Favorite Batch Cooking/Meal Prep Recipes & Tips - Dana Monsees Nutrition (2024)

Spoiler alert: prepping some ingredients and food at the beginning of the week will make your life sooooo much easier.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FANCY.
Come up with a rough meal plan for meals you want to make during the week.
Grocery shop on Sundays or Mondays.
Clean and chop up veggies when you get home from shopping so you save on prep time during the week!
Prep some single-ingredient recipes (like hard-boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, roasted veggies), etc. that you can throw together in an easy meal in a pinch.
(interlude): turn on some jams and dance in the kitchen. Ooobviously.
Prep or (keep on hand) some of your favorite sauces and spices, so you can have some variation in flavors all week, even if you’re eating the same base ingredients.

Think of it this way – your life is stressful enough already, with everything you have going on. Food should NOT become another huge stressor on your plate (pun totally intended), so make it easier on yourself by doing some Meal Prep at the start of your week! You’ll thank me later. Ya welcome, friends.

So after I’ve done some meal planning and grocery shopping, on either a Sunday or Monday…

1 large protein
1-2 veggies, roasted / steamed / sautéed
1 breakfast option
1 batch of a starchy vegetable or grains forstaying power + blood sugar balance
1-2 sauces or spice blends that you can use on recipes later in the week.
Optional: chop up some veggies for recipes you’ll need later in the week to save on prep time!

Then, I’ll use these ingredients to throw together easy meals throughout the week – for quick breakfasts, take-to-work (or heat up quick) lunches, or quick dinners if I know I’m in a pinch for time!

Check out this HOW TO BUILD A POWER BOWL post & infographic for step-by-step instructions on how to build an easy meal throughout the week.

As an example (all recipes linked below!):

Protein: Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork OR Easy Balsamic Roasted Chicken
Breakfast option: 8 Hard-boiled eggs / Smoked Salmon Frittata
Veggies: Baked Zucchini/Onions/Peppers
Roast sweet potatoes (whole or wedges) + batch of rice
Chop cauliflower for roasting later in week
Sauce it up: Avocado green goddess dressing / OR homemade mayo
Spice blend: Homemade Paleo Ranch Seasoning

Throw the pork in the crock pot and let it go. Preheat the oven for the sweet potatoes and veggies, then boil some water for the eggs while you chop up the veggies, potatoes, and cauliflower. Put the eggs in (set a timer!), pop the veggies/potatoes on a baking sheet and then put them in the oven (set another timer!), then while everything is cooking, make your sauce/dressing and spice blend for the week. BOOM DONE.

I also ALWAYS keep on hand some of my favorite freezer staples,

…like Cauliflower Rice, Fire Roasted Red Peppers, and Chili-Lime Chicken Burgers from Trader Joe’s, or frozen shrimp on hand that I can throw together in a flash in case I don’t have anything prepped and am effing starving. Which does tend to happen when life gets CRAY. Same goes for pantry stuff – I always have canned tuna and salmon for easy protein options, and some homemade mayonnaise or Primal Kitchen Foods mayo and Tessemae’s Dressings so I can make a quick (delicious) salad if need. Oh, and snack options too. Like RXbars, jerky, mixed nuts, and and fruit with nut butter. Because snacks = lifesavers sometimes!

PRO TIP: Take some shortcuts to save yourself time.

Buy pre-chopped veggies, pre-made sauces and spice blends, can even buy hard-boiled eggs at Trader Joe’s, or grab some salad/veggie stuff from a salad bar/hot bar like Whole Foods! Just make sure to double-check your ingredients.

So, following the formula (“they’re more like guidelines, anyway”…s/o to Kiera Knightley for that awesome line in Pirates of the Caribbean, ha!)…

Power Up with Proteins

Easy Balsamic Roasted ChickenThe Easiest Slow Cooker ChickenBuffalo Chicken Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Get your Veggies on!

RoastedBrussels Sprouts RiceOven-Roasted Cauliflower Rice
Curry Cauliflower Rice (AIP)
Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Chimichurri

Make-Ahead Breakfasts for when “ain’t nobody got time to make breakfast in the morning”

Smoked Salmon Frittata with Caper Aioli

Butternut Squash Breakfast Sausage
Chicken Hash Browns

Roasted Garlic Chicken Sausage
Sweet Potato Sausage Egg Bake
Taco Egg Muffins
Breakfast Sausage Scotch Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs (great for snacks too!)

Post-Workout Goodness aka GIMME DEM CARBS MMKAY

Ginger-Garlic Sweet Potato Wedges

Sweet Potato Toast

The BESt Roast CarrotsDill Roasted Carrots with Coconut Tzatziki Sauce
Sunny Sweet Potato Hash

No recipe needed!

Baked (whole) sweet potatoes
Make a mix of roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and squash!

Condiments to add some spice in yo lifeee

Homemade Paleo Ranch Seasoning
Pantry Staple: Primal Palate Spice Blends
Smoky BBQ Seasoning

Creamy Cauliflower Hummus
Paleo Ranch Dressing
Chimichurri Sauce
The Ultimate Dairy-Free Pesto

Avocado Green Goddess Dressing
Elote Cafe Onion Slaw
Secret Recipe Guacamole (Avocado Crack Sauce)

Spicy Mango Guacamole
Tahini sauce: mix equal parts tahini, harissa, and a splash of lemon juice with a pinch of salt and pepper!
Pantry staple: Tessemae’s Buffalo Sauce or Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
Pantry Staple: your favorite Salsa

PRO TIP: Not all your meal prep needs to follow recipes (ex. bake some sweet potatoes, hard-boil some eggs, grill some plan chicken and veggies), and you don’t even need to COOK all the food. For example, if I know I’m going to be making Roasted Brussels Sprouts on Wednesday, I’ll chop them up on Sunday and put them in a resealable bag to save myself some prep time when I come home a hangry monster on Wednesday night. It’ll make your life so much easier!

FAQs

Some benefits of meal prep:

Can help save money. Can ultimately save time. Can help with weight control, as you decide the ingredients and portions served. Can contribute to an overall more nutritionally balanced diet.

Combining many nutritional elements in a single dish saves prep and cooking time, is easier to store and clean up after, and is often every bit as tasty as something more complex and fancy.

The three meals per day concept originated with Englanders who achieved financial prosperity. European settlers brought their eating habits with them to America. Unfortunately, practicing antiquated, meal etiquette often causes you to consume calories when you're not hungry.

Yes, meal prep can help a person reach their weight loss goals. Preparing meals in advance means that they can ensure each meal is nutritious and can help them reach their goals — for example, they can ensure that prepared lunches contain enough protein and vegetables.

Possibly Time-consuming: Meal prepping may involve a time commitment, especially if prepped meals need refrigeration or freezing. Potentially Expensive: Buying the necessary ingredients in bulk can make meal prepping expensive.

While grocery shopping turned out to be a hair cheaper than even the cheapest meal kits, it's nearly even. If you consider the time and energy you save by forgoing long trips to the supermarket, meal kits might present the better value.

You'll have more dough in your pocket. Eating healthy tends to get a bad reputation for being overly expensive. But meal prepping saves money because you can buy ingredients in bulk, freeze extra food for later, and most importantly, spend less money eating out.

For those who want a quick and easy answer: It's generally cheaper to cook food at home than eat out. The reason so many people can get stuck on the question is the human psychology variable. People don't always spend wisely, and it isn't as if prices are always the same at a supermarket or a fast food restaurant.

One-dish literally means just one pot. And one cooking dish means very little clean up during and after the meal. Saving time on clean up frees even more time to spend as you wish.

Determining how much your time is worth and how much money you save can be difficult. It's also important to note that some meals at home are much quicker to prepare than the time you'd spend waiting in line at a restaurant. So according to the data, it's pretty clear you will save money cooking your own grub.

A: Eggs are one of the quickest products to meal prep. Find out how many portions you need for the week ahead, cook the eggs (cooking scrambled eggs only takes ca. 15 minutes), and then divide the food into individual portions to store in the fridge.

These include meal occasion, who will be eating, whether the food will be eaten out or at home, dietary needs, religious, cultural or ethical beliefs, the cost and availability of ingredients; current healthy eating advice and/or personal preferences.