How to Meal Prep for a Family of 4
Repast Prep Plan: How I Melt a Week of Family Meals for $75
Here's the thing: Fifty-fifty if you're on a budget, meal prep does not have to be boring or basic. Getting creative with wallet-friendly ingredients — similar staple grains and fresh produce — can give you a calendar week of easy meals for less than $75.
My family recently tightened our grocery budget and long gone are the weeks of prepping any meals strike my fancy. Instead, by streamlining breakfast, lunch, and dinner options, I can at present focus on repast prep that won't break the bank. Here'south how I prep a week of meals — breakfasts and lunches for two, dinners for iv — for my family unit.
Grocery budgeting doesn't have to be complex — starting with what is already in your pantry and kitchen is the all-time first pace. This Meal Prep Power Hour was really congenital off of things in my pantry and freezer, only the staples are ingredients you probably have as well — like rice and oats. At the grocery shop, I'm choosing inexpensive proteins similar chicken thighs and ground beefiness, and cheap vegetables like cabbage, canned tomatoes, and cucumbers.
While this prep plan focuses on variety at lunch and dinner (with breakfast being the same recipe for the whole week), you could easily pivot to use the same technique for lunch or dinner basics. By repeating i recipe for a single meal, you can cutting downwards on meal costs for the week. This meal plan covers breakfasts and lunches for two people, and (nigh) dinners for four people, but similarly, y'all could adjust to feed more or less depending on your family'due south needs.
Meal Prep Goals
- Breakfast: A no-brainer breakfast that I tin reheat and eat all week long.
- Lunch: Tiffin is the one meal I go to eat past myself, so lots of vegetables and flavor is the ultimate goal.
- Dinner: Big-batch meals that we can reheat and eat for 4 meals during the week.
- Nutritional Goals: My family eats a varied whole foods-focused diet with no restrictions or allergies.
Meal Prep Programme Snapshot
- Feeds: 1 to 2 adults for breakfast and tiffin. Plus dinners that tin can exist stretched to feed more at dinner.
- Prep Fourth dimension: 2 hours
- Meals Covered: 80% no heavy weeknight cooking and no weekend meals.
- Weeknight Cooking Required: A few quesadillas might need to be thrown together for kid dinners, simply otherwise minimal weeknight cooking.
My Meals This Calendar week
Breakfasts
- A large batch of Steel-Cut Oatmeal in Jars + frozen berries
Lunches
Dinners
My Shopping List
Here's where y'all actually need to pay attention to continue that budget in check: Purchase unmarried-item produce whenever possible (i.e., a head of romaine, not the 3-pack of romaine hearts) and shop the bulk bins for just what you demand of dry goods like rice and oats.
- Produce: three limes, 1 small head regal cabbage, 1 head romaine lettuce, 2 medium carrots, 1 medium English cucumber, 1 bunch fresh cilantro, two stalks celery, 2 small yellow onions, ane medium red onion, ane medium ruddy bong pepper, 1 head garlic, 1 medium tomato, 2 large sweetness potatoes
- Meat & Seafood: i ane/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, one pound footing beefiness, 2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- Refrigerated: 1 1/2 cups shredded balmy cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, Greek yogurt or sour cream
- Pantry: Steel-cut oats, creamy peanut butter, toasted sesame oil, 1 cup quinoa, 1/4 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, ane loving cup dried red lentils, 1 (15-ounce) tin pinto beans (or dried beans), 2 tablespoons tomato paste, fifteen ounces love apple salsa, 1 can chipotles in adobo, tortilla chips and/or taco shells.
Power Hour: How I Get Prep Done
Getting the most out of this Ability Hour's upkeep likewise ways putting a piddling more time into cooking, instead of buying prepped ingredients or shortcuts.
- Starting time barley for Power Bowls (oven): Baked barley takes most 40 minutes, so become information technology going first and it'll be ready nearly the same fourth dimension as the chicken is cooked and the bowls are fix to be built. Alternatively you lot can cook a pot of quinoa if y'all're following the Power Bowl recipe to a T.
- Melt steel-cutting oats (stovetop): The all-time way to cook steel-cut oats for reheating is to bring them to a eddy, cover, and remove to rest off the heat. If you lot detect yourself needing the stovetop space, movement the pot to a trivet elsewhere.
- Melt the Red Lentil Soup (stovetop): You lot'll accept to get this started then keep an middle on it as yous continue to prep the chicken and casseroles next.
- Roast Whole30 chicken thighs (oven): And their potatoes and crimson onions! The dazzler of this recipe is it takes just a few minutes and is totally easily-off.
- Melt chicken for Power Bowls (stovetop): This quick sauté of the thighs can be done without the peanut sauce for the bowls, so the meat can be used with dissimilar dressing later in the week. Now is also a expert fourth dimension to mix upwards said peanut sauce.
- Cook beef and beans for Taco Casserole (stovetop): Wipe out the pan you used for the chicken thighs and use this same pan for the goulash components for i fewer dish to wash.
- Grate carrots for Power Bowls and Cheese for casserole: Grate the carrots first and you can simply wipe the grater make clean before doing the cheese for the casserole.
- Chop veggies for Power Bowl and make clean greens for salads: Having extra salad components on paw means that I can turn either the Whole30 chicken OR the Power bowls into salads throughout the week.
- Portion oats, add together berries, build salad and bowls: Putting it all together — y'all can use up bits and bobs from the pantry to make the oats different each solar day or merely stick with frozen berries and a splash of milk. I packed a few Power Bowls, only left the rest of the components as salad options.
A Upkeep Power Hour Under $75
Breakfast
I chose to make just a single recipe for breakfast both as a way to keep my budget in cheque and streamline prep. While varying the toppings kept things interesting, next time I'd budget for some savory toppings and a few eggs so I can alternate between a fruity breakfast and an eggy one while nonetheless keeping oats as the base.
Tiffin
This was my well-nigh favorite luncheon week to engagement, maybe ever! I mentioned earlier that because I take small children and work from habitation, lunch is the ane meal I get to eat alone. Having colorful Power Bowls and a vivid soup to eat all week gave me a little midday boost and felt like the most glorious (but besides really bones) self-care.
Dinner
Nosotros alternated between eating salads topped with Whole30 chicken and variations on the Taco Goulash (the adults ate as salads, while the kids ate it in taco shells). We actually ended up with enough leftover components to have dinner (albeit anybody eating something slightly different) on Friday, too, an unplanned boon.
All in all, this meal programme didn't feel basic even though it was budget (read: information technology didn't experience like we were eating beans and rice and ramen all week to relieve a few dollars). It also reminded me of the financial power of shopping my pantry showtime, and that repast prep is a practical way to reduce stress both by keeping our food upkeep in bank check and feeding us well during the week.
Power Hour Repast Prep is the series where we assistance you put information technology all together. We show yous how to consume well during the week with an hour or two of Power Hr prep over the weekend. Every program is different; mix and match to observe your own personal sugariness spot.
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Source: https://www.thekitchn.com/budget-meal-prep-267065
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