Whether you’re meal prepping for yourself or your family, all three meals or just lunch, one day at a time or one week at a time, we have the ultimate compilation of strategies in this Meal Prep Guide.

It can be a daunting task to meal prep if you’re new to the game and there are plenty of reasons to avoid it. After all, cooking can be hard work. But there are a wide range of options for meal prep from keeping it stupid-easy to super-elaborate.

Let’s dive in.

How to Start Your Meal Prep

How to Meal Plan: A Beginner’s Guide to Success is your go-to - beginner or not. Learn why meal prep is important, how to nail down the schedule that works for you and get some tried-and-true prepping strategies.

If you’ve been at this prepping thing for a while, you’ll still learn some tips you haven’t thought or heard of before!

Meal Prep Guide for the Week at Home

When you have plenty of time at home, 4-Hour Meal Prep for the Busy Beginner will help you split your prep into two days: Sunday & Wednesday. Most of the prepping & decision making is done on Sunday, taking about three hours. Wednesdays are easy because you’ll have a blueprint to quickly execute, which should take about an hour at most.

If you love structure, you’ll love this article. Plus, you can apply the “one weekend day + one week day = schedule success” strategy and adjust which two days work best for you.

On that note, meal prep doesn’t look the same for everyone and trying to fit yourself into a specific “meal prep box” is a quick way to get burned out and frustrated. The key to finding the meal prep strategy that will work for you is trying out different things and identifying what fits your unique needs and routine.

So, maybe you’re less excited by a 4-hour plan and more interested in simple 4-Step Meal Prep? If that sounds like you, this article gets down to the basics to show you how to make meal prep for the week as quick and efficient as possible.

Whether you’re prepping one day at a time or one week at a time, keeping your meals tasting fresh is key to actually wanting to eat the foods you’ve spent so much time preparing. Use our article How to Prep Fresher Tasting Meals for tips and tricks so that time doesn’t go to waste (literally).

And, if you’re thinking to yourself “this meal prep stuff sounds expensive!” you’re not alone. We’re here to tell you that prepping doesn’t have to break the bank. While eating out or on-the-go can be fun and even necessary here and there, it can also be extremely costly on your wallet, macros and time.

Meal Prep Cost Efficiency will help you build awesome habits and have you meal prepping in a cost-effective way.

Prepping for Busy Weeks & Travel

Meal prep doesn’t have to be the traditional version of cooking on Sunday and having everything portioned out in separate, identical Tupperware containers. Whether you are traveling and only have a microwave to cook with or are trying to juggle work, kids and LIFE, Team WAG has you covered.

In our Meal Prep To-Go (aka, a no-cook meal prep guide) article, we’ve shared examples of how you can use fresh, frozen, canned and packaged food to help you reach your goals quickly and easily… all without traditional kitchen utensils.

The other thing that helps when you’re busy is planning Multi Purpose Meal Prep Meals to streamline meal prep and keep it interesting for yourself and anyone else you might need to feed.

In a perfect meal prep scenario you would have all the time in the world, want to eat the same thing every day and only have to worry about our own food. But since weeks like that are few and far between, multi purpose meals are a great go-to.

Another great go-to when you’re busy is Slow Cooker Meal Prep.

Sure, some culinary throwbacks should stick to being a memory (looking at you, jello salads!), but the resurgence of the slow cooker is one that is worth celebrating.

Nothing is better than waking up (or coming home) to a kitchen that smells amazing, tenderly cooked food and minimal dishes. Plus, slow cookers are great #setitandforgetit kitchen utensils. Whether you’re getting stuff done around the house or running errands, these will cook while you’re knocking other things off of your to-do list.

On the flipside Instant Pot Meal Prep can bring the deliciousness of a slow-cooked meal to those of us who are more “throw it together last second” kind of people. An Instant pot is great if you like to cook in shorter stints or for those last-second dinners. Hey, we all have them!

In a really big pinch or when you’re traveling, learning How to Use a Meal Prep Service will allow you to outsource cooking and measuring to take some of the pressure off. Because prepping services aren’t going to be as exact as cooking for yourself, how often you utilize this option will depend on your goals.

You could also have groceries delivered from Instacart, Amazon Pantry, DoorDash, Thrive Market or other grocery services to save time hitting the grocery store.

The best way to meal prep comes down to what works best for you given your goals, schedule, food preferences, and what life is throwing at you.

If that sounds like a lot to juggle a 1:1 coach can help you nail down EXACTLY what will work best for you.