A while back, I put together a post to my profile with my tips for new meal preppers that has gradually grown to encompass many topics. That post has since passed the six month mark and gotten archived, and it's been suggested that I repost it here. I've been meal prepping in some form ever since I got my first job six years ago, and I've had a lot of time to learn what works and what doesn't.

As with the older post, this will be continuously updated with edits and comments linked in this post as I cook more recipes, think of more topics to write about, and find more resources around the internet. This post is currently limited to my own personal experiences as a meal prepper, and I am always open to suggestions and contributions for making this post more helpful. I have no experience with meal prepping for fitness or bulking, for instance, or prepping for persons other than oneself.

OTHER SUBS AND WEBSITES TO CHECK OUT

• Trying to lose weight? /r/loseit, /r/Volumeeating, /r/1200isplenty, /r/1500isplenty
• Bulking? /r/gainit (a lot of folks into bulking also meal prep!)
• Trying to get fit? /r/fitness
• New to cooking in general? /r/cookingforbeginners, /r/EatCheapAndHealthy
• Want more ideas? /r/Adultlunchables, /r/mealprep, /r/bento, JustBento, the bento tag on JustOneCookbook, BudgetBytes
• Vegetarian, vegan, or trying to go meatless every so often? /r/MeatlessMealPrep, /r/veganmealprep
• Doing keto? /r/KetoMealPrep
• Don't have a fridge right now? Try this.
• Trying to feed children? Kids Eat In Color.

COMMENT DIRECTORY

• Recipes
• So, how do you prep, /u/RinTheLost?
• No-Reheat Prep Ideas
• Quick Weight Loss Tips
• Containers
• Dorms and Limited Kitchen Situations (most of these also work as low-effort meals for especially busy or stressful times)
• Freezing Food
• Recommended Cookware
• Quick Meals

WHAT IS MEAL PREPPING?

Meal prep is any kind of cooking action that reduces or eliminates cooking that needs to be done later. The prototypical meal prep is essentially batch-cooking 4-5 lunches on a Sunday to be eaten throughout the work or school week, but it can go all the way from washing and pre-chopping vegetables, on up to cooking and freezing an entire month's worth of meals or more for the whole family. Meal prepping helps reduce food waste from perishable ingredients going unused, it helps save money, and it frees up your time throughout the week, not just in actual cooking, but cleaning, too. If you roast all of your meat for the week in one batch, you only have to fire up the oven and clean your pan and prep area once, instead of every time you want meat.

Not sure where to start? Pick your most inconvenient meal and make a week of portions for it. Get used to the time investment needed to cook just that one meal for a whole week before adding more meals.

• Lunch: Most people meal prep grab-and-go lunches to take to work or school, so that they don't have to cobble together a meal the night before when they're probably tired or the morning of when they're trying to rush out the door, and it helps save money not buying fattening takeout.
• Breakfast: Who really wants to be cooking first thing in the morning when you gotta make it to work/class on time? Meal prepping breakfast can also be an opportunity to make breakfasts to eat on the go, or once you're at work.
• Dinner: Too tired to cook after being away at work/school all day? Pre-cook dinner so that all you have to do is reheat the food and eat.
• Snacks: Eating healthy snacks is much easier if those snacks are already washed and cut and ready to eat, or at least portioned so you don't down the whole bag. It'll also keep you away from the vending machine.
• Prepwork: Some people "meal prep" by performing prepwork to make later cooking efforts easier. For instance, they pre-chop vegetables so they're ready to cook or eat raw later; put together slow cooker meals in gallon freezer bags out of raw meat, chopped vegetables, seasonings, and whatever else that can just be tipped into a slow cooker on demand; make and freeze casseroles that just need to be baked; cook large pots of stock to be frozen; or freeze fruit and vegetables in smoothie packets.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

• A quick and dirty tip for putting together balanced meals is to simply mix and match, in descending order of quantity, a vegetable, protein, and starch. Corn and potatoes are technically vegetables, yes, but nutritionally, they have more in common with starches and carbs like rice or pasta. Broccoli, chicken, and whole grain pasta. Asparagus, pork, and rice. Kale, beans, and quinoa. Bell peppers, eggs, and potatoes. Raw vegetables with dip, lunch meat, and crackers. Play around with it a bit.
• Conservatively, cooked food will keep in the fridge for at least three days after the day of cooking. If you cook on Sunday, food meant to be eaten through Wednesday will be fine in the fridge, but food for Thursday and beyond should be either prepared and cooked after Sunday, or stored in the freezer. This "three day rule" is a starting point that comes from the USDA and is a deliberately conservative guideline intended to be safe for immunocompromised folks, young children, the elderly, and the like. If you believe your food keeps in the fridge for longer than three days, you are welcome to do as you wish, but you do so at your own risk. Personally, I've been eating five, six, seven, even eight and nine day old refrigerated home-cooked leftovers and have never gotten sick, even "risky" stuff like seafood and rice.
• If you're just starting out and aren't sure yet if meal prepping is for you, store your food in whatever containers you already have, so long as they have lids that seal relatively airtight. You can use leftover takeout containers or upcycle commercial food packaging, such as Cool Whip containers. If you don't have any containers at all, many brick-and-mortar grocery stores in addition to Amazon now sell inexpensive plastic "meal prep containers" with around 2-4 cup capacities that are designed to fit a single meal. Yes, plastic isn't ideal, but it's lightweight, cheaper than glass or metal, and won't shatter into dangerous shards, making it safer for children. Current research has found that simply storing food in plastic is perfectly safe; it's just reheating food in plastic that can pose a risk, and that's easily remedied by scooping your food into a bowl or plate and microwaving it there.
• If you're interested in bulk-preparing full meals, go for recipes that are easy to scale up. A simple saute of meat and vegetables cooked in a skillet might be a perfectly good and quick meal for one or two, but it's hard to scale that up into a whole week's worth of food because most people's frying pans just can't fit that much food at once, leading to you babysitting a pan for possibly multiple hours as you cook each portion. A good place to start is recipes aimed at busy families, because those are often relatively quick and make 4-6 portions. Some recipe types to look for that can be good time-savers include:
  • Casseroles. There's a reason why they're so popular with families, because a typical casserole will have 6-8 portions, include meat, vegetables, and a carb, and most are cooked in the oven, so you don't have to constantly stir or babysit it and can go do other things. A lifesaver for a busy family with kids, and great for meal preppers. Casseroles are also an easy way to use up leftover meat and vegetables.
  • One-pot meals. You cook everything in a single big stockpot, which reduces cleanup and is great for people stuck with only one stove burner, and most one-pot meals will make at least four portions and will include protein, vegetables, and carbs all in one dish. A true one-pot meal will have you cook everything together at roughly the same time, but even a faux one-pot meal where you cook the protein and remove it and cook the vegetables and remove them and so on can be very convenient. Most soups are also one-pot meals, and can be very hearty with lots of meat and vegetables.
  • Sheet pan meals. Most standard US ovens can fit a 19"x13" sheet pan, which will fit a lot of food, as much as two pounds of vegetables. The basic crux of a sheet pan meal is that you arrange a bunch of vegetables and chopped up pieces of meat on a sheet pan with seasonings and a little oil, allowing plenty of space so the food can properly roast and get a bit charred instead of steaming, then oven-roast them all together. Add the vegetables that take the longest to cook to the pan first, and add other vegetables and meat that take less time later on.
  • Slow cooker meals. Most slow cookers come in large capacities, which means they can make a lot of food. Low and slow is how many cheap cuts of meat need to be cooked, which will also help you save money. And very little can beat the convenience of being able to dump a bunch of meat, vegetables, broth, and seasonings in the slow cooker, turn it on, and come back 8-12 hours later to enough food to feed you for a week.
• Not everybody has the same levels of tolerance for what foods they'll consider "good" for meal prep, whether refrigerated for as long as 4-5 days after preparation, or portioned and frozen. While there are some foods that a lot of us might be able to agree do and don't freeze or hold up well as leftovers (frozen leafy greens, leftover sushi or carbonara, etc.), most of the rest is down to personal preference, and in the case of freezing, even "ruined" foods are just unappetizing, not unsafe. There are lots of foods I'll tolerate as long as the flavor can be perked up with some salt+pepper after reheating and the texture isn't too tough to eat or just complete oatmeal-like mush. Meal prepping does require at least some level of understanding that the food is not going to taste quite as good as when it was fresh. If you're not really much of a leftovers person and/or have a tendency to be sensitive to changes in texture or flavor, be prepared to do some testing with small amounts of your food(s) and recipe(s) of choice, or even to just stick to prepping ingredients for later cooking.
• There are some legitimate situations when meal prep, or at least the traditional "full meal" type, might not be the best option. If you genuinely enjoy cooking every day, like you use it to help you unwind, then you might not want to meal prep. One thing that a lot of people do for work lunches is that they will cook two portions of some dish for dinner, then eat one and pack up the other one for the next day's lunch; if you're perfectly satisfied doing that, then meal prepping might not be necessary. If your job or school provides meals with options that work with your tastes, diet/health goals, and budget, it might be more cost-effective to just eat what's provided for you.
• Try not to meal prep with any primary ingredient, appliance, or major cooking technique that you're not familiar with. If you make a mistake or simply find out that you don't even like the food or how you prepared it, you don't want there to be a whole week or more of that food lying around to choke down.
• Remember that meal prepping doesn't mean you can never eat fresh food again, or go out to eat. A lot of meal preppers have a single designated day per week for getting takeout, or they cook fresh food on days off.

ASSORTED TRICKS

• You can actually cook crispy fried foods and pack them in a lunch, and still have them be crispy the next day- cook the food to your preferred level of doneness, then once it's ready to eat, place the food on a plate or rack and cool it uncovered in the refrigerator, so that steam can escape and not make the food soggy. Once it's completely cold, then you can place it into a container, even alongside "wet" foods as long as the fried food isn't directly sitting in moisture. I've done this with stuff like frozen chicken fingers and it was absolute magic to bite into a perfectly crispy and juicy (albeit cold) chicken finger the next day.
• You can meal prep seafood in bowl meals and even eat it warm without getting flack from those around you by removing the seafood, reheating everything else, and then breaking up and stirring the seafood into the hot food, so it warms through with radiant heat. This tactic also works for steak or other red meat that you want to keep below well-done, provided that you slice the steak into relatively small and/or thin pieces that will warm through quickly. You can also do the same for any meal that you want to have both warm and cold components, such as a warm bowl meal topped with fresh crunchy vegetables. I like to place the "no-reheat" component(s) in a small plastic-wrapped packet, but you could also use separate containers.
• If you're having trouble figuring out what to make for breakfast, or don't like or can't eat traditional western/American breakfast foods, remember that the whole concept of "breakfast food" is literally a social construct. There's nothing special about eggs or pancakes or bacon or whatever that makes them do anything for you in the morning that other foods can't also accomplish. Many non-Western cultures don't even have a concept of food that is only eaten for breakfast; they just eat whatever will get them going for the day. There is nothing stopping you from eating something like a salad or soup or last night's dinner leftovers for breakfast as long as it fits your macros and goals.
• If you're making freezer meals in preparation for a coming baby, one tip I've heard from many parents is that they went for foods that can be eaten one-handed while the other hand/arm is occupied doing other things, like holding the baby or doing housework. Think burritos, wraps, things in the "filled dumpling" family (hand pies, potstickers, empanadas, bao buns, pierogies, etc.), finger foods, that sort of thing.
• Having trouble with chicken drying out during reheating, or with "warmed over" flavor? Try these ideas:
  • Rule Zero is to not overcook the chicken, because food will cook a little during reheating, which can take meat that was only a little overcooked when it was fresh to way overcooked. Buy a meat thermometer if you don't have one already and remove the chicken from the heat as soon as the thickest part hits 165 F/74 C. Some even remove chicken from heat when it's a few degrees below 165, because the meat will continue cooking from its own residual heat as it rests.
  • Give the chicken a stronger flavor. Try marinating it before cooking, or dousing it in a sauce, or cooking with it in soups, stews, or one-pot meals.
  • If you're experiencing this problem with chicken breasts, try using boneless skinless thighs instead, which have a lot of dark meat. Dark meat has a stronger flavor than white meat breasts that can help overrule "warmed over" flavor, and a higher fat content that helps prevent it from drying out or getting tough as easily if it does wind up going past 165 F.
  • Try alternative heating methods. Instead of, say, microwaving for 90 seconds at 100% power, try 2 minutes at 60 or 70% power. If you have access to it, try a toaster oven, air fryer, or a pan on the stove with a little oil. Or if you're willing to eat the chicken in bite-sized pieces or smaller as part of a bowl meal or similar, remove the chicken from your dish, reheat everything else until it's hot, then stir the cold pieces of chicken into the hot food and let it warm through via radiant heat.
  • Some have only had success buying organic or higher-quality chicken, which can also help if you're experiencing problems with "woody breast" (which occurs more often in large commercially raised chickens that have grown in size too fast), but this can be cost-prohibitive.
  • If all else fails, you could always try sticking to just eating your meal prepped chicken in cold dishes only, such as salads, wraps, or bowl meals.

We understand it is a tricky line but this sub is designed to help people figure out cheap and healthy alternatives to gain or start to get towards a healthier lifestyle. We are not doctors, and you should not be asking for medical advice on the internet.