Meal-Prep: 5 helpful tips and recipe ideas

For many people, a healthy lifestyle coupled with a healthy diet has become unavoidable. However, there is often a lack of time and motivation to maintain this lifestyle. With Meal-Prep, you often save time and still eat healthy food. As a super side effect, you also save money. In today’s blog post, we have 5 helpful tips and various recipe ideas on the topic of Meal-Prep.

What does Meal-Prep actually mean?

Meal prep is on everyone’s lips and has really become a big trend. But what is Meal-Prep actually?

Let’s start with the simplest: Meal-Prep comes from the English language, stands for “meal preparation” and means nothing other than “food preparation”. And the name says it all. So when people talk about meal prep, in most cases they mean preparing food for the next day.

Professional meal preparers sometimes prepare a whole week’s worth of food. Beginners and newcomers start by preparing food for one day and maybe even “only” for lunch. All beginnings are hard, so don’t let this throw you off track.

You could either pre-cook whole meals and freeze them, or just pre-cook individual components to make it easier to prepare. Whichever way you prefer to go, we know it’s worth the work.

Meal-Prep as a fitness trend

Like many trends, Meal-Prep became popular in the USA. However, meal prep was not used by office workers, but by fitness enthusiasts. This is because it allows you to control exactly which nutrients and foods you eat.

Even though meal prepping started as a fitness trend, you don’t have to be a fitness nerd to benefit from it! Meal prepping can also make your meals healthier. You can make sure that you don’t eat too much fat, sugar or other unhealthy additives.

For inspiration, here is a recipe idea for a healthy snack in between meals:

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Vegan walnut banana bread

Ingredients

• 2 brown bananas
• 50 g oat flakes
• 100 g spelt flour
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tbsp linseeds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 60 g walnuts
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 70 ml plant-based drink
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder (if desired)

Instructions

• First preheat your oven to 180 degree.
• Next, mash the 2 bananas with a fork to a pulp and then put the mixture into a bowl.
• After that put the walnuts in a food processor until they are small and add them to the bananas.
• Then melt the coconut oil and add it to your mixture.
• Next, put all the remaining ingredients into the bowl and mix them well until you have a creamy dough.
• Then put the dough for the banana bread in a baking tray.
• If you like, you can also put some whole walnuts on top of the dough as decoration.
• Put the banana bread in the oven for about 40 minutes. If the top of the bread gets too dark, you can also cover it with foil.
• After baking take the banana bread out of the oven and let it cool down. Then you can take the banana bread out of the tray and cut it into pieces.

5 Tips for the Perfect Meal Prep

Now we’ve talked a lot about meal prep, explained where it comes from and why it’s good. But how do you start preparing food the right way? We have summarised the 5 simplest and best tips for you here.

1. time is the most important component in meal prep

Somewhat obvious yet indispensable: Time! Especially if you are going to “pre-cook” a whole week later, you should take enough time for it. But don’t just include the time for cooking – packing, refrigerating, shopping – all these things take time too.

The best thing to do is to find a fixed day in the week when you keep a few hours free for Meal Prep. This way you can make it a routine that is hopefully fun and, in the best case, a bit relaxing.

2. Planning, planning, planning

Think very carefully about the meals you want to eat throughout the week. Planning is the key to a successful meal prep. Without planning, you’re likely to get confused very quickly when shopping, cooking and storing.

A weekly plan of the meals you want to prepare can easily help you with this. With a weekly plan, each step becomes easier. Take a quiet moment at home and try to plan out your week – you’ll see what ingredients you have at home and what you might need to buy.

3. Correct storage is very important with Meal Prep.

The special thing about Meal-Prep is that you can partly cook in advance for the whole week. But you also have to think about the storage of your dishes. Because with the right storage, the ingredients will keep longer and they will also stay tasty and fresh for longer.

For example, if you have large portions, it’s best to freeze some of it. This works best with soups, curries and casseroles. And if you freeze things, you don’t have to go back to the same dishes all week, creating more variety in your menu.

To be on the safe side and ensure that all your dishes retain their flavour, you should also always store all ingredients separately in different glass containers. You can then put them in the fridge and put them in a box together on the day you eat them. This way you can make sure that everything still tastes delicious.

4. slow down and don’t stress – an important Meal Prep tip

It’s like many things in life: If you aim too high too fast, you will quickly find yourself at the bottom! It’s the same with Meal Prep. Our tip is to start slowly and without stress. It’s no advantage to try to cook your first meal prep for the whole week.

That’s why our recommendation is for you to start simple at first. Meal prep is not a race. Instead of cooking for the whole week, you could try it for one day. Then increase slowly. With 3 days you are already really good at it and quickly get into a routine.

5. simple dishes are the Meal-Prep winner

Meal prep is not about cooking highly complicated dishes. It’s very much about creating awareness! Awareness of the ingredients you are cooking with, awareness of healthy eating.

Make sure you have enough basic foods on hand. Rice, quinoa, couscous and wholemeal pasta are known to last forever and can be added to almost any dish. Whether it’s lunch or dinner, these ingredients make a perfect addition to any plate. A delicious quinoa vegetable skillet is quick to make, lasts forever, is perfect to take with you and is just plain delicious.

Lentils and beans keep for a long time when dry or canned and are always on hand! Also make sure you have enough sources of protein in your dishes. Meat and fish don’t last very long, so buying fresh is a must. Eggs, yoghurt, skyr and tofu are also great sources of protein and can be stored for longer.

So that you don’t have to eat broccoli, rice and chicken every day, sauces and spices are always a good way to spice up your dishes. If you still like to eat this trendy dish, you can try a simple mustard sauce. This avoids the risk of the chicken, rice or even broccoli being too dry.

Overnight Oats and Oat Flakes as the Perfect Meal-Prep Breakfast

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Basic recipe: Overnight Oats

The basic recipe for Overnight Oats is super simple – you only need 2 ingredients.

Prep Time2 mins

Total Time2 mins

Servings: 1

Calories: 150kcal

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp oat flakes (approx. 45g)
• 80 ml water, milk or a plant-based alternative

Instructions

• Put the water, milk or plant-based alternative into a glass together with the oat flakes and stir well.
• Put the mixture in the refrigerator overnight or for at least 2 hours. 
• Stir well once again and enjoy. 

Notes

We recommend to sweeten the overnight oats with honey, agave syrup or maple syrup and to decorate them with fruits, nuts and seeds.

Nutrition

Calories: 150kcal

Especially for breakfast, you can easily fall back on Meal-Prep. For many people, it is always stressful in the morning when bed seems too cosy again. With Overnight Oats you save time and still have the perfect start to the day.

Oat flakes are known to be the local superfood. With lots of nutrients, fibre and complex carbohydrates, oat flakes rank high on the list of healthiest foods. Not only do oat flakes have many healthy ingredients that make them special, they are also perfect for preventing various diseases.

Why Overnight Oats?

Overnight Oats are very easy to prepare – as the name suggests, you put them in the fridge with water or milk the night before. In the morning they are ready for the perfect breakfast! Customise toppings of your choice or, in true Meal Prep fashion, just take it all together to work. There’s almost no better and healthier way to start the day!

But porridge is also a highlight of the Meal-Prep breakfast. Porridge can be eaten in a variety of forms, whether hot or cold, with or without toppings, porridge is healthy and perfectly suited as a breakfast due to its many fibres! This way you stay full for a long time and don’t have to rely on annoying snacks to get you through the day.

Print Recipe

No ratings yet

Overnight Oats with yoghurt and banana

Healthy Overnight Oats – easy to prepare and wonderfully versatile. The oatmeal also provides you with all the nutrients you need to get your day off to a good start: long-chain carbohydrates for a long-lasting feeling of satiety, vegetable protein for extra power, and healthy fats and fibre to aid digestion.

Prep Time5 mins

Let sit1 hr

Total Time1 hr 5 mins

Calories: 440.9kcal

Equipment

• Bowl or jar
• Spoon
• Knife

Ingredients

• 50 g oat flakes
• 100 g yoghurt (or a vegan yoghurt alternative)
• 1 banana

Toppings

• 1 hand full of blueberries
• 1 tsp peanut butter

Instructions

• Put the oat flakes (approx. 4 tbsp) and the yoghurt in a bowl or jar and mix the two ingredients well.
• Cut the banana into slices and mix them in.
• Place the oatmeal-yoghurt mixture in the refrigerator and leave to swell for at least one hour. Our tip: Simply mix the mixture the evening before and leave to soak overnight in the fridge. That saves time!
• Take your breakfast from the fridge and add a blob of peanut butter and blueberries. Done!

Nutrition

Serving: 304g | Calories: 440.9kcal | Carbohydrates: 63.5g | Protein: 25.6g | Fat: 12.5g

Dominik Wendl

Content Creator

Ich interessiere mich schon seit Jahren für Sport und Ernährung und setze mich intensiv mit den Themen auseinander. Auf diesem Blog teile ich gerne mein Wissen rund um das Thema gesunde Ernährung und die richtige Ernährung beim Sport.

Lerne unsere Experten kennen