Why Meal Prep?
Meal prepping can be beneficial for everyone. Whether you work full-time, part-time, in the office, remotely, or if you are a stay at home parent. Poor eating choices usually occur when we are busy, rushed, or don’t have a plan for meals. This is especially true when it comes to snacking. A week’s worth of unhealthy snacking can lead to fatigue and irritability, which greatly impacts your productivity! To help you stay on schedule and feeling your best each week, we’ve collected some of our favorite, healthy meal prep snack ideas!
Easy, Healthy Snack Ideas
All of these snacks can be made on Sunday and stored in an air tight container to enjoy throughout the week!
- Fruits and Veggies: This might seem like a no brainer, but purchase fruits and vegetables that you can cut up and store in individual containers. Produce like carrots, celery, bell peppers, berries, grapes, etc., make easy snacks when they are ready to grab and eat on the go.
- Homemade Almond Butter: This one is our absolute favorites! All you need is 4 cups of raw almonds and a blender. You can roast them and then let them cool before blending, or add a little olive or avocado oil to help with the blending process. This will make several small containers of almond butter that you can store in the fridge and combine with your cut up fruits and veggies for a quick and nutritious snack. If you aren’t in a hurry, you can cut up a banana or apple to dip in it as well.
- Homemade Hummus: Another weekly must have is homemade hummus. It pairs perfectly with cut up veggies, can be used as a salad or macro bowl topper, and can be spread on whole grain toast or crackers. The best part is you can mix it up every week. The original hummus recipe calls for chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, and a few spices, but you can also try Roasted Beet Hummus, Green Goddess Hummus, Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, or Roasted Cauliflower Hummus!
- Chia Pudding: If you are looking for an easy, customizable, and filling snack, look no further than chia pudding cups! For the base, you need two tablespoons of chia seeds and 1/2 cup of your favorite milk. We prefer unsweetened vanilla almond milk. It takes about 15 minutes for the chia seeds to absorb the milk and become a pudding like consistency. Once that happens, you can add any combination of your favorites fruits. For a dessert chia pudding, try adding cocoa powder, raspberries and coconut shavings!
Meal Prep Tips
If you are looking to meal prep more than just snacks, that is great! While many people think meal prepping means to prepare the same meal for each day of the week, that is not the only way. We personally think having the same meal everyday can get very boring and actually make your cravings worse as the week goes on. Instead, consider meal prepping ingredients. We learned this trick from Downshiftology, and it has been so helpful!
Lisa Bryan, owner and creator of Downshiftology explains that you should pick a few proteins, a wide variety of vegetables, and a couple starches to meal prep on Sunday, and then create meals by combining these ingredients in different ways. All the details and delicious recipes can be found on her website. She even has very informative videos to help get you started!
