Cooking Small Kitchen Appliances

How to get started with meal prep

Feeling overwhelmed by the thought of meal prepping? Fear not! Whether you're juggling work, family, or just trying to eat well, our ultimate beginner's guide will transform you into a time-saving, meal-prepping genius.

If you're an adult with a busy life (all of us), odds are you've thought about meal prepping. Meal prepping is a great way to meet your nutrition goals and save time, but getting started can be daunting.

We've created this guide for the absolute meal prep beginner! We'll cover the basics of meal prep, from equipment needed, to the best appliances for meal prep and finally some easy meal prep ideas.

Let's crack on!

What is meal prep?

Meal prep (short for meal prepping) is the process of planning, preparing and cooking meals and storing them in single serves in advance. The idea behind meal prepping is to have meals ready and on hand during the week when you need them without having to cook every day.

Meal prepping not only saves time during busy weekdays but also promotes a more balanced and nutritious diet. When you plan and prepare your meals in advance, you have total control over the ingredients and portion sizes, making it easier to stick to your dietary goals.

Variety of healthy foods arranged on a table, including a glass container with salad, another with broccoli, cauliflower, and chickpeas, a piece of salmon on a potato dish, a small bowl of chickpeas, and chopped vegetables. Slices of red onion, yellow bell pepper, and asparagus spears are on a wooden cutting board.

Why should I meal prep?

The benefits of meal prepping are myriad. Meal prep is great for those looking to meet nutrition goals, save time and save money.

Meal prep saves you time

Meal prepping saves time during the busy work or school week. Instead of cooking lunch each night for the next day, you spend a few hours on the weekend and cook all the lunches at once. Suddenly your time on a weeknight is freed up for more important activities: spending time with family, going to the gym, sitting on the couch scrolling, or your 10 step Korean skin care routine.

Having a meal ready to go in the fridge at work also saves any time you were spending walking or driving to buy lunch. Enjoy more precious minutes of your lunch break and enjoy your meal.

Meal prep saves you money

Meal prepping will save you money! Resist the temptation of the weekday takeaway by having lunch in the fridge that you have to eat.

If you're smart with planning and shopping you can save more money by buying ingredients in bulk and shopping sales.

Meal prep will help you meet your nutrition goals

Meal prepping is great if you have specific nutritional needs. You have complete control over the ingredients in your meals and how big the portions are. Not just for weight loss, you can tailor your meal prep to any specific dietary need to support your own overall wellbeing.

Meal prep can help reduce stress and decision fatigue

Deciding what to eat every day is stressful and tedious. Meal prep eliminates the need to devote mental labour to daily meal planning. Deciding what to eat for lunch or dinner is easy when the meal is already made and waiting for you.

Getting Started with Meal Prepping

It's tricky to know where to start with meal prepping. Here's the basics for equipment and meal planning. 

Equipment required for meal prepping

Meal prep containers

You need as many containers as you have meals to cook at an absolute minimum. Have a few spare in case you lose one.

The best meal prep containers are long-lasting, reusable, microwave- and dishwasher-safe. Plastic might be cheaper than glass, but it can absorb odours and colours after a few uses. If you choose plastic, go for BPA-Free plastic.

Look for airtight lids that lock onto the container to avoid spills in your bag or in the fridge. Make sure they stack together nicely in the cupboard.

Make sure you have an insulated lunch bag to use to take the containers to work with you.

Hot tip: find containers you like and then stick to those when you buy new ones, so you can always find a lid that fits.

Variety of six meal prep containers with different assortments of fresh vegetables and legumes, including bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, red cabbage, chickpeas in plastic containers"

Cookware and Knives

A set of sharp knives for cutting up ingredients will make the prep part of your food prep much easier. Make sure you have a few cutting boards to avoid cross contamination or having to stop and wash as you go.

Saucepans and pots of various sizes and a large baking sheet for tray baking will all come in handy with meal prepping.

Close-up of a person’s hands slicing a red bell pepper on a wooden cutting board, with slices of the red bell pepper already laid out. In the background, there is a green bell pepper and a bowl with some ingredients.

Appliances for meal prep

Regular cooking appliances (oven, cooktop, microwave) will all suffice for meal prepping, however there are some small appliances that will make it a lot easier to cook in bulk.

Food processor

Use your food processor to chop vegetables to make salads and soups quickly and easily. Make cauliflower rice, hummus, and nut butters of all kinds. Health nuts know all about energy ball or protein ball recipes, a food processor is a necessity to make these.

You can also use it to grate cheese!

Black Russell Hobbs food processor with various attachments on a kitchen counter. The main container is filled with carrots and other greens, while the smaller attachment contains berries

Multi-cooker

Use a multi-cooker to cook rice, steam vegetables, make roasts or soups or curries or slow cook. The beauty of a multi-cooker is that once it's turned on and cooking, it needs very little oversight. Turning time you'd spend over a pan into time you can be doing something else.

Hot tip: multi-cookers are also great for freezer dump meals. This is where you freeze a bunch of ingredients for a one-pot meal in a Ziploc bag, and when it's time to cook you dump the contents of the bag into the cooker and cook it all at once.

Modern kitchen countertop with a stainless steel Crock-Pot slow cooker with digital controls in the center, cooking food with steam on the lid. To the right is a plate of cooked vegetables. Behind the Crock-Pot are stacked white bowls and an olive oil bottle, with a pepper grinder and folded cloth napkins in front. The background features a marble wall.

Rice cooker

Rice is a meal prep staple because it's healthy, satisfying, and easy to cook in large amounts. A rice cooker will be amazing for your meal prep journey because it cooks more than just rice (and it cooks rice really well). You can use it to cook other grains, pasta, beans, lentils, soup, hard and soft boiled eggs, even cake and bread. Read our guide to cooking in a rice cooker here.

Hot tip: Leftover rice is one of the easiest ways to get food poisoning, make sure to safely cool and store rice to avoid it.

Modern electric rice cooker with a digital display reading ‘0:00,’ next to a white plate with sushi rolls and sashimi, a bowl of rice garnished with a green leaf, and a bowl of noodles with vegetables. A hand holding a spatula suggests serving or just served rice.

Planning your preps

Planning is key for successful meal prepping.

Choose your meal prep method

There are three main meal methods to meal prep, which one you choose depends on your dietary preferences.

  1. Batch cooking: If you're okay with eating the same thing for multiple meals then batch cooking is for you. This is where you cook one giant meal and then portion it into individual meals. This is the easiest method.
  2. Prepping individual meals: This is where you make individual meals ahead in single portions. Great for variety, takes more effort and cooking.
  3. Preparing ingredients: This is chopping up vegetables, cooking grains or proteins ahead of time and then using them to create meals on the day.

Plan your meals

Plan your menu and write down all of the ingredients needed to create all of the meals on it. If you're prepping more than one recipe, try to pick recipes that require different cooking methods so you can cook more than one meal at a time. If all the meals use the oven (for example), you'll end up having to wait for one to finish cooking before putting the next one in.

Make a shopping list of everything you need, and then designate time to shop, prep and cook.

Person’s hand writing on a ‘Meal Plan’ chart with sections for breakfast, lunch, and dinner across five days. Surrounding the chart are various healthy foods including vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli, fruits such as apples and a halved pear, and a bowl of chickpeas.

Plan your cooking

Be smart about when you cook each part of your recipes. Start with the recipe with the longest cooking time so you aren't waiting all afternoon for it to finish.

Chop all of your veg at once so it's all ready when it's time to cook. This is especially useful if your recipes have common ingredients.

This is where your small appliances come in handy - they can streamline your cooking workflow by taking over tedious tasks (like cooking rice) so you can focus on the rest of the meal.

Practice food safety

Safe food is good food! Here's the basics:

  • Cool foods in the container before moving to the back of the fridge. If you put very hot food in the fridge you risk bringing the temperature of the fridge cavity up.
  • Thaw frozen food in the fridge rather than the countertop.
  • Reheat foods once only.
  • Label food with the date you cooked it on so you can keep track of which ones to eat first.
  • Eat fish before chicken or red meat.

How long do meal preps stay good for? Generally, cooked meals can last 3-4 days in the refrigerator and up to 3-4 months in the freezer.

Clean up after yourself

Empty the dishwasher before you start cooking, so that at the end you can put all of your meal prep equipment in and be done with it.

Best Foods for Meal Prepping

Proteins

  • Chicken is a meal prep staple, it can be baked, grilled, slow cooked or shredded.
  • Fish is a versatile option, grilled or smoked. Canned tuna is excellent for salads.
  • Tofu can be marinated, baked or stir-fried for a variety of meals.
  • Red meat is also great, grilled, roasted or mince.

Grains

  • Rice of all kinds is great for meal-prepping. It's healthy and easily cooked in bulk.
  • Pasta is versatile for hot meals and salads.
  • Quinoa is nutrient dense and can be cooked in a rice cooker.
  • Noodles of all kinds are a good alternative to pasta and rice.

Vegetables

  • Both fresh and frozen vegetables are great for meal prepping and are equally nutritious.
  • Roast a bunch of vegetables ahead of time for use in wraps or salads.
  • Starchy veg like sweet potatoes will hold its shape and texture for a number of days.

Breakfasts

Breakfasts are some of the easiest meal preps you'll ever do.

  • Hard-boiled eggs.
  • Overnight oats.
  • Homemade slices and muesli bars.
  • Prep fruits and portion them into Ziploc bags for quick smoothies.

Easy Meal Prep Ideas

Here's some easy meal prep recipes to get started.

Breakfast

Overnight oats are a simple, nutritious option for meal prepped breakfast that you can customise to just about any dietary need or taste preference. Try this basic recipe from Feel Good Foodie.

Egg muffins are a delicious way to meet your protein macros, and they can be served warm or cold. Try these variations from Australian Eggs.

Breakfast burritos are yum and a good alternative to the morning Maccas run. These ones from Taste.com.au are quick and easy.

Close-up of a breakfast burrito on a wooden surface, filled with scrambled eggs, chunks of white cheese, and red sauce, with grill marks on the lightly browned tortilla.

Lunch and Dinner

The easy, basic meal prep for lunch or dinner is protein, grains, veg and sauce. You can make a lot of different combinations from this:

  • Grilled chicken, brown rice, broccoli and BBQ sauce.
  • Fish, steamed veg, jasmine rice and mayonnaise.
  • Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.
  • Spaghetti bolognaise (mince, pasta, spaghetti sauce, salad on the side).
  • Tuna, pasta, canned corn and mayonnaise. Combine to make pasta salad.
Glass container filled with a colorful pasta salad, including spiral pasta, sliced cucumbers, halved cherry tomatoes, diced bell peppers in various colors, red onion rings, and chopped herbs.

Snacks

Prep your snacks and avoid the 3pm servo run.

Trail Mix: Mix together nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and a few dark chocolate chips for a satisfying and portable snack.

Hummus and veggies: Prepare a batch of homemade hummus (or buy some from the shop), and eat it with carrot sticks, celery sticks or whole snow peas. Crunchy snacks are more satisfying, it's science.

Energy Bites: Easy to make and eat, no cooking required. Try these from the Heart Foundation.

Put some prep in your step

Meal prepping is a game-changer for everyone who wants to eat well, while saving time and money. Lock down your planning, shopping and cooking routine for a realistic way to enjoy healthy eating without the daily inconvenience of cooking.

If you're looking for appliances to help you create delicious meal preps at home, come into your local Bi-Rite retailer and let us take care of you.

Now go forth! Begin this journey to a healthier, less chaotic life with our meal-prep. With the right tools and a touch of determination, you'll be a meal-prepping pro in no time!