Anyone who has tried to be a meal prep person—someone who cooks a week’s worth of lunches or dinners on Sunday for the week ahead—knows that there are real benefits and drawbacks. The benefits, of course, include saving time during the week and always having food on hand. But, the drawbacks are real, starting with the fact that it takes so darn long.
Thankfully, Jessica Merchant, mom of three, cookbook author, and food blogger at How Sweet Eats, has shared a meal prep trick that’s a happy medium, one that will help you get ahead without taking up all of your Sunday. “The small but mighty 10-minute meal prep strategy will save you time, energy, and brainpower in the long run,” she writes in her latest book Easy Everyday.
Why Traditional Meal Prep Is Challenging
Merchant says there was a time when she did the massive weekend meal prep thing. “I spent hours in the kitchen and put everything in the matching containers. Or I made a bunch of meals for us to eat as a family.” But she didn’t find it satisfying and didn’t want to spend so much time in the kitchen on Sundays. Plus, she didn’t want to eat the same thing over and over. After all, if you’ve prepped a week’s worth of salmon and green beans, you’re going to feel like you need to eat a lot of salmon and green beans.
Also, sometimes life happens! You have to work late one night or decide to go out to dinner with friends. If you had a bunch of meals already waiting for you in the fridge, it’s easy for them to never get eaten and become food waste.
Despite giving up on traditional meal prep, Merchant wasn’t ready to give up making life easier for her future self.
The 10-Minute Meal Prep Strategy
Enter her 10-minute meal prep strategy, which basically means fitting in short pockets of meal prep whenever she has the chance.
What can you actually get done in 10 minutes? So much, says Merchant. “I can make a dressing and chop an onion for later. I can measure out ingredients and set them aside. I swear this saves me so much time and allows us to eat more balanced, nutritious meals.”
Here are just a few ideas:
- Wash, dry, and chop broccoli, cauliflower, or Brussels sprouts. Refrigerate with a paper towel in a storage container. Then the veg will be ready to cook with zero prep work.
- Wash, dry and chop lettuce or other greens
- Chop an onion, garlic, and/or mushrooms
- Mix up a sauce or salad dressing
- Quick pickle onions, just by soaking sliced onions in vinegar with a pinch of salt. “These can really elevate a meal and make a dish taste like restaurant quality,” Merchant says.
- Marinate meat, fish, or tofu
- Shred rotisserie chicken
- Grate cheese
- Form burgers or meatballs
- Cook grains or pasta. “Boiling your water might take 10 minutes and cooking the pasta might take 10 minutes,” Merchant notes. “But it’s really hands-off time, you can be doing something else.”
Once you have these ingredients or meal components prepped ahead of time, you can hit the ground running when it’s time to cook.
When to Sneak in 10 Minutes of Prep
Ideally, Merchant is doing these pockets of prep when she’s already in the kitchen, maybe making breakfast, packing lunches, or even cooking tonight’s dinner. “I have a cutting board out. I have my knife out. I ask myself if there’s anything that I can grab and chop up right now so we have it for tomorrow. Or, is there something I can whisk up for the next day and then toss the whisk and bowl in the dishwasher tonight?”
Add a Touch of Meal Planning
Of course, to know what to prep it helps to have a plan, a meal plan that is. Merchant likes to keep three meals in her head for the upcoming week. “By choosing just three meals, and not five or seven, I’m allowing for extra spontaneity and removing the opportunity for waste.”
Here’s her process: on Thursdays, she picks three meals for the following week’s dinners. She grocery shops over the weekend and then slots in the meals whenever works for the family. Knowing that she’ll be eating tacos, say, at some point in the week, means Merchant can mix up a simple salsa anytime she has 10 minutes. “Using this strategy has allowed me to cook dinners for my family almost every night, mostly stress-free.”
