Food Prep Day Schedule

I always get fired up for my big monthly food prep day. I love keeping all the work and all the mess confined into one day, and then being able to enjoy healthy food with very little effort for weeks. Here is a general schedule of what my food prep day looks like.

I always do all my grocery shopping a day or two before the day I prep. Doing shopping and prepping in one day is possible I guess, but sounds exhausting to me, I prefer to break it up. I also like to clear my schedule as much as I can, stay in sweats, and just bust it out. My kids get to watch a movie on food prep day, which is really exciting to them, and I also try to have play dough and stuff ready to keep them busy. AND I actually include them in a lot of the cooking. Teaching kids how to prepare REAL food is a good, good thing. My last tip is to always cook the best smelling thing last, so it leaves your house smelling great instead of blegh.

 I jump up and get the first thing going before I even eat breakfast, then typically by lunch I am almost done. While one thing is in the oven you prep the next thing so that there is always something in the oven. Make use of your crockpot, dutch oven, oven, and pot at the same time.

1. I always get the salmon and tilapia soaking in lemon juice first.
2. Get the pork shoulder going in the crock pot.
3. Get salmon in the oven.
4. Prep chicken thighs to be oven ready.
5. Get tilapia in the oven,
6. Get a soup going in the dutch oven. If doing two different soups get one started in another pot as well.
7. Get chicken in the oven.
8. Finish soups and allow to cool.
9. Cook the ground turkey on the stove top.
10. While everything is cooling assemble any other freezer meals you are doing (enchiladas etc.)
11. Portion and prep everything for the freezer.
12. DISHES
13. End with granola.banana bread,muffins etc.
14. While the yummy smelling stuff cooks I do all the washing and chopping of produce.
15. DISHES

I like to do all the meat prep and then start a load of dishes and really disinfect all my surfaces. Then I move on to the baking/chopping type prep. Generally I run the dishwasher three times on food prep day. I also generally always have pork should for dinner on food prep day because it takes until dinner time to cook. We eat it, then I portion out and freeze the leftovers.

I can't even explain how this process as simplified my life, changed the habits of my entire family, and set me up for success in healthy eating. Trying to serve some complex, exciting healthy recipe every night caused quick burn out. "What's for dinner?" is no longer the stress inducing question it once was. I could go on and on. I hope these posts have been helpful. It has taken months for this to come easy and fit in my life naturally, so don't get discouraged if it feels hard at the beginning. You will find what works for you. Happy prepping!