to make a slightly larger portion of something and freeze the leftovers than to cook the same the again a few weeks later rather than just pull out what you’ve already stored away. Good luck and happy meal prepping.
