This post is sponsored by GE Appliances. All opinions written below are mine. Thank you for supporting the brands that encourage my creativity and work.
What if I told you that you could prepare a week worth of meals in one day? Yes, I know, the dreaded meal prep day. However, I’m here today with some tips to make your meal prep go quicker and smoother!
First things first, it’s imperative you create a meal plan for yourself. Whether you find recipes on Pinterest, or browse through cookbooks, or subscribe to a meal plan; having a weekly meal plan can help tackle meal prep and save lots of cooking time throughout the week.
After you have a plan and have shopped for your food, I always find it most helpful to tackle meal prep shortly after that. One of the things I love about my connected GE Appliances is that I can activate some of the features remotely, like turning on and preheating my oven so I can start baking or cooking my meal right away. Sure, this might not be as urgent during meal prep but it is a convenient feature for busy evenings when you can preheat your oven before leaving an after-school-activity, and the food that you’ve prepped can cook right away.
Since shopping can be exhausting, but why not brew yourself a cup of coffee, as I do, and tackle the task head on? Check out this quick video to show you how I organize my shopping and meal prep day.
One more thing I feel I should let you know before watching the video… my GE Appliances connected fridge brews coffee -and it’s the best cup of coffee I have all day because it brings water to the right temperature before brewing. And, I even have it scheduled to preheat my water at 2 pm every day for that afternoon pick-me-up. Yes, the fridge is spoiling me.
Back to meal prep. I know there are a lot of people who swear that they can prep every meal from start to finish in one hour -and that is possible when you plan ahead. To be honest, most weeks it takes me almost two hours, but that’s because I spend time washing and chopping my produce so that I don’t have to do that during the week.
When you look at your plan for the week, ask yourself, what can I prep now that would save me time during the week? Boiling pasta, cooking rice, and cleaning, chopping, and marinating your meats are all things that can easily be done days ahead and refrigerated for when ready to use.
When prepping my ingredients for the week, I also use masking tape to label everything -even write down the date when I need the particular ingredient, both to keep me on track and prevent hungry family members from eating them.
After everything is said and done, I feel like a kitchen superhero. I know my family will eat delicious food throughout the week, made with real ingredients, and I have saved a lot of time!
I guess it’s time to put my feet up, at least, until my GE Wifi Connected Dishwasher lets me know that the dishes are clean via my app. Now, if it put away the dishes for me…THAT would be amazing!
What are some of your favorite meal prep tips?
#FRIDGEENVY #KITCHENENVY
Your kitchen is gorgeous! We have 11-year-old GE appliances that when it’s time to upgrade…. we want the new version like you have! Boy they’ve come a long way
Where is the section that shows how to freeze spiralized zucchini?
You can freeze it but know that zucchini holds a lot of water and will be soggy when cooked. It’s best to refrigerate up to a week in the fridge like I show you here: https://www.laurafuentes.com/how-to-store-spiralized-zucchini-veggies/
LOVE THE KITCHEN!!! Thanks for the tips…just what I needed today!! I’m heading out on a trip and hope to get some meal prep done before I leave….and I was thinking, “What would Laura do???” Then I found this video!!! Perfect!! Just wish I had cool appliances….
You are awesome!! 🙂
Have a safe trip!