Food prepping. Just saying it sounds like more work than you want to do. Is it really worth it? The simple answer is YES. There are so many benefits to planning your meals. It’s healthy, saves you time, and most importantly saves you MONEY!

I know what you’re thinking because sometimes I think it too. I just don’t have time to meal prep. But you do! This post was sparked from us coming home from vacation to a house with no food and quite a few days on shift in my future. I was home alone with the baby and we all know that doesn’t leave you much time. Combine that with my need to wash and clean everything as soon as we get home and it left me feeling a little stressed at the thought of cooking.  Enter my biggest tip for all aspects of life.

Take a deep breath. It’s never as bad as you initially think it is. Just breath…

Ok. I didn’t want to leave my hubby and the babes home with nothing to eat and the same for myself for work. That so very easily leads to the need -I use that term loosely- to buy food out. And that’s expensive. And I’m not about spending money for food that isn’t a culinary adventure. So, I took my deep breath and came up with a plan.

Mind you I’ve done meal prepping a hundred times before. I know it’s not hard and I know it takes very little effort on my part, but I got in to my own head and I know it’s happened to you once or twice. We all need that deep breath and a reminder that we can do this! So deep breath in, plan in mind and I got to work. Minimal ingredients, total cook time 1 hour 15 minutes but total prep time (ie things you actually have to do) 20 minutes. Yes 20 minutes of your time is all it takes to create healthy and budget friendly meals for your family.

Meal Prep Plan:

I’ll provide a quick list of instructions at the end of this post in case you want to come back to reference it later. OR if you are they type of person who just likes to get to the point – totally understandable if you’re a busy mom!

*This post may contain affiliate links. They are products I believe in and I may receive a small compensation if you purchase anything through the link but you WILL NOT be charged anything additional than the normal price*

I always like to do a protein and 2 sides. The sides can be 2 veggies or a veggie and a starch. Just depends how I’m feeling or what we have on hand. I love to use these containers from Amazon. They have 3 compartments, are microwavable, reusable, dishwasher safe, BPA free, and at under a dollar per container pretty gosh darn thrifty. No, they’re not spill proof, but at 85 cents per container how much more can you ask from them?

Next you need a few ingredients. The key with meal prepping is keeping it simple. You want to make things that you don’t mind eating more than once and that you can add a little hot sauce, seasoning or lemon to and make it a whole different meal. For this meal prep I went with a pre-marinated pork butt (from Publix $5 on sale) and 3 chicken breasts (BOGO Publix making them $1.69/lb) for my protein as well as sweet and red potatoes, sliced cucumbers and cauliflower rice stir fry.

Now cooking these ingredients. The biggest time saver and my favorite new gadget is our Instant Pot. I fought it for a bit but after I got over the very small learning curve I fell in love. You can cook frozen chicken breasts in less than 15 minutes! And that’s what I did here. I didn’t even take the time to thaw the meat out. Just grabbed whatever we had in the freezer and tossed it in. For the potatoes I simply cut up about 4 small red potatoes in to quarters and placed them along with 3 sweet potatoes I pierced on a baking sheet then sprayed them with coconut oil and sprinkled some seasoning salt on them. Last bit of cooking is the stir fry rice cauliflower – hello microwave. Slice some cucumbers and DONE!

Doing the math I averaged each meal to be a whopping $2.14. Plus I had a meal for myself and babes that night AND extra pork to set aside for the hubby to make himself some tacos. Point being, much cheaper and WAY healthier than what we would buy in a rush. It’s one of our biggest tips for cutting your budget without cutting your lifestyle. Check out my intro to budgeting if you’re interested. A bit of planning and very minimal prep is all you need to makes lunches and/or dinners for the week.

Quick guide

Ingredients:

• • • 3 lbs chicken breast – frozen
    • 1 pre-marinated pork butt – frozen
    • 3 sweet potatoes
    • 4 small red potatoes
    • 1 package cauliflower rice stir fry
    • 1 cucumber
    • Siracha, arugula, salad dressing, lemon for toppings
    • For storage:Meal prep containers

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400
• Cut red potatoes in quarters and placed on tin foil lined baking sheet along with sweet potatoes. Pierce sweet potatoes with fork, spray everything with coconut oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt. Place in oven and let cook for 50-55 minutes
• While potatoes are cooking. Put chicken in instant pot, sprinkle with seasoning of choice and set to for 15 minutes. When done let sit until Instant Pot self pressure releases (approximately 10 minutes). Pull chicken and divide up in to your containers.
• In same Instant pot add frozen pork butt. It’s already seasoned so just set pressure cooker for 45 minutes. When done let sit until Instant Pot self pressure releases. Shred pork and divide up in to your containers. We had half left over that I used for dinner as well as tacos for a quick lunch on days we were home that week.
• Garnish meet with sauce, lemon, or leave plain. However you would like to eat it.
• Microwave veggies of choice – we used stir fry cauliflower rice.
• Cut cucumbers in to slices, place in containers and top with dressing.
• Each container should have a protein, a veggie and a starch.
• Total time ONE hour and fifteen minutes!
• Congratulations! You’re done!!

So if you have a little time, random ingredients, and a few tools to help the process along (HELLO INSTANT POT MIRACLE) then you can create meals that are not only delicious but healthy and can save your family so much money!

Adding the extra meals the pork butt made for us it brought our average cost per meal to BELOW $2! Not too bad. Consider that even the cheapest value meal at a fast food restaurant will cost you at least $3.18 and that is if you are eating at the bottom of the barrel. Our family hasn’t eaten fast food in over 6 years. Yes, part of it is for health, but the other part is for our wallets. On our initial evaluation of our budget we were spending upwards of $700, yes seven hundred dollars, on food and snacks out. That’s insane! You don’t realize that running to a gas station in the morning for your coffee and quick breakfast is killing you financially, but it’s one of the biggest mistakes many people don’t even realize they’re making.

We’ve reduced our “restaurant” budget to between $150 and $200 per month (a little wiggle room if we have a birthday or anniversary that month) and half the time we don’t even hit that number. This includes all of our Starbucks runs, gas station grabs and late night frozen yogurt. By taking that small amount of time to meal prep we have saved upwards of FIVE HUNDRED dollars per month. Take a peak at your spending, a real peak and include all of the little things because they add up! If this sounds like something that interests you – who wouldn’t be excited about that?! – check out some of my other posts on budgeting!

If I can meal prep with this little acrobat on my leg. You can too!

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