Part of my meal prepping strategy is to cook extra when I do cook, and package it into meal size portions. In fact, I do not leave food in the pan for "seconds", when I serve a meal I make all the plates up for my family, then I package "leftovers" for later meals. This allows me to always have a stack of grab and go meals in the fridge.
Chicken is sort of an exception for me. Every week I buy a pack or two of chicken breasts, season them simply (either Spike, or salt & pepper), and then I cook the entire pack. After it cools I shred the chicken, put it in a bag and store it in the fridge. Chicken is such a great source of low fat protein, and by shredding it I have lots of control over portion sizes. I also find that when it is shredded everyone in the family is happy with less. I often eat a 2.5 oz portion of chicken. The pictures below show a comparison of 2.5 ounces of chicken in a single piece, sliced, and shredded. You can see that shredding makes the portion seem much larger. Each 2.5 oz portion is about 86 calories, with not quite 2 grams of fat, and 16 grams of protein. (I don't mention carbs, because it has none.)
86 calories of a blank slate. What are some of things I do with this? I use it with leftover cooked veggies and a tablespoon or two of sauce. Think any type of leftover veggie, chicken, and sweet chili sauce, or, sliced onions and peppers with barbecue sauce. I throw it on salads, into "pasta" or zoodle dishes, and sometimes I just eat it plain, with raw veggies. A recent fave is to take about 1.5 ounces, mix a tablespoon of salsa, and throw it in a corn tortilla with lettuce and lite sour cream and cheese. The options are basically endless and it takes on any flavor.
Planning ahead for success when you are hungry is the best way to succeed, and this is why meal prepping works and is so popular right now. However, you have to make meal prep your own. What do you eat regularly? What could you eat everyday in different ways? Get creative.
86 calories of a blank slate. What are some of things I do with this? I use it with leftover cooked veggies and a tablespoon or two of sauce. Think any type of leftover veggie, chicken, and sweet chili sauce, or, sliced onions and peppers with barbecue sauce. I throw it on salads, into "pasta" or zoodle dishes, and sometimes I just eat it plain, with raw veggies. A recent fave is to take about 1.5 ounces, mix a tablespoon of salsa, and throw it in a corn tortilla with lettuce and lite sour cream and cheese. The options are basically endless and it takes on any flavor.
Planning ahead for success when you are hungry is the best way to succeed, and this is why meal prepping works and is so popular right now. However, you have to make meal prep your own. What do you eat regularly? What could you eat everyday in different ways? Get creative.
