To make your meal preparation and recipe making a breeze whilst on the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge, you need to think in an orderly, organised way to work out where you can find a few shortcuts.
If you’re organised and know what meals you’re making and what’s involved with them then you’ll never have the excuse of it takes too long to prepare your food and you’re more likely to stay on track with healthy eating choices.
Here are some tips to consider to help you find some short cuts when it comes to food prep during the May Challenge:
- Making a number of meals in one session is great as it gets you motivated and really organised for the week ahead. Check your Meal Plan and see what meals you could make ahead of time and then freeze in the number of portions you’re planning to serve.
- Freezer meals like soups, stews, pasta sauces, curries, pies, lasagnes, burgers and fritters are all great ones to look out for. Make them completely ahead of time or make an extra batch when preparing for a particular day and then freeze the extras to eat in another week of the Challenge.
- Look out for the Tandoori Chicken, Spicy Chicken Pea & Potato Curry, Mini Meat Pies, Chicken & Mushroom Filos, Quick & Easy Veggie Lentil Soup, Cumin & Carrot Soup, Lamb Burgers with Minted Yoghurt or the Black Bean Chilli Con Carne. These are all great recipes to prepare ahead of time and freeze to give you some short cuts during the week.
- Snacks like the Paprika & Parmesan Chips, Honey Walnuts, Chilli Tuna Dip, Apple Pie Bites are good ones to make ahead of time and store in the fridge, in an air tight container in the pantry or in the freezer as is appropriate. Then when you need a snack you have something delicious and healthy ready to go.
- Reading the weekly food prep blogs in the Challenge Hub will give you even more tips about which recipes you can partly pre-prepare, which veggies to chop and store, which meals to completely make ahead of time and freeze etc so you have loads of short cuts on hand.
- Most of the salads in the Challenge consist of some type of protein – seafood, chicken, beef, lamb etc, plus veggies and maybe some grains. So look through the salad recipes you’ve chosen and portion out the meats you’ll need for each one, marinate them ahead of time and leave in the fridge until ready to cook (or if not eating for a few days, freeze in the marinades and then defrost and cook when needed).
- You can do the same for grains like quinoa and couscous – prepare enough to cover two – three meals and then if assembling a salad you can just use what you’ve already got in the fridge. You can freeze cooked quinoa or rice in individual portions and just take out of the freezer to defrost a few hours before you are planning to make a meal.
- For your main meals like Dinner, have your meats separated in the right portion size for the number of people you’re serving and then you just have to cook it and assemble with the sides that go with each dish.
Don’t let not enough time and things being different from your usual routine become excuses for you. If you start new routines like pre-preparing recipes or scheduling in meal prep time each day, they’ll become new habits that the healthy version of you will thank you for.
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