Every Monday, you commit to cooking healthy and taking care of yourself better. The busier your workweek, the more difficult it is to keep eating right. After a few days, you're eating out or turning to frozen pizza for din-din. Here are a few ways you can cook one day a week that will help you keep your goals all week long.
Start Big
One of the main pitfalls of food prep and meal planning is that when the time to make dinner comes around, you either aren't in the mood for it or don't have the energy to do an extensive recipe. Instead, make one or two big meals once a week and think of ways to turn the leftovers into smaller, quick dinners throughout the week.
Your largest meal(s) should be at the start of the week. Cook up a primary protein – and a lot of it. If you want to do a vegetarian option, it could be a boatload of mashed potatoes or cauliflower. Things like a roast chicken or a pork tenderloin will give you a lot of leftover meat and often veggies to craft more meals. Check out these ideas from Taste of Home for plates that make a great starting point for weekly food prep. Try to keep your seasonings basic so that you can spice it up for other recipes and not feel like you're eating leftovers.
Go Small
Now that you have your leftovers, get creative. You can make quick salads, taco skillets, stir fries, or pot pies. The beauty of utilizing fridge scraps is it's easy to swap out recipes depending on what you're in the mood for. Here are a few quick and easy dinners using a fully cooked chicken or an excessive amount of mashed potatoes.
Meal Plan
As an additional tip, when you get into the eating-all-week cooking, you can plan easier and, more importantly, knock out your grocery shopping all at once to get all the ingredients you need for the week. Food prep works best when you plan ahead! You'll stress less, too, when everything you need is already in your fridge and you don't have to worry about making a trip to the store on top of cooking dinner.
Find more delicious ideas at the Olympus at Ross blog.