Soon, many chil­dren will be out of school but, un­for­tu­nate­ly, adults still have to work and that means they still have to think about meals for the en­tire week. Every­one knows that get­ting take­away for lunch gets ex­pen­sive—and no, eat­ing two dou­bles is not a so­lu­tion to this. Of course, you can take a dou­bles break here and there, but when life calls for a sol­id lunch meal, dou­bles just won’t cut it.

We have more than a few tips, tricks and meth­ods that will make meal prep­ping a breeze. Do not think you’re get­ting strict­ly sal­ads and veg­gies for this meal prep, we are talk­ing meal prep for se­ri­ous­ly hearty and de­li­cious lunch­es.

Stick With A Veg­gie (In Sea­son Prefer­ably)

Cook­ing one veg­etable for an en­tire week saves time and mon­ey. If you learn to cook one veg­gie in sev­er­al ways then there is ab­solute­ly no way that you will be­come bored with that veg­etable. For ex­am­ple, if pump­kin is in sea­son and you are get­ting a great price per pound, then pur­chase it. Roast your pump­kin and save half to puree with chick­en or veg­etable stock in or­der to make a soup and half as a side dish. You can al­so boil your pump­kin and mash it and then use the rest to mix in with mac and cheese. That’s four meals with on­ly two cook­ing meth­ods. Just start think­ing ahead and use the In­ter­net and Propa Eats to your ad­van­tage when look­ing for cre­ative recipes.

Cap­i­talise On A Sun­day Lunch

If you’re usu­al­ly the per­son cook­ing up a storm on a Sun­day morn­ing, then use that op­por­tu­ni­ty to make ex­tra for through­out the week. Af­ter all, you’re al­ready do­ing all that cook­ing—why not do a few ex­tras to make your week eas­i­er? Pop­u­lar Sun­day lunch items like dhal, callaloo and red beans freeze well and can eas­i­ly be in­te­grat­ed in­to lunch through­out the week. Those foods can al­so be thinned out to make soup so that your lunch doesn’t re­peat the en­tire Sun­day lunch menu.

Our favourite ways to cap­i­talise on Sun­day lunch:

Stewed/Roast­ed/Cur­ried Chick­en - Be­sides the ob­vi­ous re­heat­ing and eat op­tion, you can al­so shred the meat off the chick­en and turn it in­to chick­en sal­ad for sand­wich­es or ex­tra pro­tein for sal­ads.

Rice - Make stale rice in­to flavour­ful fried rice filled with veg­gies and pro­tein (maybe left­over chick­en?) or add it to sal­ads to make it even health­i­er.

Veg­gies - Roast­ed or steamed veg­gies are great for throw­ing in­to omelettes, mac­a­roni pies for ex­tra nu­tri­ents, or adding to fried rice and sal­ads.

Write It Down

Writ­ing down your plans for the week can help you keep your meal plan on track and re­mind you of ex­act­ly what needs to be cooked. The most heav­i­ly used ex­cuse against meal prep­ping is, “I’m just too busy.” Writ­ing down your meal plans, es­pe­cial­ly with a sched­ule at­tached, will help you or­gan­ise meal prep­ping around even the busiest of weeks.

Most peo­ple find the time to meal prep on a Sun­day, how­ev­er, Sun­days are not al­ways clear —sched­ul­ing your meal prep will help you de­ter­mine which days of the week it can be spread across. Try to keep it con­sis­tent. We rec­om­mend fit­ting meal prep in­to the days where you have al­ready de­cid­ed to cook (whether it is for a par­ty or din­ner). You will find that it’s a lot eas­i­er to ded­i­cate days to the kitchen than to al­ways have to deal with clean-up and prep.

Meal prep­ping al­so helps you de­ci­pher what dish­es go to­geth­er and what is need­ed from the gro­cery. Cre­ate a list of what is need­ed against what you have in your kitchen cup­boards so that noth­ing is missed out. Left­overs and on-hand in­gre­di­ents do not al­ways make the most sense how­ev­er, writ­ing it down can help clear up what may seem like a con­fus­ing mess of dish­es and in­gre­di­ents. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, you may re­alise from look­ing at your sched­ule that an odd com­bi­na­tion like toma­toes, boiled eggs and pota­toes would make a de­li­cious pota­to sal­ad.

Cook And Think Mul­ti­pur­pose

‘Toma­to cho­ka’ does not have to be just ‘toma­to cho­ka’. In­stead, it can be a de­li­cious sauce for chick­en and rice or blend­ed and made in­to a yum­my roast­ed toma­to pas­ta sauce. Sim­ply think­ing out­side of the box can open up your meal prep­ping abil­i­ties and al­low you to whip up sim­ply de­li­cious and gourmet meals in al­most no time. Al­ways think of the main in­gre­di­ent in a dish and re­mem­ber what it’s used for in oth­er dish­es. For ex­am­ple, beef is the main in­gre­di­ent for stewed beef and it is al­so used in sand­wich­es. If you re­al­ly don’t feel like eat­ing stewed beef again then, use the beef as you would any oth­er chunk of beef and throw it in a sand­wich or in pas­ta. Bear this in mind when cook­ing and al­ways make more.

Keep Time in Your Mind

Time is of the essence when meal prep­ping. Al­ways think of what will take longest and be­gin with that. Sim­mer­ing beans, cook­ing meat and ba­si­cal­ly any­thing in­to the rice or slow cook­er will take ex­treme­ly long so, be­gin with that.

Keep­ing time in your mind al­so means know­ing when to cut cor­ners. There is no shame in open­ing a can of beans in­stead of boil­ing them for hours. There is al­so noth­ing wrong with mak­ing use of canned tu­na, salmon or sar­dines. They can eas­i­ly be made in­to yum­my snacks and lunch with min­i­mal in­gre­di­ents. We sug­gest mak­ing sar­dine, salmon or tu­na sal­ad on a Sun­day evening and keep­ing it in the fridge to add to sal­ads or toast for easy break­fasts and snacks.