Meal Planning - Getting Started

This month, I am taking tips and tricks revolving around buying in bulk, budgeting, meal planning, and meal prepping. I think this follows the theme of the last few months well and I think they are very helpful tricks and tips that not everyone thinks about. All of the things I mentioned really work together. If you meal plan you can budget things out if you have a budget you know if you can buy in bulk, if you buy in bulk you can save money and meet your budget. It is a vicious circle sometimes. And each part of the cycle has things that affect everything else.

Today we are going to look at meal prepping. In my option, the best way to start meal prepping is to be prepared. Preparing to me is simple. You want to be ready to store your food. So you need containers or bags to store what you are going to buy so that it stays fresh, and keeps longer. So the first thing I recommend is Glass Storage. Now there is nothing wrong with plastic to an extent. However, I find glass so much more reliable and versatile. You don't have to worry about what you store in these, they will not stain, and you can pop them in the microwave, in the oven, in the fridge and the freezer and not worry about them. Personally, I love Anchor products, and they have so many different sets you can buy. I threw all my plastic stuff and replaced it all with these dishes.

Set of 12

Set of 4 (Round - Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large)

Set of 4 (Round and Square Mixed)

To piggyback off of that. I also suggest glass bakeware. Again I like the Anchor ones so that's what I go with. But if you have glass bakeware you can make meals in them ready to go. A lasagna for example can be made right in the dish and then stored in the fridge if it will be eaten within a reasonable time frame or frozen even for another time. I recommend ones with lids (especially if you are freezing them), but tin foil would work also.

Red Set

Blue Set

I also suggest a food sealer if you can afford it and you buy in bulk often. These food sealers will help keep your meat or even vegetables fresh in the freezer. They work a lot better than just freezer bags themself and it is a great way to save money. You can rest easy knowing that even if you buy a lot of meat all at once, it will stay good and fresh this way. (This is the one I have but anyone should be fine.)

Coming off of that comment, my next tip is ironically to buy the sandwich bags or "ziplock" bags. Even though I don't trust these in the freezer they are great when meal prepping. If you have a lot of chopped-up vegetables this is a great way to store them. If you make salads ahead of time, this is a great way to measure stuff that you want to add later (for example croutons, which would get soggy if added right away. I also love to use them to portion out my homemade trail mix. I portion them out, and then just grab a bag when I want a snack.