Whether your family is big or small, meal prep can be a very daunting task. Many children have specific preferences that make it difficult to please everyone.
How can you prep a variety of meals in a limited amount of time? How can you lower your stress while still making healthy meals for your family? It is indeed possible to do all of this with a few handy tips and tricks. Below are a few ways you can find the perfect meal for your family.
Same Ingredients for Multiple Recipes
One easy way that you can prep a variety of meals for your family is to use the same ingredients in multiple recipes. For example, you can cut up a big bag of carrots for both a pot roast and a soup. Cook a bunch of chicken in a crockpot and use it for both chicken tacos and chicken alfredo casserole. You can even use bread, such as Kaiser rolls, for both bread pudding and pork barbeque sandwiches. Versatility is the key to finding ingredients that can be used in a variety of dishes.
Prep With Friends
Sometimes it’s hard to motivate yourself to meal prep when you have the whole week stretched out in front of you, but most things end up being much less daunting if you get a few people to pitch in and help. Pick a day, and schedule some time for your family to meal prep together. This can help you determine what kinds of meals your family enjoys most. Just having someone there to keep your mind off of the meal prep itself will take the edge off of an otherwise daunting task.
Crock Pot Ingredients
Even with all of these tips and tricks, meal prep can still feel like a big job. So you may want to consider using lots of crockpot ingredients. What does that mean? It means to use ingredients that you can just throw into a crockpot with little or no prep. For example, you can throw baby carrots in with a roast instead of using the larger carrots that you have to peel and chop. Use large pieces of meat such as pork tenderloin that you can just pop into the crockpot and sprinkle some seasonings over. Frozen foods also work very well for crockpot meals!
There Is Hope!
No matter how you choose to meal prep, it is possible to do so with lower stress levels and high-quality meals for your family. Making meals for your family is important, and making it easier on yourself will produce quality meals that both you and your family will be able to enjoy every week!
