Do you wish you were organised enough to bring your lunch to work? Want to save time and money on making dinner? Nutritionist Jo Travers shares her top tips for meal prepping like a pro.
With the average UK food bill up by nearly £500 a year and energy prices putting more pressure than ever on budgets, there can’t be many who aren’t looking for ways to cut back at the checkout.
You might not be overtly budgeting, but many of us are starting to evaluate exactly what we want to spend our money on. That might mean wanting to save on office lunches in order to have more cash to go on holiday with or eating out less frequently to have a little more in the pot for other expenses.
And the easiest way to eat better for less is to meal prep, says nutritionist Jo Travers. Here’s how she suggests doing it with minimal fuss.
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Create a weekly menu
She swears by creating (and sticking to) a weekly menu. “I usually do mine on Monday night, because on Tuesdays, I work from home and go to the supermarket,” she says. “I start by thinking, what’s happening this week? On Wednesdays, for example, I finish work late – so I need something for dinner that’s quick and easy.”
Go through the days methodically, being realistic about how much time you want to spend cooking each night, she adds. “It does make it a lot easier, rather than getting home at 7pm and going, ‘Oh, God, I haven’t got anything in’ and getting a takeaway.”
Don’t plan around what you already have in the fridge/cupboard
Avoid that classic pitfall of writing a menu or shopping list that works around what’s already in your fridge.
“Instead, start by asking, ‘What am I going to eat?’ Then ask, ‘What do I need to buy from the supermarket?’” Travers explains. “It’s much easier and cheaper to do it this way, rather than based on what stuff you’ve got in your cupboards.”
Start by researching affordable recipes that suit your diet then write your shopping list, she says.
“When I’m meal planning on a budget, I start by typing in ‘budget cooking’ into Google,” she admits. “The easy ones to use are sites like BBC Good Food, but supermarket websites have good recipe sections as well.”
Ignore special offers
“Don’t always feel that you have to get sucked in by a deal,” Travers advises. “It’s OK if you can go to several supermarkets, but most people can’t.”
Obviously if what you want is on special offer, you’re on to a winner – but unless you have hours on your hands, it’s not realistic to let special offers set the menu for the week.
If you’re busy, get your groceries delivered
“Online shopping is a really useful way of sticking to a budget: you can take things in and out of your trolley and add it up as you go,” she tells clients. “So when you’ve got a shopping list and a budget, it’s much easier to make it work compared with shopping in-person.”
For lots of Travers’ clients, she recommends that they set themselves up with a ‘favourites’ shopping list with one of the online supermarkets so they can do their basics at the touch of a button – a massive timesaver for people who work long hours.
Use local markets for batch-cooking
Not everyone has an affordable food market near them, but people in town centres can make the most of them. We’re not talking about fancy farmers’ markets where a bunch of lettuce can set you back a fiver – look out for markets that run during the week and have been there for generations.
“I live near Lewisham Market, which is really cheap,” Travers says. “I have to use the fruits and vegetables quite quickly but it’s really useful if I’m doing a batch cook one day.”
In the summer, batch-prepping something like a rice or bean salad provides a good base for three or four portions of meals that you can assemble differently day by day with cheap jarred olives or peppers, Travers suggests.
Eat fresh first
It sounds intuitive, but if you’re only doing one shop a week, you should eat your fresh ingredients first, then switch to longer-life or store cupboard ingredients.
“Towards the end of the week, I might have some pouches of ready-cooked couscous or something like that and add some frozen vegetables, so I’ve got a nice variety without things going off,” Travers suggests. If you’re not a couscous fan, Stylist has loads of suggestions. Follow recipes for cacio e pepe, garlic chilli pasta and spaghetti alla puttanesca – all made with store cupboard ingredients.
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Freeze leftovers pronto
Rather than batch-cooking, simply make one or two extra portions of whatever you’re having for dinner and pop it in the fridge or freezer.
“I’ll always build leftovers into my plan, so for example, if I need to take my lunch for the following day I’ll make enough to do that extra portion,” Travers says.
And yes: it can be tempting to have a second helping, but this is an instant way to double the cost of your meal. Have a snack or dessert after your first helping instead.
Be realistic with healthy eating
When costs are high, it puts a lot of pressure on you to make perfect meals. Travers suggests that you don’t pile a load of expectations on yourself to eat ‘clean’ or healthier than you normally eat.
“Lots of people cook things because they think they’re going to be healthy, but then when actually they want to eat, they don’t want to eat what they’ve cooked because it’s really boring,” she says. “Probably they didn’t want to eat it in the first place, and they thought they would force themselves to. It’s much better to cook something you genuinely enjoy rather than something that is ‘healthy’.”
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