Meal Prep for Beginners — How to Plan Your Week

Meal prep isn't cooking every single meal in advance and eating the same thing every day. That's meal monotony — and it's why most people stop. Real meal prep is about reducing decision fatigue and time pressure during the week by doing the boring preparatory work in advance: chopping vegetables, cooking grains, marinating proteins, making sauces.

Even 30 minutes of prep on Sunday — washing and chopping vegetables, cooking a batch of rice or grain, marinating chicken — can save 20 to 30 minutes on each weeknight. That compound effect adds up to hours over a week and means you can make genuinely good food on a Tuesday evening without spending an hour in the kitchen.

Not every recipe works for meal prep. The best batch-cooking candidates share a few characteristics: they improve or hold quality over 3 to 4 days, they reheat without losing texture or becoming watery, they work as the base for multiple different meals, and they scale simply (doubling a soup or curry is straightforward; doubling a soufflé is not).

Soups, stews, curries, grain bowls, and braised proteins all check these boxes. Cooked rice and grains are the best base to prep in bulk — they hold for 5 days in the fridge and reheat in 2 minutes. Roasted vegetables hold for 4 days and can be repurposed across different meals. Sauces and dressings can be made in advance and stored in jars.

Kale and quinoa bowls are a natural meal prep starting point. Cook a large batch of quinoa at the beginning of the week, prep the kale (massage with a little salt and lemon to soften it — it holds much better than dressed lettuce), and store the dressing separately. Assembly each day takes under 3 minutes, and the base holds well for 4 days.

Great for: a meal prep lunch or dinner base, getting more greens and plant protein into the week, a dish that doesn't require reheating.

Chana masala is one of the best batch-cook recipes in this collection. It tastes better on days two and three than it does freshly made, scales to any quantity without changing the technique, costs under £1 per serving, and freezes perfectly for up to 3 months. Cook a double batch and you have dinners for the immediate week plus portions in the freezer for busy weeks ahead.

Great for: a reliable weekly batch cook, the most economical meal prep option, a freezer staple that takes no effort to reheat.

A practical beginner session takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours and sets up the week properly without being overwhelming. Here is a realistic plan: start with a pot of rice or grains (20 minutes, hands-off), roast a tray of vegetables at high heat while the rice cooks (25 minutes, hands-off), prep a batch of protein (grilled chicken thighs, 20 minutes), and make one batch dish — a soup or curry — that provides 3 to 4 dinners (40 minutes).

Four things, two hours, mostly passive. That's the whole session. You end the Sunday with cooked grains, roasted vegetables, ready protein, and a batch dish — which is enough infrastructure to build quick, varied meals every night of the week.

A batch of grilled chicken thighs prepared at the start of the week is one of the most useful things you can have in the fridge. They work in rice bowls, salads, wraps, soups, pasta, or reheated as a standalone with a vegetable side. Thighs hold their texture after refrigerating and reheating far better than breast meat, which dries out.

Great for: a versatile protein that works across multiple different meals during the week, anyone who wants to add more chicken to their diet without cooking it fresh every night.

A large batch of vegetable soup is the foundation of a solid meal prep week. This nourishing vegetable soup makes 4 to 6 servings, costs around £4 to make in total, and keeps for 5 days in the fridge. Reheat a portion as a starter or light dinner, or pair with good bread for a more substantial meal.

Great for: the core batch-cook dish that provides several dinners across the week, a restorative meal that's easy to make in large quantities.

Arroz con pollo is one of the best single-pot batch dishes for meal prep: it contains protein, carbohydrate, and vegetables in one vessel, tastes better the next day, and reheats perfectly with a splash of water to loosen it. Make a full recipe on Sunday and you have dinner for four, or lunch and dinner for two for two days.

Great for: a complete batch-cook meal that doesn't need sides, a one-pot dish that stores and reheats well.

Not everything benefits from being made ahead. Salads with dressed leaves, avocado-based dishes, stir-fries, anything with a crispy element, and fresh pasta all deteriorate in quality within hours. Prepping these in advance wastes time and produces worse results than making them fresh in 10 minutes.

The rule of thumb: if the dish relies on texture (crunch, crispiness, freshness) or an ingredient that oxidises quickly (avocado), make it to order. If the dish relies on flavour development, batching in advance makes it better.

Avocado toast is the perfect example of a make-to-order breakfast — it takes 5 minutes and any advance prep makes it worse (brown avocado, soggy toast). Keep the bread and avocados on hand, make it fresh each morning, and don't try to batch it.

Great for: a quick breakfast that requires no advance prep, understanding which foods are better made fresh.