My ideal Sunday consists hitting up the grocery store and spending a few hours in the kitchen prepping food to have on hand for a good week. Ideally, I’m even creating a plan Saturday night while laying on the couch multitasking between watching a show and scrolling Pinterest. By Sunday morning I like to have my grocery list written out, along with a list of recipes/foods I want to prep.
Obviously I have young kids so this doesn’t always happen, but I really make an effort to carve out the time because it makes a significant difference on the week ahead. It takes longer, but I will also include them in the grocery shopping and prep if needed.
I thought it would be helpful to share my thought process on what I like to meal prep on Sundays and provide some of my favorite recipes.
I like to prep some sort of breakfast, lunch, and snack items ahead of time. I don’t prep much ahead of time for dinner, but having a written plan helps me stay on track throughout the week. I will also grocery shop for the dinner items ahead of time so they are in the fridge ready to go.
Breakfast
I am back on a juicing kick, so I have been making 2-3 juices at a time using my mini juicer. I usually make some sort of celery, cucumber, parsley, ginger, lemon mix. I store the juice in these glass bottles and will have one either before or with breakfast.
Recipes I rotate through:
No Oats
Egg Bites (lots of options if you look egg bite recipes)
Granola (pair with Greek yogurt and berries)
Lunch
Lunch is the hardest meal for me. What’s been working best is to either have leftovers from the night before or having a some sort of dense bean salad ready to go.
Violet Witchel is the queen of dense bean salads and has so many recipes if you look her up on Instagram or Tik Tok. There are a lot of recipes online too if you google dense bean salads you can find a flavor profile that works for you.
Having a huge batch of cut of veggies, beans, protein all ready to go makes lunch so much easier and nutritious. My husband loves these salads too.
Snacks
Flax bread
Energy bites I like to make a different recipe each week.
Hard boiled eggs
Simple Mills muffins The girls love these. I add in a smashed ripe banana and dark chocolate chips.
Homemade perfect bars
Cottage cheese bread
Meal Plan for Dinners
Like I said, I’m typically scrolling through Pinterest Saturday night and saving dinner recipes. I will also screen shot any recipes that look good from Instagram or Tik Tok that I want to try and then scroll back on my photos Saturday and add to my menu.
I typically plan out Sunday-Thursday night. Sunday might be a more labor intensive/fun recipe I’ve wanted to try if we have a lazy Sunday or it will be something on the BBQ if it’s not raining. Mondays I work and don’t get home until 5:30ish and Quinn has soccer at 6:30pm, so if I can have something prepped ahead of time that’s ideal. I’ve been making this meatloaf on Sunday and then have my husband pop it in the oven for dinner on Monday. Tuesday-Thursday I try and find recipes that only take about 20 minutes prep time.
When thinking about what recipes/meals I want to make throughout the week I try and vary the protein. I like to incorporate a variety of protein sources including chicken, beef, ground turkey, shrimp and salmon.
It doesn’t always happen exactly as I planned, but having a written plan helps me stay on track so I am not scrambling for ideas at 4pm. I’ve also started to have my husband help with dinners more. He’s a great cook and enjoys being in the kitchen, so depending on the recipe I will usually task him with the protein.
Follow us on Pinterest as we are always pinning our favorite recipes and inspo.
xx, A
