Creating Balanced Meals on a Budget

While a home-cooked meal is nice, it can be time-consuming to make a meal, eat it, and then have to clean up after yourself and your family. Sometimes you may even find yourself ordering out and spending the extra money to save some time. Meals do not have to be time-consuming or expensive, that is why we recommend practicing meal prep. What is meal prepping? It is where you prepare a large portion of food for meals later in the week. This can include making a large batch and storing it, creating individually portioned meals, or prepping ingredients in advance for easy cooking later. There are many types of meal prep, and coming up with a plan that works best for your family can have a variety of benefits.

Benefits of Meal Prep

The most common way to do meal prep is to cook everything on the weekends and then store your meals in the fridge for the next week. While there might be some time spent making the food upfront, you will spend less later in the week. Depending on how much you prep ahead of time, you can seriously cut down on preparation and clean-up. In addition to saving time, you also have a great opportunity to save money. By meal prepping you know exactly what you have and what you will need for the week. You will find yourself buying extra food that your family does not need less often – helping you keep your budget down. Meal prep also saves money by cutting down on the amount your family eats out. If you already have meals prepared, you’ll be less likely to order a pizza or stop by a drive-thru on your way home.

Not only does meal prep save you time and money, but it also can be healthy and lead to a more balanced diet. Since you made the food, you know what is in everything and can make sure your family is eating healthy, well-rounded meals. There are plenty of great, healthy meal prep ideas and recipes that you can find online. At Hearts for the Homeless, we are very committed to making sure that everyone in our community has access to the resources and knowledge they need to maintain a nutritious diet. That is why we are building Hearts Harvest Food Pantry & Cafe, creating a campus from which we will be able to offer meal prep and financial classes to individuals so they can understand the value of meal preparation and healthy financial habits. If you want to learn more about our food pantry, or you are interested in our lessons on meal prep, please contact us so that we can answer any questions you may have.