Looking for the easiest way to meal prep without breaking the bank {or losing your mind}? I've got you covered! I'm going to show you best ways to meal prep on a budget without losing your mind!
These easy meal prep ideas will help you lower your grocery bill and avoid hitting the drive-thru for fast food. And if you're trying to eat healthy, check out these tips to help you eat healthy on a budget.
How to Successfully Meal Prep on a Budget
There are tons of benefits to meal prepping. But while most people know that planning meals ahead of time and prepping the ingredients can save you time and money, the whole idea may feel daunting.
Many people think it takes a lot of time to plan and make meals that will be both healthy and full of nutritious foods while still being affordable. Today I'm going to share some of the my best meal prep tips that will help you stay on budget.
Use The Same Ingredients In Multiple Recipes
One of the best budget meal prep tips is to fill your grocery list with ingredients that you can use in a variety of ways.
If you plan on making a chicken dish, a fish dish, a beef dish, a pork dish, a breakfast dish, and 2 meatless meals, you're going to spend a fortune…and you'll probably have a lot of wasted food. My go-to meats are chicken and ground beef because they can be used in so many different ways.
I recommend choosing your recipes based on the ingredients you found on sale for the week. If ground beef is on sale, look for recipes that can be made with ground beef.
Or try to make substitutions with ingredients you may already have on hand. Just because a recipe calls for a particular ingredient, doesn't mean you need to use that exact ingredient.
If a recipe calls for beef but you don't have beef on hand, try swapping chicken for beef. I regularly use brown rice instead of quinoa and sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. Carrots are a good swap for parsnips and ground turkey or ground chicken can easily be used instead of ground beef.
Doing these things will not only save you money on groceries, but it will also help make meal prepping less tedious.
Keep Your Ingredients Simple
You don't need a bajillion ingredients to make delicious meals. Stock your fridge and pantry with basic ingredients that you'll use on a regular basis.
I like to focus on recipes that use simple ingredients. This is one of the most effective ways to make budget-friendly meals. While some people like to stick to the rule of thumb to keep each recipe under 5 ingredients, I don't mind recipes with more than 5 ingredients as long as they're not weird.
If you want to stretch your grocery budget even further, you can opt to focus on inexpensive ingredients. Food like eggs, beans, rice, lentils, and potatoes are cheap but nutritionally dense. You'll also find that using cheaper protein sources like chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts can help you stretch your dollars even further.
When you keep things simple, you're much more likely to stick to it long-term.
Use beans and grains
Another way to stretch your budget further is to eat more beans and grains. Both are inexpensive and healthy. They are also very versatile, which means you can create a variety of meals with them.
If you're thinking beans and grains means tacos, burritos, and salads, you'd be thinking small. Broaden your horizons and add meals like quinoa bowls, black bean burgers, or lentil soup. You can also use these items to stretch the meat in your recipes.
My Meal Prep on a Budget Secret Weapon
My meal planning on a budget secret weapon can be summed up in 3 words: Costco Rotisserie Chickens. If you've never tried a Costco Rotisserie chicken, you're missing out.
I get 2-3 Costco Rotisserie Chickens each week. When I get them home, I immediately take all the meat off the bones. I divide the meat up for any of my chicken recipes that week (and I also put some in a small bag that is for our puppy since we regularly give him chicken as a treat). Next, I take the bones and throw them in the Instant Pot to make bone broth.
Between the chicken and the broth, this sets us up for a great week. And since each whole chicken is only $5, I get a whole lot of bang for my buck.
Plan meals around store sales
One of the biggest meal prep challenges especially when factoring in your food budget is the actual meal planning. Batch cooking for a whole week means that you have to plan seven meals (or if you're planning for breakfast and lunch as well this can mean a whopping 21 meals). This can be challenging if your grocery store has limited options or no sales on meat items. But there are ways around this!
First, check out the weekly ad at your local grocery stores. Look for deals on meat and produce first as these are the things that will eat into your budget quickly.
Meal prepping on a budget is so much easier if you plan your meals based on the meat and produce that is on sale. Also look for sales on items like olive oil, butter
But there are other ways to meal prep successfully even when grocery stores don't have good deals.
Buy In-Season Produce
Choose produce that is in season to get the best bang for your buck. When a fruit or vegetable is picked impacts its nutritional value, so not only is it cheaper to buy in season produce, but it's also better for you nutrient-wise.
And if you don't mind produce that is a little on the ugly side, you can save a bunch of money on organic produce with Misfits Market. My kids get so excited when we get our Misfits Market boxes. They're filled with amazing seasonal produce and it's a fraction of what I'd pay if I bought it at the store.
Misfits Market is also a great way to branch out and try new veggies. And sometimes you can even try old veggies in new ways! Use this link to save $10 off your first order of $30 or more.
Another way to stretch your budget when your stores aren't having great sales is to shop your own fridge, freezer and pantry before heading to the store. By planning meals around ingredients you already have, you can reduce food waste and save money. With a little creativity, you'll find that you can create healthy meals without spending a ton of money.
Use Frozen Foods
Frozen foods can be a great way to keep your meal prep recipes affordable, while still making healthy meals for your family. Frozen fruits and vegetables are often cheaper than fresh produce and they last longer too.
Like I mentioned above, fruits and veggies are at their nutritional best when they are picked at the right time. While some people consider frozen foods to be nutritionally inferior, that's often not the case. Most frozen fruits and vegetables are allowed to fully ripen naturally, then quickly frozen after being harvested, which means they're full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
On the flip side, depending on where the produce in your market is coming from, it may have been harvested 2000 miles away and trucked to your region. Often times when this happens, your fruits and veggies are harvested before reaching their nutritional peak and then artificially ripened during transportation.
Think through you recipes so you can figure out if you can make what you want from frozen foods or if you'll need to adjust.
Stuffed peppers are an amazing, healthy recipe that can be meal prepped, but you can't use frozen bell peppers for this. You could try making a stuffed pepper casserole and opt to deconstruct your stuffed peppers. You could use meat, recipe, and chopped frozen peppers to make a casserole.
I don't use frozen meats that often since it's usually far cheaper to buy the meat raw and cook it up. While I typically buy a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts and use them for things like chicken fajitas, chicken enchilada soup, or slow cooker chicken chili, I have found that having frozen strips of pre-cooked chicken can make the difference between me opting to do a meal prep session and deciding I'm too tired.
Don't Be Afraid To Get Spicy
When you think of healthy food, you may think of bland food, but it doesn't have to be that way. Using spices is an easy way to get great flavor and to keep your meals healthy. Try adding taco seasoning, ranch seasoning, chili powder, onion powder, tumeric or even black pepper to your recipes for different flavors.
And try adding things like cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, or nutmeg to recipes like overnight oats to change up the flavors of your breakfast.
Use Dedicated Reusable Containers
Meal prepping on a budget can be made even easier by investing in some high-quality reusable food containers. I used to buy cheap plastic reusable containers, but I found they often broke.
I love glass containers because they can heated in the microwave, but I know some people hate glass containers because they're heavier to carry around. I work from home and homeschool, so I don't often have to take my glass containers anywhere.
In the summer when I cook for my parents as well as my family, I often use these containers since they're easier for them to take home.
There are a gajillion different types and sizes of reusable containers, so you need to find the ones that work best for you and your family.
The more you use the same size containers, the easier it will become for you to figure out exactly how much to cook so you have the perfect amount for your containers. It will make it so much easier to figure out portion size.
Use Up Your Leftovers
At our house, we do a leftover smorgasbord or a FFY (fend for yourself) night at least once a week. While some people choose to meal prep breakfast, lunch and dinner for an entire week, more often than not, people will choose some sort of hybrid approach to meal prepping. Some may opt to just meal prep lunches and to prep ingredients for dinners. Others will meal prep for certain days, but not others.
We often repurpose our leftovers for lunches or other dinners. If I make a taco casserole, we may use the meat and cheese combo later in the week for nachos or burritos. If I make burgers and there are leftovers, I may chop up the meat to add to chili.
If you have some chicken, rice, and veggies leftover from yesterday's dinner, you may want to make a pot of chicken, rice and veggie soup.
Get Your Family Involved
When you're first starting out, it may feel like you eat the same meals over and over…and that's ok! I've found that by including my family, I get a whole lot more meal ideas and more variety. And the good news is that the more you meal prep, the easier it'll get to come up with new meal ideas..and you'll find that you're much faster at getting food on the table and you'll find you don't repeat meals nearly as frequently…unless they are meals your family absolutely LOVES!
I have found that inviting my family in the kitchen to help me with the chopping and cooking makes things easier, quicker and more fun!
I've often done meal prepping sessions with friends. It's fun to each bring your favorite recipe or 2 and make them together. It's a great way to try new recipes and you can even save money because you're buying all the ingredients in bulk and splitting the cost.
Meal Prepping On A Budget Is Not All Or Nothing
You don't have to meal prep every single meal for every single week to consider yourself successful. Figure out where your meal planning, prepping and eating system breaks down, and focus on that.
Between my full-time job, my blog, and homeschooling, I've found that my days can be a struggle. Meal prepping breakfast has been a game changer for me. I typically make a month's worth of breakfasts in a single day (actually it typically takes less than an hour). I make breakfast burritos, ham, egg and cheese cups, and sausage balls for me (my family eats some of these things too) and I make blueberry muffins or pumpkin muffins for them. All of these are things I refrigerate (for the week) or freeze (if it will be longer than a week) and then pull out in the morning.
I also regularly keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge. They're perfect for adding proteins to a salad, making egg salad for sandwiches, and for grabbing as a quick and easy breakfast. Use this recipe to make perfect hard boiled eggs every time.
I typically prep meat as soon as I get it (browning ground beef, cooking chicken, or removing the chicken meat from a rotisserie chicken) and because of that, it's usually pretty easy to get dinner on the table for me. I do keep a few freezer meals on deck (like this chicken broccoli rice casserole), but for the most part, I tend to cook dinner on a nightly basis.
If you're a college student who is looking for quick meals that you can eat between classes, your meal prepping is going to look different than a mom of 4 kids who is trying to figure out getting dinner on the table after 3 different sports practices.
Meal Prep Ideas & Recipe I Love
When I watched my friend, Alea, author of Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches, prep a week's worth of breakfasts and lunches in under an hour, it was a total game-changer for me. Check out her book for fabulous recipes like Pizza Breakfast Cups, Cinnamon Roll Slow Cooker Oatmeal, Turkey Taco Rice Bowls, and so many more. It's filled with breakfast meal prep ideas and lunch ideas as well.
If you're looking for some cheap meals, these are a few that are regulars on my weekly meal plan.
Chicken and Broccoli Casserole
Chicken, Broccoli and Rice Casserole
Instant Pot Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Crock Pot Cinnamon Roll Casserole
Hopefully, you're feeling a little more confident about your meal prepping abilities! And if you have suggestions, leave them in the comments!
Pin These Meal Prep On A Budget Ideas For Later!
Leave a Reply