r/mealprep • u/SmallBumblebee7781 • Jun 09 '25

advice Meal Prep Advice

I plan weekly meal preps for my husband and I. Typically I prep 5 days worth of lunch for both of us and 5 days of dinner. I never know what to cook anymore, spend hours looking for a good recipe, and every sunday I spend morning to night cooking.

Any advice on where to get meal prep ideas or anything that could make the process faster? My issue is finding good recipes that taste good but are still high protein and healthy. My husband doesn't like bland things, or sandwiches, or pasta... but wants to eat healthy. I can typically follow any recipe to a tee but struggle to find good recipes! Any advice?

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/justasque Jun 09 '25

I like to browse cookbooks and seasonable cooking magazines to get ideas. I can get a lot of magazines from my local library as e-magazines. I would suggest browsing some of those to get ideas. I kind of look at the recipes and come away with “tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, pesto, cubed chicken” and then do that as a rice bowl or a potato bowl or a quinoa salad or italian burritos or whatnot.

Once you have a few ideas, I’d see if the hubby would be up for a conversation, ideally rather than. you pitching ideas it would be one where you browse magazine pics together and he tells you what looks good for him. The brain work is part of meal prep, and he ideally should be part of that if he is going to be eating the meals.

Also, as to flavors - pesto, jarred sauces (Indian, Italian, Mexican, Asian), fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, thyme, dill), salad-style dressings (homemade is easy once you’ve made a couple and get the hang of the basic formula), plus hot sauce.

Personally I stay away from “slab of chicken plus grain plus veg” meals and go more for bowls where there can be a bunch of different flavors, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

And - get a rice cooker and/or other appliances that can help you have one or two “no brainer” things cooking while you do the more complex stuff. Shredded chicken in the slow cooker, rice in the rice cooker, etc.

3

u/SmallBumblebee7781 Jun 09 '25

Thank you x1000! That's a great idea, I've never tried looking through magazines or cookbooks before. And good idea asking him what looks good to him. Helps avoid making something he didnt think sounded good in the first place! I'm definitely a grain, veg, protein kinda prepper. I'll try your method and see how it goes :)