Pre-Cooking Protein

A great way to save time in the kitchen is to pre-cook your protein for the week. A barbecue or countertop grill is great for this job, but you can also roast or broil a large batch of protein, such as chicken breasts, turkey sausage, or burgers on shopping day (while you pre-chop your vegetables) and refrigerate them until needed. Simply re-heating, in a pan or microwave, makes food prep simple and quick. Think of it as homemade ready meals. In addition large batches of soups, stews, beans and chilli come in handy here as well. Once made, simply portion it out for the week.

Pre-Chopping Vegetables

To retain the maximum nutrients, it’s best to chop vegetables as near to eating them as possible. However is you are pressed for time you simple won’t eat enough of them this way, so it’s best to chop half up on the day you purchase them and the rest three to four days later when the first half is finished.

To use the latter method, get some large glass containers and separate the vegetables by type: green peppers in one, red another, onions in another and carrots another and so on. This will have a significant effect on food prep time and also greatly increase vegetable intake. Fruit can be prepped in the same way: pineapple, mango, peach, oranges and strawberry can all be pre-cut. Alternatively frozen fruit can be purchased. Now just work up to your 10 servings a day.