This video is a great example of inexpensive meal prepping. One of the reasons I love the “Tasty” videos is because they do such a good job going through each step and creating some fun, tasty meals for everyone to try! This video in particular goes through the process of making five dinners for two people, and keeping the expenses all under $20! There were a lot of great tips used throughout the video, but there were three in particular that I wanted to focus on for right now! Here’s the top three:
Buying Whole
One great thing about this type of meal prep is the amount of money saved by buying things whole instead of pre-made or pre-cut. You can see from the first meal with the chicken, he is cutting the whole thing himself rather than buying pre-cut chicken from the store. This isn’t always ideal if you are on a time-crunch in the middle of a busy week, but it does come in handy when meal prepping, and it definitely saves some money on ingredients when you do it yourself!
And if you would prefer to save that extra time rather than making the chicken stock that he uses for the first recipe, you could even just buy some chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you want to make it a vegetarian dish) from the store for pretty cheap as well.
Using Spice Packets
Another great tip I love from this video is the use of spice packets! They make things SO. MUCH. EASIER when cooking full meals for a group or for yourself when you’re meal prepping. If you aren’t going to use all those spices again, it becomes a lot more convenient to just buy the spice packet that has all of the spices already combined and ready to go.
Having a Good Base
One important trick to saving money on meal prep comes from choosing a good, inexpensive base to go with the dish you are preparing. In this video, he uses pasta noodles and rice to act as a base. These two things are inexpensive, and they also come in a variety of forms. This can make it fun if you decide to swap things around in your recipes–like using brown rice instead of white rice. The possibilities are pretty much endless.
As always, I hope this post was helpful. I would love to hear about your experiences of preparing meals on a budget. I would also love to hear how these recipes turn out for all of you! So give them a try, and let me know in the comments how it went!!
Mind & Body 