3 Convincing Reasons Why I Love Meal Prep

Until last year, I used to be someone who would drive to meet my paw-buddies at the beach and then settle in the corner of a random restaurant for dinner at nights.

Though I had been fairly careful with nutrition and hygiene, though I genuinely enjoyed my day-time cooking experiments, I wasn’t very happy about eating out frequently every night. My stomach didn’t love the idea.

Then, I started doing meal-prep.

It is how I stepped up my eating habits effectively and now it has been more than 6 months since I’ve had a single take-out.

I devour home-cooked food, every single day.

The concept of meal prep could be a routine or merely a ‘chore’ to many but personally, I would call it my creative outlet for it serves me delicious bowls of food in no time. Hobbies with benefits?

Today, I thought to pen down three reasons why I love meal-prep. Let me know If I sound convincible.

1. I save my ‘future’ hours

I work from home.

My work isn’t very routine-based. Here and there, I get a few rest-weeks when I’d obsessively bake or grill. But there are also these hectic days when my work demands I sit in front of the laptop or spend my rest-of-the-day in the stock room, starving.

Neither I’d have to time to peel or chop nor have the energy to stand in front of the stove. Well, everybody has been there. No matter how much you love cooking, you wouldn’t want to do it when you starve.

Takeaway? It is not an option for me anymore. I’m on abstinence. With meal prep, I get to relish clean nutritious food without needing to spend hours in the kitchen every time.

For very-busy weeks, I rarely prepare and freeze the whole meals in advance. However, I normally prefer prepping the main ingredients to stir them up into quick or elaborate meals.

Note: I should tell you frozen meals are not bad as they’re portrayed, provided you learn how to freeze well. You still know what goes into your plate.

2. I get to experiment with new flavors

If I were to prepare everything from the scratch every time, I wouldn’t get to experiment with new flavors as frequently as I’d like to.

Once again, it doesn’t feel pleasant to stand in the kitchen when I’m starving. But I can peel a bundle of fresh peas, de-stalk the chilies and knead the dough, with a full stomach, sitting in front of the television.

There are plenty of frozen beans and seasoned ready-to-cook food available in the market these days, I agree. But nothing as good as fresh and homemade, especially if you’re a germaphobe like me.

Ever since I got into my meal-prep routine, I’m on a constant lookout for new ingredients, legumes, and spices. I doubt if you will get that kind of time if you don’t plan your meals in advance.

Let me tell you from experience. Cooking elaborate meals, without proper planning only ends up making you resent your time in the kitchen, especially if you do it every day.

That makes you want to take out. And the more you eat outside, the more you ruin your body, gradually.

I personally believe it’s wise to avoid takeout unless you really can source clean food or get someone else to cook for you.

Coming back to the experiments..

With meal prep, I can stuff spiced Indian dal tadka into the fluffiest Turkish flatbreads that I recently learned to make, and call it a creative dinner. Without meal prep, it’s going to take hours. Sorry.

So that’s the point. I get to experiment and new flavors are bliss.

3. Less wastage & I develop a skill

Growing up, when I was just learning to cook, I used to waste a lot of produce not knowing how to organize my meals, worrying my mother.

After I discovered meal prep, now I know which vegetable goes into which meal, and I have also learned to sneak in the extras here and there when they’re still fresh. Customized recipes, you may call.

Excess tomatoes? I pickle. Too many baby potatoes? I blanch and freeze. Milk that hasn’t been used? Homemade paneer!

I made this non-chewy, soft paneer [Cottage cheese] from 1 litre of Aavin milk that is pasteurized. Perfect for grills and it’s on my weekly meal-prep list; costs me about 60 INR for 200 gm which is also a cost-effective option.

With meal prep, I learn every day. It’s developing a skill that will travel with me for life. It’s an art of organizing and managing the food you eat every day without having to get bored with cooking.

It has gotten me to the extent of doing my personal research on food science – testing out different cooking methods equipment and pots.

Lately, I’ve been obsessing over cast iron cookwares that brown food beautifully. This large wok I picked from Amazon Basics has been named Monster and he makes me large batches of spicy pasta, rice, and other Chinese stir-fried cuisines effortlessly. I love freezing them for my busy-weeks.

Here’s some spiced noodles ready to go into the freezer.

My recent achievement with meal-prep is learning to make the perfect, fail-safe frozen chapatis. All I need are some wheat flour, water, and my hands to create the puffing magic on the griddle.

With a decent food processing device, it’s going to be much neat and quicker. I shall share the recipe soon on the blog. You will not have to pick vinegar scented frozen chapatis from the market next time.

Food talks can continue forever.

I’m going to end this post telling you how meal-prep has stepped up my cooking game, made me realize how insensible it is to waste food, how great it feels to take up meal planning as a hobby, and these days, I look forward to spending more time in my kitchen.