Sick of eating the same thing every day? This guide will show you how to cook a week’s worth of meals in one day, so you’ll never be bored again.
How To Prepare A Weeks Worth Of Meals In One Day
Eating healthy meals is important for you and your family. But, there is so little time between arriving home from work and sending the kids off to bed. Should you use an hour preparing a healthy meal or spend that time chatting about your day? Likely, it’s preferable to use that time to be with family. Preparing meals in advance is an easy way to “create” more time during the week to spend doing something fun instead of rushing to prepare a meal.
It’s easy to create a menu for an entire week and cook all of the meals in one day. Taking two or three hours on a weekend day to plan will allow you to quickly heat and serve delicious, healthy meals during the week. Interested? Below are some tips:
Prepare only 3 or 4 meals per week. Leftovers are a wonderful invention. Take advantage of them as often as possible, especially since it will allow you to spend less time in the kitchen. Have just enough “new” dishes to ensure that no dinner will be served two days in a row.
Invest in a slow cooker. Also called crock pots, these fantastic time savers are inexpensive and can turn five or six ingredients into a yummy meal. Cook anything from soup to chili to barbecue to ziti. Even place frozen meat inside. You can cheat a little bit by cooking one recipe in the crock pot and preparing and storing the ingredients for another meal on the same day.
Then, in the morning, just put all of the ingredients in the slow cooker and you’ll have another meal by dinner time. In addition, you may be able to freeze a portion of the food you make. For instance, if you make four pounds of barbecue and there are only three of you in the family, it’s possible to freeze half and still have more than enough for two meals.
Make casseroles. Big ones that are cooked in 9 x 13 dishes. Think lasagna or chicken divan. Most of the casseroles that you ate as a child can be made with healthier ingredients (think onions and zucchini instead of ground beef in that lasagna). And, they can be packed with enough meat and vegetables to serve as an entire meal. Just add wheat rolls!
Use the grill. If your family enjoys pork tenderloin or London broil, grill one for dinner that day and save the rest for another night during the week. Or, make lots of kebobs. They store well in the refrigerator for a few days and can be made with both meat and vegetables, making a complete meal. The second time around, have a different side dish and it will be a completely different meal. Extra meat is also good on salad. Later in the week, cut up the leftover meat and add to a dinner-sized salad (with a boiled egg if extra protein is needed) for a quick and healthy meal.
Institute soup and sandwich night. Heat up the soup and have every person make a sandwich. A yummy classic dinner in less than 15 minutes. It’s great for nights when you need to be back out the door at 7:00 or after a late meeting or late football practice.
Invite friends! Make a date to have dinner with friends once a week. Have everyone bring whatever is left in the fridge from the week for a big potluck.
Remember to keep the makings for salad, frozen vegetables, and other staples like pasta sauce and beans for quick additions to meals during the week. Serving a main dish with different sides is like serving an entirely different meal.
