Back to School Meal Prep Tips!

It’s back to school time, which means getting back to the routine and packing lunches!!!

I know how hard it can be to plan out your days, especially when you are a student and have a wide-spread schedule. As a student, eating out was more of a routine thing for me than pre-packed lunches – trust me.

BUT, I did learn a few tips throughout the years that helped me integrate healthy eating in my routine. So I thought I’d share some of these ideas with you.

Make a list

If you read my “Get your sh*t together” blog, you already know about my list making obsession and how important I think it is. If you haven’t read it. Do yourself a favor and go read it now.

My first tip - make a food list. As a student, you need quick, easy and (…let’s not forget) cheap ideas. What I would do is make a list of food for lunches and snacks (for the week) and pick a day to do groceries and prepare meals. First off, I’d pick 2-3 items from each food group to make a list. It usually looks like this:

Protein: Chicken, Haddock, Plain Greek yogurt

Carbs: Oatmeal, Rice, Potatoes

Fruits: Frozen berries, Bananas

Fats: Avocado, Peanut butter

Veggies: Frozen veggies, Cucumbers, Carrot sticks

Meal prep

Once you have all your food for the week, you can start planning out your meals.

For me, prepping everything in one day, was a lot easier than doing a meal every day. But, everyone is different so make sure you are doing something that fits your schedule. What I used to do was just cook everything at the same time. I’d use the same spices/sauces to cook the protein (chicken and haddock) and cook them at the same time. While the meat and fish (or whatever I was using for protein) would cook, I’d boil some water a make a big batch of rice or quinoa. I’d either cut up some veggies or throw some frozen veggies in a wok with sauce and cook that. Overall, it would take me an hour or so before everything was cooked. Which is pretty descent, if you ask me!

Snack Ideas

My snacks were pretty easy to prepare, I would often make them while my meals we’re cooking. My go-to snacks were and still are:

Banana + Peanut butter

Greek Yogurt + Frozen berries

Do what works for you

The best advice I could give you for this is to do whatever fits best into your schedule. Like I said, everyone is different and prefers different things. This worked really well for me and still does – but it may not for some of you. Make sure you adjust this to your routine so it makes it easier for you achieve.

Choose easy recipes

Picking recipes you already know or that are easy to make will definitely save you some time. Take it easy on yourself – and make something you know how do to - it’ll feel less of a task. Trying out new recipes is great, but it can be hard to find the time. I love experimenting in the kitchen on a rainy weekend day.

Make this a weekly task

Make sure you are consistent in preparing your lunches. Pick a day that you know that will work for you and fit in your schedule. Planning in advance will definitely help you in the long run. Once this is in your routine it won’t feel as much as a task anymore.

I hope this blog gave you some ideas and helped you better prepare for the school year! Don’t hesitate to visit my contact page to leave me some feedback! I love hearing your ideas!