Meal Prep Strategies That Actually Work

Midnight. Microwaving a sad boiled egg. Is this meal prep or just giving up? Most dietitians I know say you have to start in chaos—fridge mess, onion bits hiding in the spinach. Cross-contamination? That’s just “efficient” in my kitchen.

Prepping Ingredients In Advance

Chopping onions in bulk is weirdly meditative until your eyes burn for two hours. But if I’ve got bags of prepped peppers, carrots, broccoli jammed next to the almond milk (which, by the way, always spoils first), dinner happens in 8.4 minutes. Supposedly. Taste of Home says so.

Eggs, rice, chicken breast—if I actually portion and cook all that Sunday, leftover confusion doesn’t matter. Pros swear by storage bins for each food group. Kristin Smith, MS, RDN, said prepping overnight oats saves her “fifteen angry mornings” a month. Label everything or you’ll eat taco meat for breakfast thinking it’s turkey.

Everyone loves salad jars until the vinaigrette explodes. I keep dressings separate. Vegetables stay crisp, life is better. Pro tip: freeze chopped onions so you never deal with limp bulbs again. That’s meal prep. Or survival, depending on the week.

Batch Cooking Ideas

Batch cooking is only good if you want chili three times a week. Works until Tuesday, then I can’t look at anything red. I do “ingredient flows”: roast a ton of veggies and two proteins, then hack together meals all week. No getting stuck with a tray of coagulated lasagna. Nomadette explains it.

Nutritionists always say leftover chicken breast becomes “taco bowl, stir-fry, chicken salad.” Reality: “Why is my chicken sweet now?” If you batch-cook grains, let them cool before shoving in containers—otherwise, mush city.

Everyone says: don’t batch prep fish unless you want a fridge that smells like a dock. My roommate did sheet-pan salmon for a week; by Wednesday, the fridge was a fish tank. Soup freezes best, grains become fried rice with enough soy sauce to mask mistakes.

Go-To Recipes Nutritionists Recommend

I’ve never made a “balanced plate” without swapping half the veggies for carbs. No one notices. You can throw together dinner in 20 minutes if you stop caring about presentation. If you’re scraping leftovers at 7:30pm, congratulations, you’re basically a nutritionist.

Balanced Stir-Fries

Why do people act like stir-fries are this mystical, complicated thing? I grab whatever vegetables are threatening to die in my fridge—broccoli, snap peas, wrinkly bell peppers, maybe even some carrot that’s gone bendy—and toss them in a pan. Oil? I just pour until it looks right. If there’s chicken breast or tofu lying around, I hack it up with whatever knife’s clean. Chunks are never the same size. Doesn’t matter.

A dietitian once told EatingWell frozen stir-fry blends are cheaper, and honestly, that’s been true for me. All those influencer videos with perfect julienne? Nope. I dump half a bag of frozen brown rice in the microwave, squirt on sriracha, splash some low-sodium soy sauce, and suddenly everyone’s raving about “flavor.” I think it’s just the crunch distracting them from the fact that dinner took nine minutes.

Sometimes I ditch rice and wrap everything in lettuce leaves, which is supposed to be about calories, but for me it’s just because I hate dishes. Nourished by Nic says easy weeknight dinners can be messy and I, for one, am not arguing. I do not own a wok. I will never own a wok. Every recipe photo can keep judging me.

Hearty Soups in Minutes

You want to know the real “secret” to hearty soup? My blender. I dump in a can of no-salt white beans, whatever sad vegetable is lurking (zucchini, spinach puck, doesn’t matter), boxed broth, and blend. Lid stays shut until the mess is hidden. Salmon fillets can cook right in the soup. I only figured that out because EatingWell’s 20-minute dinner recipes casually mention it, like “gently simmer” is something my stove understands.

Spices? I just shake stuff in. Lemon juice and cheap parmesan fix everything. Sometimes I have to microwave the soup twice because someone’s late, and nobody notices. Supposedly you get more fiber and protein if you eat soup with whole grain toast, but I’ll eat it with leftover taco meat if that’s what’s in the fridge. Sorry, nutrition rules.

Every “meal in a bowl” ends up as weird minestrone or fake miso with peas and egg. That’s probably how soup even started—too much stuff, not enough time, and zero traditions followed. I pretend there’s a real recipe just to keep up appearances, but honestly, it’s just whatever I can blend and heat.