Food Prep Tips You Can't Live Without
This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks/Rubbermaid® As always, all opinions are my own.
Dinner Time With The Almost Indian Family
As a multiracial family, food is very important. It has become our favorite way to blend cultures. All you have to do is stop by our house any night of the week and you'll see fusion dishes galore as well as Indian feasts!If we're making dinner, we use a lot of our Indian spices to add our family's unique flare to the dish. It makes it our own and we love tasting cumin, cardamom, chilies, and garlic in our food. It's become extremely easy in our house because we've become obsessed with food prep.Our fridge and freezer are loaded with prepped veggies and meals to make dinner time a bit easier. It also means ingredients are easy to grab so spice up any dish.It also means we can make Indian food throughout the week. The thing that always stops me when I'm about to make Indian food is the thought of how much work it's going to be. You have to chop up all the veggies, make the rice, prepare the lentils, make the curry base...There is so much involved! It can end up taking a few hours to get dinner prepared and I honestly don't have the time. This is where food prep comes in. It's shaved off so much time for our family!
My Meal Prep Tips
Meal prep looks different in every family. You may whip up all of your meals on the weekends and reheat during the week. Or maybe you prepare all of your ingredients to make it easier. Either way these tips can help you.
Meal Plan For The Week
If you only followed on tip, this would be it. Plan out your meals. Think through breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the week. Write it all down. This helps you know exactly what you need to get when grocery shopping as well as helping you plan better the day of.If you know you're going to be making chicken curry, you know you have to thaw out your chicken. If you know you're making Naan, you know you have to prep your dough. It takes the stress out of cooking as well as limits those last minute store trips. We all know how crazy they can get with kids!
Chop Up Some Of Your Ingredients
Chop up all the veggies you plan on using throughout the week. Chopping veggies is time consuming. Take some time over the weekend and chop them all up. You can put them in a container and then all you have to do is open it up and grab what you need.If you have some lovely kitchen assistants like I do, you can put them to work! My kids love chopping up the veggies for me. They even make sure to tell everyone which veggies they cut up while we're enjoying dinner at the table. They love it and it helps momma out!
Have Some Fillers Ready To Go
Fillers look a little different in every house. A few of them are beans, rice, naan, or lentils. Plan out some of the fillers you plan on using throughout week. Then you can whip them up and put them in a large container.Our family eats rice with every meal and it takes 40 minutes for our rice to cook. Instead of taking 40 minutes every day, I cook it every few days. It helps cut time and also makes sure we always have our favorite filler on hand for the hectic nights.
Invest Into Good Meal Prep Containers
A good container is an absolute must have for any type of food prep. You need to find leak proof food storage containers that will keep everything fresh. Our favorite to use is Rubbermaid BRILLIANCE containers. They actually sent our family a set to try out this month. I have so many containers so I was curious to see how they'd hold up. They're amazing!The lids are a tight fit which means it locks in the freshness. We have used them for our homemade garam masala, left overs, and prepped veggies.It's hard to find good containers for our family because turmeric stains everything. We use it in all of our Indian dishes, but it ends up turning our containers yellow. the Rubbermaid containers didn't change colors! They stayed crystal clear, even after holding keema curry.When using a container for meal prep you need leak proof guaranteed and these are! My kids even knocked them out of the fridge and they didn't open up. I heard the load crash and hesitated to turn around. They're always knocking things over, but to my surprise nothing leaked out. You can even keep the lid vented open to prevent splatters in the microwave.
Cook On Sundays
Use all of these tips and do your meal prep over the weekend. This way you start out your week stress free. You get all the hard work done over the weekend, with a little help. The rest of the week just requires you to open ups few containers and cook them up on the stove.
Giveaway
Do you want to win your own Rubbermaid BRILLIANCE food storage set? Comment below with a food prep tip and SHARE this post. The winner will be announced on June 1st. Good luck!