Healthy Meal Prep For The Week - Family of 5 - Week 1

Truth bomb, I've never been really into meal planning, meal prepping, make-ahead Sundays, or that jazz.
It's because I am always recipe-testing and filming food for work.

I changed 3 weeks ago.

I've started putting 1-hour, sometimes 2, aside every weekend and prepping enough meals for the week.

The catalyst was my Slow Cooker Course and the fact that all of those recipes can be made into freezer dump bags. It gave me the nudge. 1000s of mummas were making those bags up each weekend, so why couldn't I?!

So here goes, here's the first week of my healthy meal prep for the week, for my family of 5, all done in under 1-hour.

 

Steps In My Meal Prep Session:

1. Shop your freezer - I checked the freezer for what I had; 3 of my 5 meals I could use those items as a base. Saving me money.
2. Planned -I wrote a list of exactly what I wanted to cook, in order for which would take the longest to shortest. That way, I could use the 1-hour of prep time well.
3. Shopped - I bought just what I needed, and that is big for a foodie like me. I love all the things! I spent less than $200, as I did have so many items at home.
4. Kicked the family out - I gave my husband a list of things that needed to be done. Kids haircuts, birthday presents for parties, new soccer boots and sent the kids and him on their merry way. I popped on a few podcasts and enjoyed cooking.
5. Cleaned the kitchen & fridge - I should have done this the night before, but I can't get full-marks on the first week. I cleaned the benches first, so that it was a joy to be in the kitchen. It ensured I could find everything quick, put it in clean containers and straight into the fridge.
6. Cooked - I started with popping the slow cooker on. It's Stace, come on, ya'll know there is going to be a slow cooker meal. I started with the more labour-intensive ones to the quick ones. It helped it flow.
7. Cleaned - Everything went away, the dishwasher went on, it was ace.
8. Felt like a rockstar - Check out some photos below of how the meals were. I often share what we're eating, the sides, all the stuff on my Instragram, so be sure to follow along there too. Kids came home, we spent the afternoon on a bike ride in the park, because all my stress was gone! It was the best.

 

Video Of Me Prepping For The Week:

 

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Recipes I Cooked:

1. Slow Cooker Baked Beans - I used this recipe for inspo and took out the meat and bacon and added in a few extras spices. The kids thought it was ok but they're used to the tin ones. They'll need a few trys. Hubby and I LOVED it. I will def make again and get the recipe right for next years slow cooker course.
2. Slow Cooker Satay Chicken Dump Bag - I used my own recipe for the Simple Satay Slow Cooker Chicken and turned it into a freezer dump bag. So everything goes in the bag, I freeze it and defrost the night before, and then litreally dump everything in to the cooker. It's genius! All the recipes in my Slow Cooker Course have those dump bag instructions.
3. Fish Curry - On my quest to get the kids to eat more fish, I tried a curry. It went down well. I used this Indian fish curry recipe.
4. Salmon Bake - I used an old fav of mine and made my Easy Salmon Bake. I used frozen fish and prepped all the greens.
5. Pizza Night - I grated the cheese, prepped all the sides for pizza night. If I was making it from scratch, which I often do, I would have made up my Sourdough Pizza Base Recipe from my Fermenting Course and frozen that.

 

Items I Used In The Video:

Slow Cooker: https://amzn.to/46HNTyK
Silicone Freezer Bags: https://amzn.to/3YBRBYt
Garlic Crusher: https://amzn.to/3YD18ie
Lemon Juicer: https://amzn.to/3LXdFW8
Measuring Gadget: https://amzn.to/3SG551Q
Knife sharpener: https://amzn.to/46Bco0r

What Do You Think? Tell Me In The Comments:

Did you love this post? 
Does it help?
What do you want to see me make, prep, explain in next weeks video?
Let me know in the comments.

Check back next Friday for next weeks plan!
Stace x