Hacks to make meal prep less time consuming

[Avoidingthetwitch]

I’ve recently been promoted at work with a good pay rise and there will be some increased evening work- both prepping and attending meetings.

I’ve been trying to be healthier recently and prepping good lunches for work etc but increasingly getting in from work, cooking dinner from scratch and then making further meals for lunches at work the next day just seems to take so much of my evening time.

I’ve tried Gousto but while it is time saving, the meals are a bit carby for me and my daughter is vegetarian so I often end up cooking an additional meal for her ( she is disabled and very limited in being able to help). The veggie Gousto recipes are ok, but even more carb based, so that’s not a solution.

my husband will cook but he is extremely slow so it works better if he does other housework.

currently each evening I am prepping breakfasts ( overnight oats, yoghurt, berries etc, a big salad and some fish or chicken and then separate sandwiches and stuff for my daughter. I can only start this after cooking and clearing up dinner and it takes forever ( as does the washing of all the lunchboxes, which are dishwasher but still faffy)

does anyone have some good time saving tips?

Id make a big batch of whatever and then freeze it.

So Bolognese, curries, soups, casseroles etc even the rice is cook loads, cool and freeze in portions etc.

The husband can easily do this too.

For the actual prep, use Frozen chopped onions etc.

Are you meal prepping every day? I prepare every 3 or 4 days and eat the same thing during those days.

What kind of evening meals from scratch? Using a slow cooker could mean coming home to the bulk of the cooking done and save time but it depends what kind of food you eat.

We prep overnight oats in a big batch that lasts us 4 days or so. That might save some time!

Otherwise a standard but slow cooker? Prep the night before and leave in fridge overnight. Also look at the roasting tin books, I like the recipes in them. A lot can be prepped easily in advance. But even if not they're quite quick and low faff so once they're in the oven and cooking you can use that time to sort breakfast/lunch.

Things like overnight oats and salads keep for a couple of days, I tend to have two prep days on Sunday and Wednesday where I make enough breakfast and lunch for the next 2-3 days. Or make extra dinner so you can have the leftovers for lunch the next day with some bagged salad.

theres a batch cooking show on iPlayer, might give ideas (format is a bit cringey but some good tips). Making multiple portions and freezing is definitely a good idea, also look at Jamie’s 15 minute meals for ideas.

off the top of my head quick vegetarian meals:
brown rice with roasted peppers (use jarred), oregano, chopped spring onions, chopped parsley, olives, zest and juice of a lemon, chopped pistachios and crumbled feta served with side salad and a drizzle of cheat homemade tzatziki (Greek yogurt with a teaspoon of mint sauce stirred through). I batch cook rice and freeze, though sachets are convenient.
Enchiladas - chop and cook onions, peppers, chilli to taste, whole cumin seeds, add passata and kidney beans (or mixed beans), ground coriander, season, add chopped coriander and some grated cheese, put into wraps, place in an oven dish topping with more passata, grated cheese and coriander then bake 10 minutes. For a speedier meal just serve as fajitas without baking.

Green Chef boxes are better for lower carb meals and they have some veggie options too - you could order a mix??

Pre chop some salad stuff that will keep so only assembly needed: celery / peppers / radish

Have a look at some cook once eat twice recipes. It dishes where you prep a meal and make small tweaks to give a different second meal. I still consider it cooking from scratch if I use pre chopped veg (frozen sofrito mix, fresh stir fry veg, tinned beans or lentils etc). Fine as long as there are no added ingredients.

I got a kenwood kitchen aid shredder thing to speed up the chopping. Around £30, small so I leave it on the counter, only wash it up every few days. I was already fairly fast chopping, but this is really speedy and makes it so much faster to do salads with lots of different things in, or stews etc. Plus a culina pressure cooker, again really fast to make stews/soups and tasty.

I meal prep enough oats for 4 days.

With meals I make enough at a time for two meals. So make a meal tonight for 2 days and a meals tomorrow for 2 days then alternate them. Batch cooking for the freezer is also handy.

Lunches I do things like cut up chicken and air fry it then freeze it and add it to bagels/salads etc during the week.

Would two sets of lunch boxes work better? I’m think you can put Monday’s used on in the disher washer and use the clean one for Tuesday and by Tuesday night the one you used on Monday could have been left to dry onnthe draining board and be ready.

Once every 2-3 months I do a big “cook off” with my DH (who is “sous chef”, basically chops stuff up!) We spend a Saturday making batches of healthy meals (chicken casserole, beef beourg, gyoza, cottage pie, curry etc) then freezer in individual portions in disposable, recyclable containers. Bought a small chest freezer off fb market place to store it all and 2 cheapo big slow cookers to cook it. So we then just get out what we want to eat that day from the freezer and serve with frozen/micro veg.