We have talked about why meal preparation and planning were necessary for us. By planning and preparing meals we broke away from problems we saw eating out. In this post, we will talk about why planning saves time.
TBH, Meal Planning Takes a Bit of Learning
Preparing meals in a larger number of serving sizes isn’t hard but it does change how you look at what you are creating. Keeping it interesting can feel problematic. When we started we learned only certain things that freeze well. Learning how to reheat food so it is palatable was also an area we had to learn.
For example, freezing homemade soup with noodles in it comes out terrible when reheated. You can make and freeze deep-fried fish but you have to reheat it correctly or it will be soggy. It also can’t just be thrown into a 425 F oven as it may burn before thawing. We learned that 20 minutes at 300 F and it will be perfect. All of this sounds complicated however it isn’t if someone has already learned those lessons so you don’t have to. We will cover those lessons later in another post.
Interestingly enough you already know what meals freeze well. You have probably known for years. Your local grocery store has at least one if not more isles dedicated to them. Next time you are buying groceries take a look at the variety. Most of the frozen section is completely repeatable at home. It’s learning the freezing and reheating techniques that are problematic at first.
Let’s Start Where We Started
Before we get into nuances of thawing let’s talk about some basics. What we learned is to carve out a chunk of time for cooking. We then would prepare 10 servings of 3-4 dishes and freeze them. Learning what will be ok when it comes out of the freezer was a bit hit or miss at first. We would eventually come up with better preservation techniques but this was the start.
Not everyone has a lot of freezer space. This is where we started so we will start here. There are other options like canning, vacuum sealing, etc. to explore. In a worst-case scenario, you can buy an inexpensive mini-freezer fairly cheaply. All of these belong in another series of posts.
Here’s our rubric. We cook a meal that we can portion out into 8-10 servings. That gives us one meal right done fresh, one meal within 3 days as another meal, and can freeze the remaining. If we are dedicating a day to stock up, we may do 3-4 meals of 8-10 portions. Even if it is not used that day, we generally can reheat it and use it twice in the next 3 days.
Ok, Isn’t This a Thing Already?
Let’s pause here for a moment and ruminate. In a previous post, we discussed how this creates a known calorie count and food quantity. We didn’t invent this. If you stop and think about weight loss meal replacement programs like Jenny Craig, what are they? They are balanced nutrition and quantifiable portion size. You are paying for guidance and convenience. For us, and we feel for many, the prices were just unsustainable. We assert by using them you aren’t learning to help yourself and change your life habits. They also are targeted at weight loss, not management or gain.
It’s a Time Tradeoff, not More Time
Here is where everyone tells us it’s too much time. Let’s examine that with some data. Consider that cooking 1 meal may take 45 actively engaged minutes to cook. Active time reheating food is about 2-5 minutes. We will say two people are eating. For 10 servings, if you cook 5 times, that would be 45 minutes multiplied by 5 or roughly 3 hours and 45 minutes. When we cook 10 servings it is 45 minutes + 5 times reheating at 5 minutes. It is a huge time saver.
Not convinced? Here is what we also realized. Even at the fastest food fast food change it takes ~20 minutes to get food. By the time you get in your car, go sit in the drive-through, order, pay, and get home, you are into it at least 20 minutes. You don’t realize it because you are actively doing something. Got to a sit-down restaurant and it’s even more time.
Wrapping Up
Not only does this process save time, it allows us to create the portion sizes we want. Much of what we found in stores was simply way too many calories or way too few. We also found much of the ultra-processed food was way too high in sodium or saturated fat as well. You are not us so maybe you will be ok with those things.
This post has given you a different way to look at meal preparation. It has also offered a way to think about how you invest your time and money in food. We have discussed the time savings of doing meal prep. In later posts, we will talk about other benefits of preparing meals like this.