I regularly extoll the virtue of preparing food ahead of time. It enables me to sleep in later. It means I don’t have to spend time making a ton of meals during the week. It makes eating healthy so, so, so easy because everything is ready, and when I don’t really have to think about what I’m going to eat, it’s much easier to make a healthy choice.
This week, I decided to take a few photos and explain my “process” of preparing food ahead of time. Several people have asked me to explain exactly what I’m making and eating these days, so here it is, in a handy step-by-step format. Please excuse my ugly photography.
First, figure out what you want to make. Currently, my food prep includes a lot of soup and salad. Typically, I make one soup that I freeze into individual portions for lunch, one soup for dinner, an enormous salad and steel cut oatmeal for breakfasts. I also chop a few days worth of fruit for my green juices so I have one less thing to do in the morning. I figure out what I want to make, and add it to a grocery list. I also add some other basics: I like to snack on fruit and nuts, so I usually buy five of whatever fruit is on sale (this week, it was five nectarines) and some pistachios or cashews. This means that all of my breakfasts, lunches and snacks for work are done, as well as a good dinner “base.”
The other prep I do is to clean out my refrigerator and freezer. Since I need room to store things, there is zero room for old food. Also: gross.
Finally, I hit the grocery store. I like to cook everything right away, so when I get home, I unpack all my groceries and set ingredients for each recipe together. I assemble my cooking tools, pots and food storage containers to make things quick and easy.
My kitchen usually looks like this:
I like to make this more fun by finding something good to listen to, usually the Joy The Baker podcast or the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast. And sometimes? Jay-Z. It just depends.
I always start by making the soup I’m going to freeze for lunch. I never put things straight into the freezer — I let them cool first, and this gives the appropriate amount of time to cook, cool and then freeze. Also, since I’m making two soups, it makes sense to do one first and then have the second one be the last thing I make.
This week, I made my all-time favorite soup, Celery Bisque. You’ll note that in this recipe, I say I don’t like it frozen. Well, I do now. I don’t even know what happened, but trust me when I say this soup is AMAZING.
I wash, chop, and cook all the veggies needed for this soup and let them start cooking.
While the veggies soften (this soup requires blending), I start the second thing that needs to cook for a bit: my morning oatmeal. I make five servings of steel cut oats. I use 1 1/4 cups of oatmeal, and cook it in 2 1/2 cups of water and 2 cups of vanilla almond milk. I boil the liquid, add the oats and let it simmer. It usually takes about 30 minutes to cook.
While the soup and oatmeal continue to simmer, I do my veggie chopping for my big salad, and my second soup. First, I make the salad. This week, I’m making a salad that I had at Elizabeth’s house last week. I tore up some red leaf lettuce, chopped a yellow and orange pepper, and added broccoli, snow peas and some mandarin orange slices. Some weeks, I make a version of this salad, without the feta cheese, and leaving the dressing separate so it doesn’t get mushy.
I keep this salad in the fridge and eat from it all week long. I always buy extra ingredients so I can “refresh” it as the week goes on. I make a dressing or buy one to keep in my fridge at work. Each night, I pack a portion of it into a small container and that is literally all the food prep I do (minus throwing in an oatmeal and a soup). I also eat this salad and my second soup for dinner a lot. I’m not eating meat these days, but if I need a quick dinner for Andrew, I’ll add some chicken for a more complete dinner.
After I wrap up the salad and put it in the refrigerator, I turn off the heat on my first soup, and use my immersion blender to liquefy it. I let it cool as I chop the veggies for my second soup. Once I’m done chopping all the veggies for soup #2, I divide soup #1 into five containers and let it cool a little more while I wash out my pot to start my second soup.
This week, I made Kale and White Bean soup. I add all the ingredients to my soup pot and let it start simmering. I put lids on the tupperware for soup one and stick it in the freezer.
Next, I remove the oatmeal from heat and let it cool while I clean up the kitchen a bit. I put away all my spices, and rinse off the cutting board to do my final chopping: cutting up a few days worth of apples and lemons for my morning green juices. I squeeze a lemon over the apples to keep them from browning, and I store those fruits in my “fancy tupperware” designed to have fruit stay fresh. Every few days, I have to chop more but it makes juicing much easier.
As my last soup simmers, I prep my oatmeal. I add about one cup of cooked oats to each container, and add a sprinkling of flax seeds, chia seeds, and some frozen peaches and berries.
After I finish the oatmeal, I freeze it.
I turn off the heat on the soup and let it cool. Since it’s a soup I eat at home, I don’t bother putting it in containers — I store it in the pot in the fridge, and just ladle it into bowls as need be. After a few days, I usually freeze what’s left and use it for lunches the next week so that none of it is wasted.
With these meals prepped (plus, the purchase of the fruit and nuts as mentioned above), I have food for my weekday breakfasts, lunches and a few dinners, plus some juicing supplies. Just for fun, I timed myself, from prep to cleanup, and this took me almost exactly an hour and a half. 90 minutes and all my food for the week is done, leaving me time for a morning workout and more sleep. BOOM.
Do you cook ahead of time? What are your tips and systems?
Cooking ahead of time is my savior too. I do it for sanity and time saving, but also because when I got divorced and was cooking just for one again, I was either wasting food because I would make too much OR was saying screw it and eating krap for dinner after a long day at work. I tend to spend a good portion of early Sunday evening making lunches for the week and doing prep work for dinners. Plastic containers for freezing food have become my best friend!
We are the same person. We make and eat the same foods, I swear!
In regards to heating things up, though … Since you go to all that hard work by buying yummy organic and good food for yourself, you should totally get some glass containers that you can put in the freezer and then heat in the microwave.
I hope you are not heating your food in the plastic tupperware! (http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/plastic.jsp) Maybe you aren’t! In fact, I bet you transfer them to something else when you heat it, so this is probably a mute point — But I bought some great glassware that looks like tupperware at Target and I just wanted to point that out.
I should also point out that: YOU ARE AMAZING!
I’m bookmarking this post for when I go back to work in the fall. These tips are wonderful!
Thank you for this post! I’ve been wanting to try out cooking for the week in advance! Doing it each day is a bit exhausting! I feel like I’ve barely got time to do much else!
Woo! I can’t wait to try this out!
xo Kayla
Amy, I love your system and it’s so true what you wrote- prepping is everything!
I like to add frozen fruit and veggies to ziploc bags and throw them in the freezer. so when i think i can’t have a smoothie or meal replacement, i have no excuses! i also love to get fresh seasonal fruit, prepare and enjoy in the later year.
I love this. I don’t cook ahead. I know I need to, but I get lazy on the weekends which usually results in me making my lunch/breakfast in the morning and being 5 or so minutes for work. I DO love making a huge pot of soup and freezing it though, I just don’t do it super regularly. However I am bookmarking this post as both those soup recipes you made sound amazing and there are some really good tips in here!
Since I’ve been lurking on your blog for some time now, I know that you’re trying to stay away from most dairy. I am too, so I’m wondering if you’ve replaced the sour cream in the bisque with something else, or just omitted it all together. Thanks!
This is my favorite kind of food porn — organized and efficient food! SQUEE! Weekly cook ups are a must! Love it.
This is an awesome post! I got really good at cooking ahead for a while but have petered off. I need to get back on the wagon and this has been great inpiration!
amy, thank you so much for sharing this! I’ve been curious about your food prep process for a while but never asked, so I’m glad others probed for the details. it’s really helpful to hear how you make it work!
Um, you are my hero. I mean… you know that. But this post was awesome and inspiring. Food prep is seriously my downfall.
That is such a great idea. Go you! I should start cooking ahead of time as well and the food you were making looks so amazing!
Ooh – it all looks amazing. I am impressed by your yummy choices and your stellar organizational skills.
Question for you: I’ve tried to make a big batch of salad and grab portions throughout the week. One tip I saw online was to line the container with a damp paper towel…but that only keeps things fresh for 2 or 3 days. How do you keep the big salad fresh longer?
As always, love your blog and you. :)
WOW. I mean, I know you say it’s only 90 minutes of work, but I am awed by your planning and efficiency. Just going from “wandering the grocery store and getting whatever” to “actual meal planning” has changed the way we eat, but you are on a whole other level!
Questions: Do you tend to stick to the oatmeal/soup/salad thing all the time, or do you mix it up? I love those things, but I would go crazy having the same meals all the time. I totally understand if having the same thing is what works for you, though. Also, how much money do you tend to spend on groceries? How often do you grocery shop? Shopping every week instead of every two weeks has changed everything for us.
Also: if you buy oats in the bulk bins, it’s (usually) WAY cheaper.
Also: you are inspiring! Thanks for sharing your life!
You’re my hero. I might last one week making everything ahead of time.
That celery bisque looks sublime – heading over right now.
I do cook ahead – mu lunches usually consist of soup/stew/curry/stirfry/fried rice etc so they do require a bit of forward planning. Usually I do one batch on the weekend for the first 2-3 days then another with different lunches for the rest of the week (I’m easily bored). I don’t really like salads or sandwiches.
I can never motivate myself to partake in food prep, especially after grocery shopping. The whole process of going to the store, unloading, & putting things away just wears me out! I really should just stop being lazy because I know I’d appreciate having healthy prepared foods during the week. Plus, like you say, having healthy options at your finger tips helps alleviate those unhealthy choices when you’re tired & starving after a long day!
I try to cook ahead, too! I haven’t been as good at it lately because I have been gone so many weekends! So I need to get back on track. I like to also portion out fruit into little tupperwares or snack bags or whatever. I just am not good at making anything or assembling anything in the am – so it needs to be a ‘grab and go’ sort of set up in my fridge for it to work for me!
Yes yes yes. I’m cranky in the morning and haaaaate waking up so food prep is a must. I like just being able to throw my smoothie stuff in the blender and have my work lunch ready to go.
Also, my slow cooker has been my BFF. And now you put me in the mood for soup with this post so I have to go find some paleo soup recipes!
xo.
I just started making steel cut oats last month. I read your recipe for quinoa salad last month when you used apple juice…what do you think about substituting AJ for water with the oats? I usually use 3 cups of water and 1 of milk, but I’m wondering what AJ would do. Is that crazy? (Probably instead of the milk?) Then, my friend told me she stirs in about 1/4 cup (or more if you like) of jelly/jam to the oatmeal, to give it an extra kick of (strawberry) flavor. You should try it, then I add sliced strawberries and it’s really good.
Yes! Cooking ahead saves soooo much time! I do it all the time and it’s so worth it. Thanks for such a great post! I look forward to sharing it with friends!
I am intrigued by the idea of making oats and freezing them ahead of time, but how do you reheat? Are you defrosting a day ahead? Do you put the whole thing in the microwave frozen? I’m perplexed.
FYI! You can do steel cut oats overnight — it’s amazingly easy and it’s one less thing to think about on the stove. Basically, you toast your oats (1 cup oats in 1 t butter or coconut oil) for a minute, add 3 cups water, bring to a boil and let boil for about 3 minutes, then turn off the heat, pop on the lid, and in the morning you’ll have perfect oats! You can also go ahead and portion out the boiled oats into glass jars (not a good idea to put hot oats in plastic, unless you’re using really good tupperware) and let sit on the kitchen counter overnight. Also, @TC: every time you reheat steel cut oats, they get better! Not so much with rolled, unfortunately…
I do the exact same. I put each thing in it’s own tupperware and just grab and go from the freezer. I also make 6 or 7 of each, just in case I don’t feel like cooking the next week. These are good tips and I am a proponent of doing all things ahead of time!