5 Meal Prepping Tips For Busy Moms

Do the words “meal prep” frighten and exhaust you at the same time? I can totally relate to how your feeling because I used to be the same way before I changed the way I actually meal prepped.

Meal prep: is the weekly preparation of meals for a period of time usually longer than 2 days.

Dinner used to be one of the hardest meals for my large family, especially during busy sports seasons. After school is filled with homework, mentally decompressing from school, and getting ready for sports practice that evening. This doesn’t leave much time to cook before we leave for practice and by the time we get home the kids are starving, so cooking after practice was defiantly not an option!

The worst part was, not having a plan or idea of what I was going to cook each night caused me to waist even more time looking through my kitchen deciding what we were going to have. Eventually I had reached my frustration point, pain point, “whatever you want to call it” point and decided to really learn effective weekly meal planning for my family to have smoother evenings and more mental sanity for this Momma!

These are my 5 meal prepping tips that work best for me as a “Busy Mom”!

Every great task has a foundation or plan attached to it. Having a map of the week to guide me through the grocery shopping and other preparation allows this process to go much smoother then deciding the dinner menu the night of.

A few days before the week starts I sit down with a note book and my family planner to decide which meals my family will be eating the following week. I use this time to look through my cabinets to see what ingredients I already have to use. ( This is actually a great tip to save on my grocer bill too. ) Having my family planner or family schedule for the next week with me allows me to choose meals that are quick on really busy evenings like when all 3 kids have practice in one night.

Having this plan or foundation of meals for the following week decided really helps me to avoid waisting time trying to figure out what we are having the night of and gives me a boost of confidence going into the week.

I wish I could tell you I have this amazing nannie who does all of my grocery shopping for me or she at least keeps my kids while I go grocery shopping BUT that’s jut not the case for this Momma.

I usually have a least 1-2 kids with me while I’m shopping. While they have pretty good behavior in the stores it’s still extra mental stress on me while trying to make sure I get everything on my list. Since we focus on a “clean eating lifestyle” I’m not able to get everything at just one store which means I have to make multiple trips home to drop off certain cold items before going to the next store.

This can be mentally exhausting, hard on the kids, and just super time consuming! To avoid that I really enjoy doing “grocery pick up”! This options allows me to not over spend on items I don’t need or that “look good” because I’m hangry from going store to store all afternoon. Plus, I use my afternoon to get the food prepared at home for the next week instead of running around at the stores. My time is much better spent!

In my home town there are 3 grocery pick up options Walmart, Sam’s Club, and United Market Street. I’m sure there are others in larger cities so I encourage you to find what options you have in your local community too.

We are a big left over family! When I am planning my meals for the week I try to choose meals that we can eat 2 nights in a row or the kids can take some leftovers with them to school the next day.

This allows me…

a night off from cooking ( less dishes…this Momma gets over whelmed with dishes as a family of 5! )
quick meals for when we have unexpected things come up during the week
yummy options for the kids when they are tired of sandwiches in their lunchboxes

Doubling the recipe is a great way to “work smarter, not harder” and that’s defiantly the type of Motherhood tip I need to be successful!

Something that really simplifies the crazy during the week is taking the time to “prep” ahead as much as possible on the weekends. Prepping ahead can include:

browning extra ground beef and freezing to use later in the week
cutting up, spiralize, or roast a weeks worth of veggies
cooking chicken breast to warm during the week
boil extra eggs for the week

Freezer Meals are meals that are we almost complete, but they just need to be warmed or browned in the over for 25-30 minutes before eating. These are great options for my family when the kids want to eat dinner before we head to practice instead of after. Several of the meals we enjoy that are healthy can be made into freezer meals.

There are some technicalities when it comes to prepping and reheating freezer meals, best meal storage, and which foods don’t freeze well so make sure you do your research before spending the time creating freezer meals.

“If you don’t have a plan and leave your food choices to chance, there is a good chance your choice will be fast food” -real mom talk

I hope these 5 meal prep tips will be super helpful to you and create less mental stress over dinner each night! Please feel free to save these tips to your Pinterest board to review them later too.

I pray your season of Motherhood is full of joyful memories, belly laughs, and extra snuggles!