If you're on social media, you've likely seen meal prep ideas scattered across the profiles of friends, family, and celebrities. That's because prepping healthy meals is the easiest way to keep yourself on track with diet and nutrition. You can set aside some time on the weekend to get plenty of wholesome meals and snacks ready for your entire family, which can be helpful when your weekdays are packed with to-dos. To make that meal prep less stressful, though, you need to have your kitchen set up properly. Here are a few tips to help you do just that.
Start by Cleaning and Organizing Your Kitchen
At the core of a successful and stress-free meal prep routine is proper organization, so check Pinterest for organizing tips that will streamline the process in a way that works for your kitchen. For example, these pantry cleaning ideas will make it easy to find ingredients. You can label cute glass storage containers to keep your pantry looking tidy and organized enough to share on social media, and use crates to keep meal-prep containers and bags neatly tucked away.
Add a Few Meal Prep Tools and Essentials
One staple every meal-prep chef needs is a cutting board. Small ones work great in cramped kitchens, but if you have the counter space, a large board will help you knock off multiple food-prep steps with less cleanup. To make chopping all those healthy fruits, veggies, and proteins a little easier, you should also invest in a collection of knives. At bare minimum, you should have a sharp chef's knife for slicing and chopping, but paring and serrated options are perfect for handling veggies like soft tomatoes and shallots. Finally, no meal-prep kitchen is complete without a set of containers. You can choose from glass, metal, or plastic, but think about getting matching sets to keep your pantry looking tidy.
Make Cleaning Up a Breeze
Preparing meals ahead of time is an effective and simple way to achieve your health goals. On meal-prep days, though, you are bound to be left with some messes in your kitchen. Since you worked so hard to get it clean and organized before, make sure it stays that way. Use these 15-minute kitchen-cleaning tips to make all of those meal-prep messes disappear so you can get back to enjoying your weekend. Keep your trash can or compost bin handy while dicing and slicing so you can scrape away scraps as you go. One of the perks of meal prepping is dealing with fewer dishes, but you can let the dirty ones soak while you move on to other cleaning steps.
Setting your kitchen up for meal prep is pretty simple. You just need to keep your kitchen organized and have the right tools for prepping and cleaning. Then, you will be all set to prepare healthy meals and snacks for your family.
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