Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center Discover Your Inner Meal Prepper Summer Meal Planning Series Part 1

By Bailey Carr, Culinary RDN

Welcome to May, sweet summertime is on its way! And so are rising temperatures. And so is the end of school. There is already an activity on the calendar every week until August. And the outdoors beckon! But you’re hungry. The relief and freedom the summer brings can unexpectedly lead to a new crisis—how do I do it all, and still feed myself and my loved ones? We’re glad you asked! Take a breath and settle in, we’re here to guide you through our four-month Summertime Meal Planning Series. First up, discovering your inner meal prepper!

Time for a personality quiz! Are you:

• Type A: your pantry is color coded, you live for efficiency
• A hopeless culinarian: you love to cook, you live to cook, it is your (figurative and literal) spice of life
• A hopeful culinarian: you want to love cooking, but feel a little intimidated with getting started
• A food critic: you love eating other people’s food, you have a distinguished palate, you live to eat good food and stay outta the kitchen
• The flash: you move like lightning, you cover a ton of ground in a day, you need to make sure time in the kitchen works alongside your life of speed

While we are kidding with this test (kind of), it brings up the first step of meal planning: meeting your inner meal prepper. This involves identifying the bounds of your personality and understanding your relationship with the kitchen. This is critical. If you don’t have a good understanding of these you may choose the wrong meal prepping plan for you, and that doesn’t feel good. It might make you think “I’m a failure”. It causes the thoughts that meal prepping is impossible and only for the “other, better, healthier” people.  That is not the case. So now that you are waking up your inner meal prepper, let’s investigate what the different meal prepping styles are.

What are the different styles of meal prep?

Meal prepping styles should be as diverse and nuanced as personalities are. Below are general styles to refer to. As you read, evaluate what general theme best aligns with your personality and preferences:

• The Weekend Restaurateur. Involves making all or most meals in cooking sessions 1-2 days per week, effectively turning your kitchen into a temporary food-service operation. This style has a longer initial cooking investment but creates a reprieve during the week. It requires lengthier blocks of time to complete batch cooking, and ample Tupperware.
• The Nightly Chef. Involves cooking each night. It requires smaller yet more consistent time blocks in the evening. It is best for those who do prefer variety and do not enjoy leftovers. It also requires a general enjoyment of cooking to prevent burnout.
• The Semi-Homemaker. Involves relying on many pre-made and store-bought foods but compiling them into options to eat throughout the week. There is no shame here, this is the modern-meal prepper’s best kept secret. This style has a decreased time investment but may come at a slightly higher financial cost.
• The Iron Chef. Involves the mantra: “my plan is no plan”. Every night there is an unveiling of ingredients followed by 1-hour to concoct your meal. It requires a love for adrenaline and an amply stocked pantry. Spaghetti tacos, why not? This style is likely not for those who thrive on planning and order, and/ or those who cook for an audience that doesn’t grant points for creativity.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list of the different styles of meal prep, nor is it likely that you only adhere to one style! This is simply an illustration of the spectrum of meal planning. It is normal to find yourself plotted in different places on this continuum based on lifestyle fluctuations. Be flexible and choose a style, or a mash-up of styles, that makes the most sense for you!

What is your relationship with meal prep like?

Let’s take a pause— there is no rush when it comes to meeting your inner meal prepper. In fact, have a conversation with this part of you. Even if you feel quite seen through the rundown above, it is still leaving out the unique experiences you’ve had with meal prep. Here are a few suggested questions to ask as you and your inner meal prepper have a chat:

• Which personality types listed above resonate with you?
• What is your unique personality type?
• What are your unique lifestyle circumstances?
• What meal prepping style(s) resonate with you? Which can you easily rule out?
• What parts of meal planning and prepping have been successful for you in the past? What pieces and parts have not been successful?
• How could meal planning/ prepping help improve your life?
• What is your desired outcome from having a meal planning/ prepping routine?
• What is the first step you would like to take with meal planning/ prepping? Is it realistic? Is it so realistic, you could start it this week?

Only after having this type of meal prep mapping to really understand your experiences, goals, and desires can a strategy start to develop. And even once you have a strategy, it is likely going to take lots of revisits and fine tuning over time. The list of questions above is a tool of self-analysis to come back to whenever your meal prep routine needs a refresh.

Now, let’s explore how to get started.

Where do I Start with Meal Prep?

True or false: great meals start in the kitchen. False! Great meals start in strategy. A strategy originates from a complex tangle of food preferences, cooking ability, schedule conflicts, pantry ingredients, coupons… the list could go on. How do you make sense of all this to create a generalized framework that allows you to build out your meal prep style? Meet the 4 P’s of meal prepping: Plan, Purchase, Prioritize, Prepare.

Now, we are not going to dive into the deep end with these now, we have all summer long for that. Chat with your inner meal prepper as you run through the 4 P’s and their components. Refer to the list of reflective questions above: what successes do you recognize? What frustrations?

Plan (Even if your plan is having no plan, some type of plan is still needed)

• Involves deciding how many meals you will cook in the week, selecting recipes, and making a grocery list

Purchase

• A critical point! Purchasing is not cut and dry, but hinges upon remembering your list, being flexible if ingredients are out of stock, and/ or factoring in new ingredients that may be on sale. This step is what finalizes the foundation for meal prepping in your style of choice

Prioritize

• This is the step that both ensures you have nourishment ready for you when you need it most, and minimizes the risk of broccoli and bell peppers turning into a green-brown soup on the bottom of your crisper drawer. Prioritizing involves selecting the meals that are most critical to prep for, and creating plans for ingredients that are most perishable

Prepare

• The culmination of all of your hard work planning, purchasing, and prioritizing! This is the stage in which you are occupying the kitchen and actively working to identify the meal prep style and cooking structure that works for you and not against you

Congratulations! By reading through Part One of our Summertime Meal Planning Series you have successfully started the first step of meal planning: discovering your inner meal prepper. What have you learned about yourself? Have any new ideas surfaced? Stay tuned as we begin to explore the 4 P’s of meal planning, starting with Planning and Purchasing next month. Until then, continue to chat with your inner meal prepper, increase your awareness of how meal planning could best serve you, and we will see you in June!

About the Author

Bailey has been with the KRNC since July of 2023, and works primarily at the CSU Spur campus in Denver, CO. Learn more about Bailey’s culinary dietitian background and training in her KRNC Bio.

More Information

For additional resources for healthy eating, check out these programs from our registered dietitian nutritionists. Find delicious and healthy recipes on our Recipes page! More health tips are also available at the College of Health and Human Sciences Pinterest board. Lastly, don’t forget to sign up for the KRNC monthly newsletter!