kind of considering it - especially as a single guy i'm halfway there alread often making 2-3x more than needed for the meal and then eating later as leftover

figured it would be neat to have a thread so the food overlords of 2p2 can share their tips and secrets and post prepped food porn

Sweet OP bro.

prepping, as in zombie apocalypse?

Not sure if there are any tricks or secrets.

You obviously make stuff that's (almost) equally as good reheated as fresh and where you have economies of scale. If you make fruit salad and usually use 1 of each fruit, doing a double batch basically doubles the preparation time and you get brown banana slices. No bueno. Soups, stews and roasted veggies are perfect imo because of the relatively long cooking time.

If you want to have a bunch of different things in the fridge, using containers with different colors helps.

Right now we have the following in the fridge from dinners this week:
- Vegetable chili
- Roasted moroccan chicken w/ sweet potato and cauliflower
- Chicken pot pie soup
- Curry cashew chickpea quinoa salad

Also Liege style waffle dough.

I most do very basic stuff. I always have soups in the freezer - vegetable, lentil, potato, whatever I feel like making. Also have vacuum sealed steaks and chops ready to drop in the sous vide. Cooked taco meat, barbacoa, pulled pork, that sort of thing ready to thaw and reheat.

Where I'd like to expand my range is with things that are more meals than just ingredients. I haven't done much with meats with sauces or other non-soup entrees with multiple ingredients. Since I bought a vacuum sealer, that's something I want to get sorted. I have some relatives that don't like to cook (unlike me) and are getting older and it would be nice to stock their freezers with a few tasty things as well.

Someone just posted this in reddit, lol. 104 meals for $150.

My laziness plus my ease of access to comped meals prevents me from doing stuff like this more, even though I really should do it, if for no other reason than being healthier.

My go-to for food prepping are chicken and rice in the instant pot, and greek chicken salads (which is just romaine/cucumber/feta/greek dressing), nothing fancy. Also recently discovered the Huel vegan chili (which I add ground turkey and cheese to, obv)

By food prepping you mean cooking for the week ahead yes? Like on Sunday you cook until next Sunday?

I personally find this really bad for many reasons.

The main fact is, people just need to learn to cook in a fast and effective manor. Knife skills, cleanliness and knowing your kitchen. No normal meal should take longer than MAX 10 mins prep and however long in oven/pans.

I DO agree to cooking things like a whole chicken on one day, or slow cooked pork/brisket etc. For one you can be creative with these over say 3/4 nights with MINIMAL effort. And you can make and keep a lovely stock. Reduce with red wine, herbs and you have a great base for the up and coming week.

Keep FAST staples (lentils, couscous, pastas) and fresh veg and salad and anything can be made fast.

Prepping your veg in different ways keeps things interesting. Boil/steam/roast. All 10 mins.

So my point is. Yes prep if you want for bigger items, but don't stockpile food. Keep things fresh. Just be organized and work better.

Oh if you do make a big chilli etc, just buy freezer bags and portion them.

Another thing to note is, look for foods that have a bit of fridge life but can be cooked fast. Paneer cheese for example. Bag of frozen peas. Can make muttah paneer in 2 months time when you are running out of options.

I meal prep by having a 50% or 40% off offer from UberEats and placing an order.


edit: Occasionally I go and get food from the always delicious Taco Bell.

I feel like 'however long' is doing a lot of work here.

There's also clean up after.

I'm with you, bro. I meal prep by rolling up my sleeves and saying "That looks delicious" right before I start chewing.

My ongoing long-term meal(s) prep is to find a 2nd wife who's a good cook and easy on the eyes. If she cleans up too, that also works.

This seems like a horrible way to live.

That obviously helps but doesn't address the two biggest problems meal prepping tries to solve:
1. People want to eat at a place where they can't cook. Best example: their workplace.
2. People don't have time to wait for their food to cook.

Most days I make oatmeal for my second breakfast. Today I got off the bike at 10:50 and had a call at 11. So only option was overnight oats from the fridge. If I didn't have that prepared I probably would have been stuck with 3-4 bananas. Not very exciting.

obviously not ideal
but the current system offers little support for families with kids
and the dollar bill is stretched until it breaks like a rubber band in the sun oughta

For the meal advice of what I suggested in my post, nothing should take longer than 10 mins in a pan besides a chilli/bolognaise/curry/stew. Even then all you need to do is stir occasionally and rehydrate with more water.

Work smart, not hard in a kitchen and there will be minimal washing up.

Obviously this is different if you are making Gnocchi from scratch or something, but thats not what I'm getting at in my posts.

I get what you mean about work. And yes to meal prep a day or 2 ahead ok for work.. I still stand by my point about cooking most things in 10 minutes if you are an efficient cook however.
There are so many things to cook from scratch very fast but the general population are not imaginative enough.

I can think of almost nothing that roasts in 10 minutes, and aside from pasta, few things that spend less than 10 minutes in a pan.

Heck, even a quick and easy simmer sauce vindaloo takes 15 minutes in the pan after you cook the meat and potatoes.

You also need cooked pasta for that.

Fried/scrambled eggs is something you can make from scratch in under 10 minutes.

But as soon as we're talking boiling water to cook something 10 minutes isn't realistic for most things.

Limiting your food choices to things that take less than 10 minutes to prep and less than 10 minutes to cook sounds like a horrible way to live.

My GF is a vegetarian, and we get 4 meals a week from Green Chef - and I have to admit, that it is pretty damn great. Each meal is in a brown bag with all the ingredients and you prepare the meal yourself. Usually takes 30 minutes of prep, so I feel like I'm actually cooking something lol. It's quite easy and I enjoy the meal prep.

Green Chef has quite a variety of recipes, too. At least 40 different meals so far, and I swear they've all ranged from decent to excellent. I'm not a vegetarian, either. They also have options in some of the meals to add a protein, like chicken or fish if you want.

I was skeptical at first, but this is the best meal prep plan that I've found. I've enjoyed both making the meals and the meals are damn good. Even if they are vegetarian!

Oh, and each meal comes with an easy to follow recipe sheet, like above

You are very wrong. Very wrong. Yes roasting can be slightly longer. However it depends entirely in the veg being used and size of cuts.

And lol if you think say fish, or beef needs longer than 10 minutes to cook. Same time it takes to make a fresh sauce on the side. Multitasking is essential.

I can definitely tell you are not used to cooking different staples or using alternative techniques then just a pan or oven.

I have copious amounts of experience cooking so I will gladly give helpful advice and I know what I'm saying is true for a lot of meals.

I didn't define it to just this. I said a prep day for meats like briskets and roast chickens or crispy pork belly. These all hold cold for a good few days in the fridge and can be incorporated very fast to other dishes.

I don't live my life like this, I love indulgent food. However it is very easily done to make very interesting 10 minute meals.

You need a good understanding of varied ingredients, techniques and a good knowledge of cooking work flow.

I mean this is a 2+2 so I guess what I'm saying will not meet everyone's cooking level here.

"Slightly longer"? My oven probably takes >10 minutes to heat up to 425F. Before the roasting even starts.

I just went through our meal plan for this and next week and there's not a single lunch or dinner item that has a cook time below 20 minutes listed except for two cold salads. Even the quinoa salad tonight took roughly 20 minutes between cooking the quinoa for 15 minutes and letting it steam for another 5.

If only Josh Allen had an easy to follow recipe sheet.

As I said. You are clearly not testing lots of foods or have an understanding if you are using a meal planner, sorry to say.

Well done you chose one staple that takes slightly longer.

We can go back and forth. i know what and what isn't possible. I wouldn't say it is if I didn't know its not possible. I'm not going to just lie about this.

I'm also not saying this is the optimal way to cook, even with the 1 day meat prep.. However this way is much nicer than planning for a week and putting it all in tubs.

I can offer some nice ideas if you were to be so interested, however I feel you just want to debate.