
Eating healthy food while staying within the budget is not a mission impossible. It requires planning and buying only groceries that you’ll portion throughout the week. Once you start doing it, you’ll notice how much money you’ll save, and it will keep you on track with your diet.
In this guide, we’ll explain how to prepare quick and nutritious meals and eat well without ordering food or dining in restaurants. And we’ll outline the basic rules to make the process easier.
Calculate Your Meals
First, you need to count how many meals you’re having during the week. Usually, for the workweek, you’ll need 50 meals with one snack. To pack all those meals, you should buy plastic or metal boxes to pack everything and always have it ready.
Once you have everything calculated, you should decide what kind of food you want to eat throughout the week and make big batches that will cover five lunches or five dinners. Breakfast and snacks you can easily prepare as they don’t have to be cooked.
Don’t forget to count date nights and meals with clients to know exactly how much food you need to prepare. One of the key things is not to waste food, even if you want to skip lunch or dinner.
Keep Your Food Simple
When you’re a new cook inexperienced with buying food in bulk, try to use simple recipes packed with proteins and fibers and are easy to make. Stay away from the elaborate dishes that might take hours to make or taste good only when they’re fresh. The best way to envision a meal is to use meat or vegetables, potatoes or rice, and a salad.
So, if you decide to make pork loin, sweet potato, and lettuce salad, you should prepare five meals. And you can cook it in less than 20 minutes. For breakfast, make a quick sandwich with salmon, eggs, or ham and cheese, and as a snack, you can cut apples, oranges and use dried fruits or berries.
Simple and tasty food will keep you full, and you won’t feel the need to buy more snacks or eat hotdogs all week.
Start Slow
If you can’t keep up with preparing all three meals, focus only on your lunch. Sometimes, it’s hard to go from no cooking to living in the kitchen, so stay calm and organize your lunch. Once you get better at it, you can start preparing breakfast and then dinner.
With an abundance of YouTube tutorials for quick and easy meals, you’ll find food that tastes good and give you enough energy to be productive all day. And whenever you feel like taking a break, go to fintys.com.au/deals/uber-eats-promo-code/ and treat yourself to a double cheeseburger or sushi. You can’t go wrong with that.
Try Easy Cooking Methods
Of course, grilled meat has the best taste, but if you don’t have a special pan, you’ll have a hard time figuring it out. Instead, you’ll realize that your oven can do a lot of work while you’re using the time to cut fresh veggies.
A slow cooker or an air fryer can also save you time, as all you need to do is leave the food and wait until it’s done when you need to make a lot of meat or potatoes, it’s easier to do it in one go.
Use Frozen Foods
One of the best ways to save time is to stack on frozen meat and veggies. Since you don’t have to cut every piece of food on your plate, you can simply open a bag of broccoli and cook them with meat or rice.
Frozen beans, carrots, bell pepper, or onions often come together, and all you need to do to complete the meal is to add some meat, mushrooms, or pasta, and that’s it.
Share Food with Others
If you realize that you’ve made too much food or that you’ll skip a meal, find a colleague who would be willing to share your meal. Of course, if you notice that the portions you’re making are too big, get a scale to make them even more.
Another promising idea is to use all your leftovers to make an excellent lasagna for all your friends. That way, you won’t have to throw away anything.
Always Choose the Best
Weekends can be a great time to visit local markets and get all the fresh ingredients for your weekly meal plan. Use a few hours during the weekend to prepare tasty meals, so that you can enjoy good food every day. Plus, you can start bragging about how you’ve become a home chef.