Feel like you are spending way too much time in the kitchen to put healthy food on the table? With these clean eating meal prep ideas and tricks, you won’t have to struggle with every meal during your busy weekdays.
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What Can You Eat on a Clean Diet?
Before we get into how to meal prep, let’s make sure we have healthy, clean ingredients for your meals. The first step to eating clean is knowing what foods are considered “clean”. In a nutshell, clean eating is about avoiding processed foods and eating natural, whole foods.
So what exactly should you eat when eating clean? You can use this free, printable clean eating grocery list to get started.
7 Simple Clean Eating Meal Prep Tips and Ideas
1. Set Aside Time to Prep
By setting aside just an hour or so during your less busy days to meal prep, you can have readily accessible healthy meals during the rest of your busy week.
Planning and prepping your meals enables you to group together similar, repetitive tasks, and focus on completing them in a quick and efficient way.
Most people choose Sundays to meal prep for the upcoming week, myself included. Pick a day of the week that works best for you and try to settle into this weekly healthy routine.
Having the right essential meal prep tools also makes food prep fast and fun.
2. Make a Meal Plan
Planning your meals in advance not only saves you time, money and energy but also reduces your stress around meal times so you can relax and enjoy your food and company.
When you know exactly what groceries are needed to make your meals, you save time in the supermarkets by doing more targeted shopping and are less likely to wander and buy junk food items.
3. Use Frozen Fruits and Veggies
Buying frozen fruits and vegetables is an easy and healthy way to meal prep when you are looking for simple clean eats.
Frozen fruits and vegetables are actually quite healthy considering that they are allowed to fully ripen before harvesting and then frozen to “lock in” their dense nutrients.
Most frozen produce comes “ready-to-cook”, saving you a significant amount of meal prep time chopping and slicing ingredients before cooking.
Frozen fruits like ready-cut strawberries can be added directly into the blender for a quick morning smoothie.
Looking for tips on clean eating on a budget? Buying frozen fruits and vegetables is not only healthy but also budget-friendly, especially for produce not currently in season!
4. Buy Pre-Cut Vegetables and Fruits
Your time is limited and precious – why not make it easy on yourself and pay a few extra dollars to save some precious prep time?
Many chain grocery stores offer pre-chopped veggies and a variety of julienne-cut vegetables like zoodles.
A huge time-saver for soups and stews is Mirepoix – a healthy trio of diced carrots, celery and onions that adds a simple, balanced vegetable flavor.
If you don’t feel like cooking, you can also find pre-cooked proteins like chicken and fish.
Pre-cut fruits are a huge time saver for making green smoothies.
5. Make Sauces and Soups
Sauces like tomato, pesto sauce or salad dressings are great to make ahead during meal prep.
Soups such as chilis, stews can be prepped and cooked during meal prep time as the cooking part is usually hands-off, especially if you are cooking using a slow cooker, or this popular slow cooker and pressure cooker all-in-one.
6. Batch Cook
There is no need to limit your meal prep to just one week’s worth of meals!
Soups and stews can be easily prepared and cooked in bulk to make a month’s worth of meals.
Just save the extras in the freezer for easy TV dinners for later!
7. Organize and Portion
Meal-prep containers are going to be your new best friend! Not only do they motivate your meal prep efforts with neatly stacked tasty packaged meals, but they also make it easy for you to grab your meals on the go!
Glass Meal Prep Food Storage Containers With Leak-Proof Lids
Glass meal prep containers are oven, microwave and dishwasher-safe, non-toxic and can last forever.
These meal prep containers come in a variety of sizes, and their airtight lids snap into place, keeping your food fresh longer and prevent leaks when you are on the go.
These versatile Ball mason jars are great for storing mason jar salads to green smoothies!
These pint-size wide mouth mason jars work perfectly for storing single serving overnight oats or chia puddings, which encourages your family to eat healthy by just grabbing these as breakfasts or snacks right from the fridge!
Green smoothie prep is much easier and quicker with these nifty storage bag holder stands!
All you have to do is just clip your bags on to it and it holds them standing up and open.
Cleanup is a breeze because fruit juices will not leak all over your countertop.
Clean Eating Meal Prep Recipes for Weight Loss
Healthy snacking is a gateway to healthy eating. Here is a list of easy, no-cook clean eating recipes for weight loss:
You don’t have to slave away in the kitchen to put healthy meals on your table! Hope these clean eating meal prep recipes, tips and tricks help to make your meals healthier and quicker.
Can I Lose Weight Just by Eating Healthy?
Clean eating can lead to weight loss – if you use the right ingredients that are scientifically proven to boost your metabolism and fat burn!
If you are looking to eat clean and lose weight, and are ready to stop yo-yo dieting and lose weight for the last time, you’ll want to check out my personalized coaching program.
You’ll learn how I lost my first 10 pounds in a month without working out or starving myself, using fat-burning spices and healthy greens that have been used for thousands of years in traditional Asian medicine to maintain a healthy body and weight!
You can click here to apply for my Weight Loss for Working Moms Program.
Sharing is caring! Do you have more helpful clean eating meal prep ideas and tips to make healthy meals easier and faster? Comment below!
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- 5 Best Clean Eating Cookbooks that Inspire Healthy Meals for Families
- 8 Best Supplements for Weight Loss
- How To Lose Belly Fat Fast: 7 Proven Ways Without Exercising
- 10 Easy Low-Carb Snacks for Weight Loss
