Meal prepping is one of the best inventions for people who want to eat healthy but work full-time jobs or have other commitments that keep them from cooking every day. Meal prepping is so much healthier than the food your company/work provides for you and so much cheaper than ordering takeout every single day.

I know that it keeps me on track while making me feel like I am always in control of how my body feels and what I eat. Are there days that I order takeout or crave freshly made food? Absolutely, but meal prep gives you the freedom to do so whenever you want to. Just because you prep your meals doesn’t mean that you have to eat that same meal every single day of the week. You have the freedom to make your own decisions but having the meal prep there will allow you to fall back on that and be in control of your food. Rather than not having your meal prep done and being forced to eat whatever is convenient and fast, which usually comes with highly processed and sugar heavy meals.

The notion that meal prep is boring, takes up a lot of time or doesn’t taste good is absolutely not true. Meal prepping is not about just eating boring old chicken, rice and broccoli. Those are just opinions from people who haven’t really invested energy into their meal prep. Meal prepping can be so made so much easier and more delicious by following some simple tips and guidelines.

So how do we make things easier, more delicious and save time? Here are some tips that I use whenever I meal prep

1. Buy pre-cut or frozen veggies

Speaking from experience, cutting up vegetables takes up the most amount while cooking and preparing food. ”fresh” vegetables are not necessarily healthier than frozen ones. It takes days, maybe even weeks for the ”fresh” vegetables to get to the store, whereas the frozen veggies get frozen almost instantly. Because it gets frozen instantly it’s actually much fresher than what we consider to be ”fresh” vegetables. So, pre-cut/frozen veggies are fresh and save a lot of time while meal prepping.

2. Buy high-quality meats and other products

Buying high quality meat is something I try to do regardless of the circumstances because it makes cooking so much easier and taste better. With lesser quality meats you have all that ”water” pouring out of the meat which makes cooking take a lot longer and not taste as good.

3. Make a plan

There’s nothing better than having all your ingredients ready to go and a plan to go along with it. On the other side, meal prepping can take so much longer if you don’t know what meal you want to cook. I always buy my ingredients with a meal in mind, this will also keep you from wasting A LOT of food

4. Supersize your meal

If you’re like me and you love eating freshly made meals whenever you can, use that opportunity to your advantage. Throughout the week, I know when I will be home to actually cook, I use those moments to simply make more food. Like I said before, meal prepping can be so simple and easy if you approach it like this, just make more of whatever you are going to cook for yourself

5. Spices, oil and salt

The number one thing I use to make my food taste good are spices, actually just 3 of them. I mainly use garlic (powder), oregano and salt. Those 3 spices make a world of difference, but I also tend to use things like paprika powder, turmeric and low-sugar soy sauce. You just have to find flavors that you like and that matches the meals you’re trying to make for yourself as well.

*Pro tip: Adding a boiled/fried egg and or cheese will transform basically any meal.

I know that it might be ”embarrassing” to take your own food to work but at the end of the day who cares? I was in that same situation about a year ago, after a couple days or so people won’t even care anymore. After a couple weeks or maybe months you will see that 1 or 2 people (or more) will follow your courage and start their own meal prep. Trust me, I have seen it happen to multiple people.

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