Whether you call it meal prepping or batch cooking, planning out your meals for the week can be an incredible time saver and an enjoyable hobby.
However, if social media was anything to go by, it can feel like an all-consuming practice that locks you into a set menu for seven days of the week, leaving little room for spontaneity and normal, healthy cravings.
But for Trisha Lewis, chef and presenter, it doesn't have to be strict and boring. She joined Brendan O'Connor on RTÉ Radio 1 to share her advice for meal prepping smartly.
"I do meal prep, but I don't meal prep for seven days, three meals, because I just think that's a bit bleak. Broccoli is lovely, but it's not lovely seven days later", she quipped.
"I think with meal prepping, it's so beneficial for so many different reasons. I suppose you're ahead before you even start, it saves time, it saves money, and you just know you're getting the right stuff that you need."
One of her go-to recipes is what she calls a "breakfast cheesecake", a high-protein mix of Weetabix and natural yoghurt that has been viral all over social media.
"I'll get a couple of Weetabix, crush it with a bit of milk, put that on the bottom and then I mix some natural yoghurt with blueberries, put that on top and then pop it into the fridge. Then, next day you have a hot cup of coffee and away you go!"
Trisha explained that meal prepping used to feel like a chore for her before she decided to strip it back:
"Before I used to meal prep I'd [be] kind of like, right, I'll meal prep breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and then I find that sometimes if I deviated from that I'd feel like it was nearly a failure and you'd go, you know what, I'll throw the baby out with the bath water and eat what I want."
Instead, she suggests meal prepping just 50% of your meals. "Then it's like, I have this, you're ready to rock and then have a bit of freedom with the rest of the stuff."
When thinking of what to prep for your meals, keeping it exciting and versatile is key.
"When it comes to making anything nice, you need to think about what you're adding in and not taking out. A lot of times when we look at meal-prepping it's nearly like a punishment for previous dinners you've had", she joked.
A staple for her is chicken breast marinated in spices like turmeric, paprika, cumin, black pepper and sea salt, mixed together with olive oil. She adds that to the oven with a cup of water added to the tray, to create steam and keep the chicken juicy. You can then use these for lunch as sandwiches, salads, soups, curries and more.
"Any time you do a dish, I would always say, can you do this four different ways? And if you can, go ahead with that", she said, adding that the maximum amount of time you can store cooked chicken in the fridge is four days, but that it depends on how fresh your chicken was to begin with.
As for storage, your meal-prepped dishes, glass containers are popular on social media, both for how they look and potentially minimising strong food smells. But Trisha says you don't need to put pressure on yourself to have a fridge worthy of Kim Kardashian.
"Use what you have and keep it simple", she said. "But I personally prefer a glass container because it doesn't hold the flavour", she added. "I don't want to be having a breakfast cheesecake that tastes like spaghetti bolognese."
For snacks, especially if you have a busy household with kids who are always hungry, Trisha suggested making muffins with eggs and bacon in the oven, hummus with vegetable sticks, apple slices and peanut butter or homemade protein balls.
"But when it comes to prepping, try and prep the big jobs first. Whatever takes the longest, I would say get ahead and do. We all don't want to be chopping onions, garlic, peppers every night, but if I make a dinner tonight, I might as well prep up two peppers and that'll do me for dinner for the next two nights."
