Meal Prep For the Week With Me! (Eat Healthy and Save Money)

When was the last time you said, “Wow, I have way too much time on my hands!”

Maybe never? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish there were more hours in the day.

But what if I told you there was a way to maintain a nourishing and balanced diet, while saving money, without sacrificing precious time or resorting to unhealthy options?

That’s why I meal prep for the week every Sunday.

Why Meal Prep?

Meal prep is the idea of planning and preparing meals in advance, which can give you a bit more control over your nutritional choices and streamline your routine during the week. It's a powerful tool that can help you save time, eliminate stress, and achieve your health and wellness goals, all while indulging in delicious homemade dishes.

This is not only a huge time saver, it’s also a huge money saver.

Meal prep helps you stay within your budget by…

• Reducing food waste
• Buying in bulk
• Using seasonal produce
• Avoiding dining out
• Controlling portion sizes
• Planning your meals

Meal prepping for the week empowers you to be mindful of your spending while enjoying delicious, homemade meals that align with your financial goals.

How to Meal Prep For the Week

It's a Monday evening, I just got home from work, and on my way home did a shopping for the things that we're going to batch cook tonight.

So a few tips before we get into the actual batch cooking is 1) pour yourself a drink. I have a little mocktail here to enjoy as we are batch cooking and then think about what it is that you actually want to eat during the week.

How to Make Bone Broth

So I love having bone broth on hand. I love being able to make rice bowls for different lunches. I love having hard boiled or soft boiled eggs as a snack and then I always want to make sure that there's a dessert. So we are going to have a special guest to come teach you how to make a batch cook a dessert for the week.

Okay, so we are going to get started with the broth as our first activity. So what I did was picked up a roasted chicken at the store. You can always roast the chicken yourself but it's just gonna take more time.

I'm using my Instapot to make the bone broth because then I can just let it sit. I don't think about it. What I've done here is prepped the chicken, so I pulled apart the bones and the meat and what I really love about this is that you don't have to be super particular.

I left plenty of meat on the bones and that's just gonna make the bone broth better so you don't have to be particular as you're picking it apart.

So first we're going to add the bones to the Instapot and we're going to save this chicken to add either to the rice bowls or to have for a snack during the week, so that we just have on hand to get to put right in the fridge.

The other thing I add is mushrooms. It's up to you if you wanna add the whole mushroom.

I prefer to save the caps of the mushrooms and cook them later during the week and then I just add the bottoms of the mushrooms that I wouldn't want to eat anyway to the stock.

So, when you're making bone broth or stock, basically any leftovers in the kitchen as you're cooking during the week, I put them in a bag and I keep them in the freezer -- things like leeks, onions, carrots...the ends of things -- just put them in a plastic bag and then use them when you're making broth.

For example, I have onion skins here. That's a perfect ingredient for bone broth. So we're gonna add onion skins, and then we're also gonna add an onion for flavor.

The other thing that you want to add is herbs. I have thyme growing in the garden outside, so we're gonna add some thyme to our bone broth.

If you have a bay leaf, you can add a bay leaf. It's up to you.

And then we're gonna fill it with water.

So you see, what we have going on, it's really beautiful.

You're gonna fill it up to just past all of the ingredients, but not past the max line of the Instapot.

Okay, so we've filled it with a good amount of water and then add the secret ingredient: a little bit of apple cider vinegar. Just a splash. And that helps the flavor come out of the bones when you're making bone broth.

Then we're going to turn the Instapot on broth and press and then it just starts.

Done!

So, this is going and I don't have to think about that again. We can cook everything else.

How to Make Rice

The next thing we're going to make is the rice, because that takes the longest.

So, I have here 2 cups of water in my pot, and I'm going to add my cup of rice.

A couple secrets for making really good rice:

First, add garlic.

I have a couple cloves of garlic here that I'm going to smash on their sides and add right to the pot.

Next, add a circle of olive oil on the top and two big pinches of salt.

Rice is a great base because it's super easy to make.

So we're going let this boil, and then as soon as it's boiled, we're going to turn the heat down to the lowest setting, cover it with a lid, and simmer it on the smaller stovetop. We'll let that sit for about 30 minutes.

How to Bake Sweet Potatoes

Backing up to the sweet potatoes, because they're also gonna take a long time and then I'll have a little bit more oven space to work with.

These are sweet potatoes that have been cubed by my very strong and amazing husband. I've added coconut oil and salt to the bowl already and we're just going to pour it out onto the pan.

I should have remembered to preheat the oven because that would save us time.

Spread the sweet potatoes out.

We're gonna turn the oven to 400, so this probably looks like a large quantity of potatoes, and that is part of batch cooking. I'm making more than I can eat in one serving so I can eat these potatoes throughout the week.

We're gonna pop these in the preheated oven and let this cook for about 45 minutes and I'll check on them along the way with a fork to see when they're ready.

How to Grill Zucchini

The next thing we're gonna prep is the zucchini, which we're gonna barbecue.

Another element of batch cooking is making good use of the space, so we're using a lot of different appliances.

One of the creative ways I'm getting around the lack of space in the kitchen is we're gonna barbecue the zucchini.

That's gonna be great. You can just pick out of the fridge and eat it as a snack anytime and it's delicious.

First, I've cut this into little slices and we're going to cover them in olive oil and salt them before barbecuing them.

If you have a brush, you can use a brush, but you don't have to. You can also use your fingers and then add some salt and make sure you get the layer underneath.

All right -- those are ready to be barbecued.

(I let the zucchini go a little bit too long on the barbecue, but we're gonna take a little trick from Julia Child who said, "Never be ashamed of what you made." We're going to call this blackened zucchini and it still looks delicious.)

How to Make Soft Boiled Eggs

Back at the stove, we're going to boil an inch of water in the bottom of a pot, and once this water is boiled, we're going to add our eggs, put the lid on, and cook them for 9 minutes. You can cook them between 7 and 10 minutes; personally, I like my eggs a little runny.

Once they're done, to stop them from cooking, we're gonna put them in a bowl of cold water.

Especially with cooking it this way, you let them set so you can't eat them right away. You want to let them cool off. I like to put them in the fridge and then have them as a snack later.

So we have our rice cooking in the back, we have our water boiling for hard boiled eggs, we have our sweet potatoes cooking, and now we are going to cook the tofu.

How to Make Tofu

For the tofu, I've heated up coconut oil in the bottom of the pan.

You can use any oil -- you can use ghee, olive oil, avocado oil, and then we're gonna add these cubes of tofu.

I prefer extra firm tofu, and you're gonna add it in a single layer to the pan. And the reason that's important is that we are trying to brown every side of the tofu once it's in there.

Sometimes, you'll have to do it in two batches.

We're going to do 7 minutes on this side and then 7 minutes on the other side.

To the finish off the tofu, now that it has browned on all sides, we can turn off the heat. This is a vegan tofu, so our cheese is nutritional yeast.

What we're going to do is add nutritional yeast to tofu while it's in the pot and this gives it a really delicious cheesy texture.

Stir it around and then add soy sauce to it as the very last step.

Then, here we have a really good stovetop tofu that we can then add to our rice bowls or eat as a snack anytime during the week.

How to Assemble Rice Bowls

Okay, we just took the sweet potatoes out of the oven and everything is ready. This is where the fun begins.

We have our rice bowl base, and then we're just going to add the toppings that we've cooked.

So, we have a little bit of zucchini, we have some sweet potatoes, we have tofu, we have the perfectly soft boiled eggs that we just made, and then I like to add a bit of kimchi to the top and some cilantro from the garden.

Since I'm going kind of Asian with my rice bowl, I like to add sesame oil, rice vinegar, and sesame seeds.

Voila! We have dinner the night that we're batch cooking or we have lunch any other day this week.

I'll put the leftovers that we've already cooked into Tupperware and have those ready to go in the fridge.

How to Make an Easy, Healthy Dessert

This is a great dessert that's also sugar free, good for you, and easy to make.

You just blend some chia seeds -- I have 3 tablespoons of chia seeds blended into the coffee blender -- and then 2 tablespoons of this cacao powder. No sugar in it, just a dash of vanilla, a tablespoon of maple syrup, and I like putting some protein powder in there too, so it's just a little bit protein in the meal.

Then add whatever milk you have around -- rice milk, almond milk, regular milk.

Give it a stir, then put the lid on, give it a good shake, and leave that overnight in the fridge.

It kind of makes this chocolate pudding that's really low sugar and super delicious.

You can take little bites at a time or you can just have it as a snack to go.

What Next?

This was just my go-to basics, but now you have the tools and the mindset to take charge of your food budget and create delicious, cost-effective meals week after week.

Remember, meal prep is not just about saving money, it's also about empowering yourself in the kitchen, fostering better eating habits, and gaining more time for the things you love.

If you’re looking for more inspiration and want to read the book that made me start to love cooking, check out Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy & Grace.

Like I mentioned earlier, if you want to learn how to build wealth and create the life of your dreams, so that you can have more time to cook — or do whatever it is you love -- check out our free masterclass and you’ll be on your way to financial freedom.

Happy cooking!

‍