Meal Prep Ideas for Busy Weeks: Tips from Personal Chefs
A calm September starts in August. The best system to set up first? Meal prep.
With Easyfeast, a personal chef comes to your home each week and stocks your fridge with fresh, homemade dinners. Get started before the fall rush, and enjoy the peace of mind that follows.
If you prefer to DIY (or just want to get ahead on lunches and breakfasts), we’ve pulled together our favorite meal prep ideas and strategies.
Why meal prep?
Saves time
Saves money
Planning meals in advance helps reduce food waste
Helps you follow a more balanced diet or stick with a chosen eating plan
Reduces the stress of last-minute meal decisions
How to meal prep
If you're just starting meal prepping, here's the simple version:
Pick a day to plan your menu for the week. You can always start small - plan just 2-3 meals. (If deciding what to make is the hard part, see why meal planning feels hard - and what actually works.)
Put together your recipes and prepare a grocery list.
Go grocery shopping. (For insider strategies, see how to grocery shop like a personal chef.)
Do most of the cooking. Focus on the foods that take the longest to cook, like grains, meats, legumes and roasted vegetables. Use this day to prepare other staples that get eaten throughout the week too - hard-boiled eggs, cut fruit, cut vegetables. Instead of cooking meats or proteins, you can pre-marinate them as an alternative (ideas below.)
Store in labeled and dated containers. Our chefs label and date everything they leave in your fridge - and you can do the same. On masking tape, use a sharpie to write the dish name and today’s date, and place that on your Tupperware. For lunches, immediately divide and store them in individual containers on prep day for maximum efficiency. Make sure you have microwave-safe containers for meals that need to be heated up, as well as small containers for items like dressings and sauces. (For more details, see our guide to the best food storage containers for meal prep.)
How long does meal prepped food last?
Refrigeration:
1-2 days: cooked ground poultry or ground beef
3-4 days: cooked whole meats, fish and poultry; soups and stews
5 days: cooked beans; hummus
1 week: hard-boiled eggs, chopped vegetables in an airtight container. (For food storage tips, see our guide on how to store fruits and vegetables so they last longer.)
2 weeks: soft cheese, opened
5-6 weeks: hard cheese, opened
Freezing:
2-3 months: soups and stews; cooked beans
3-6 months: cooked or ground meat and poultry
6-8 months: berries and chopped fruit (bananas, apples, pears, plums, mango) stored in a freezer-bag
8-12 months: vegetables, if blanched first for about 3-5 minutes (depending on the vegetable)
Food that works well for meal prep
Cooked grains and pasta, cooked beans, cooked meat, hearty fresh vegetables (bell peppers, carrots, celery, kale, cabbage), roasted vegetables, whole fruit (oranges, apples, stone fruit), nuts and seeds, cheese, and sauces and dips (salad dressing, hummus, salsa).
Foods that don’t typically work well: fried foods, and softer fruits and vegetables like lettuce, berries and cut fruit - add those fresh on the day you eat.
Meal prep ideas
Protein marinades. These are easy to make on prep day - marinate in the fridge for a maximum of 24 hours. Some ideas:
Teriyaki: chicken, salmon, steak
Garlic and herb: chicken, salmon, steak
Chimichurri: steak
Shawarma: chicken, steak
Bulgogi: steak
Chipotle adobo: chicken
Lemon herb: salmon
Maple and mustard: salmon
Dinners with easy leftovers for lunches. Meatballs and sauce, soups and stews, shepherd’s pie, sheet pan chicken and vegetables, pasta bakes, casseroles (chicken and wild rice, vegetarian tortilla casserole.) (Easyfeast clients: this is why leftovers from your chef’s meals make such good next-day lunches.)
Batch-prepared lunches for on-the-go.
Pasta salad
Chicken and tuna salad
Grain bowls:
quinoa, farro or brown rice + roasted vegetables (like broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, beets) + a protein (baked tofu, chicken, hard-boiled eggs, legumes) + a sauce or dressing. Add any fresh greens and fresh vegetables on the day of eating.
Try different spices and flavors to keep it seasonal. Like a Southwestern-style bowl with chipotle-spiced baked chicken or cauliflower, black beans, quinoa, cabbage slaw, avocado and cilantro-lime dressing. Or a teriyaki bowl with baked cubed tofu, brown rice, roasted broccoli and teriyaki sauce.
Meal prep tips
Freeze leftovers.
Get a variety of containers in different shapes and sizes.
Multi-task with a crock pot meal. On prep day, choose a recipe that cooks in a crock pot and make it first. The meal cooks while you work on the others - or it becomes your dinner that night.
Use a simple meal formula:
Basic meal: protein + grain + vegetable
Low carb: protein + 2 vegetables
Vegetarian/vegan: legume + grain + vegetable
Meal prep works because it moves the effort of dinner out of the 6pm scramble. Easyfeast takes that idea all the way - a personal chef, in your kitchen, and a fridge stocked with homemade dinners every week. See how it works and set up a trial booking.
Sources
Cleveland Clinic. (2024). A beginner's guide to healthy meal prep. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/a-beginners-guide-to-healthy-meal-prep
Gartner, D. J., Hutchinson, P. L., & Singleton, C. R. (2026). To cook or not to cook: Correlates of meal preparation enjoyment. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 58(1), 27–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2025.08.001
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (n.d.). Meal prep guide. The Nutrition Source. https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/meal-prep/
Klein, L., & Parks, K. (2020). Home meal preparation: A powerful medical intervention. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 14(3), 282–285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827620907344