The Best Life-Saving Meal-Prepping Tips for Busy Working Moms

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As a working mom, your day is filled with many to-do lists. Not only that, you need to juggle between professional life responsibilities and ensuring a nurturing environment at home. One of the biggest challenges I experienced as a working mom was “What to cook tonight.” As a mom, you want to provide your children with wholesome, nutritious meals, and hopefully, the children enjoy eating. But do we have time to prepare meals every day? I sometimes had to order McDonald’s for my children, feeling guilty and regretful, but I had nothing to offer.

So, with all these struggles, I learned that meal-prepping for busy working moms is essential for the quality of my life and life balance. I started prepping meals in advance, planning them, and batch cooking when I could make the daily hustle a tad easier. Today, I will share all my tips that you can use immediately!

4 Reasons Why Meal Planning for Busy Working Moms is Essential?

1. For your mental health

Meal planning is like homework that you must do before meal time every day. You will feel anxious, uncomfortable, and stressed if you haven’t planned it in advance when the deadline (= mealtime) is approaching. So, meal planning is absolutely essential for busy working moms’ mental health.

2. For your life balance

You can gain some extra time when you meal plan. If you meal plan during the weekend, every evening, you will save some time and mental energy. This saved time can be used for yourself: short yoga session, bath, meditation, whatever you want.

3. For a well-balanced meal for your family

If you plan meals in advance, you can actually consider what is the healthiest meal for your family and spread out proteins, vegetables, and other nutrition to enjoy a variety of food without repeating them every day.

4. For saving what you have

When you plan the meal, you can use what you have in your refrigerator. Have you wasted ingredients because you forgot that you bought them, and they have already expired? Meal planning is a perfect way to shop your refrigerator and save what you already have. You will not waste ingredients anymore, and you will surely enjoy them when they are still fresh.

5 Ways, How To Meal-Prepping For Busy Working Moms

When it comes to the meal-prepping, it is not about cooking alone. It is all about planning, shopping, and organizing your meal plans to meet your schedule. A well-thought-out meal-prep plan can lead to a diverse monthly meal calendar, ensuring that your family enjoys taste and nutrition. Before setting a regular meal prepping as our household’s routine, I offered the same meals every 3-4 days because I had no other idea. So, meal-prepping is an excellent solution for the stress-free, busy working moms. It helps the household enjoy and experiment diversities meals to find what works for them well equipped with all the necessary nutrition.

Let me walk you through how to create your meal plan.

1. Make a list of meals that you have cooked for your family before

This is how you start. Don’t try to go and do something new. Just make a list of meals that you cooked before for your family. You know that they enjoyed these meals and you know what you need. So, listing them will already give you an idea of what you can cook throughout the week.

2. Use cookbooks

There are so many books covering so many cousins, so many different needs, and varieties of ingredients. They are your good friends. Pick some of your meal candidates from them, making your planning easier.

These are my three most used cookbook recommendations (available on Amazon) in my house:

5 Ingredients: Quick & Easy Food: This is one of Jamie Oliver’s famous cookbooks – You only need five ingredients with this cookbook. 130 recipes are about maximum flavor with minimum fuss, many nutritious options, and loads of epic inspiration. Also, check out his 30-minute- and 15-minute meals if you enjoy his recipes (our family is a big fan of his recipes!)

What Mummy Makes: This cookbook includes 130+ recipes, all suitable from 6 months old. Wean your baby and feed your family simultaneously by cooking just one meal in under 30 minutes that everyone will enjoy.

The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs: This is a cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen, with over 100 recipes. Your children can cook with you; it is a kids-friendly cookbook.

3. Shop your refrigerator

As mentioned earlier, sometimes we forget what we have bought. You are in the supermarket and find a great deal of fresh-looking ingredients. You feel that you need to buy them and stock them in your refrigerator. Then you FOTGET about them. So, the benefit of meal planning is to use what you bought earlier, any leftovers, or any ingredient you purchased but haven’t used yet. Actually, this saves you money and makes you feel terrific since you haven’t wasted anything!

4. Choose easy meals

You don’t need to cook anything glamorous. There are a few ingredients, but the nutrition. Trying something new doesn’t mean that it should be a cooking show. You do what you are good at doing and make cooking enjoyable.

5. Make meal-prepping as your new household’s routine

Set a day in a week to be a dedicated time for meal planning. You can do it quickly if you already have cookbooks or a list of meals you cooked. So, how about a weekend meal-prepping routine?

When should you plan the meals for the week?

When is the best time to prep the weekly meals for the family? I do it on Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon. Chop veggies, marinate proteins, and prepare some snacks a week ahead, saving you so much time when you cook for each day. In addition, you can already precook some meals, ready-to-go. When it comes to cooking meals, you can save one portion for the family so you enjoy it for the weekend evening when you prepare them. This process will ease the weekday rush.

Additional tip: Use a schedule to organize your meal plan!

Any calendar or template for meal planning will work as long as you write down your ideas on paper or tablet to remind yourself what you planned.

Download your free weekly meal planning template here!

6. Share the work

Involve your family in meal-prepping. My daughter likes anything that she can participate in. She is so enthusiastic about joining, especially when it comes to cooking. It is a lovely collaboration with your kids and teaches them how much effort is required to prepare a meal; it also motivates your fussy eater to eat a bit more since they prepare it together!

Pro Tips for meal-prepping

1. Embracing the Beauty of Batch-Cooking

Regarding batch cooking, I confidently declare it is a lifesaver for busy working moms. It allows you to cook and store meals in bulk, giving you peace of mind when you are out of time to prepping meals for the day. Bulk cooking is about making large quantities of meals at once, equally divided into smaller portions that are just enough for the family to have for one meal. As you see, this saves time and effort on busier days; when my meeting was unintentionally extended until a bit later in the evening, or I was stuck in a traffic jam that took me longer than my usual commute time, I can hold on to the meal that I batch cooked and freeze before. I guarantee you, it is a lifesaver. You know, even though you are in a hurry to serve the meal, it is still an excellent quality homemade meal and full of good nutrition.

What are the recommended batch-cooking meals for busy working moms?

Hearty Vegetable Soup: Loaded with nutrients and flavors, this soup is easy to reheat and a comforting meal for the family.

Spaghetti bolognese: Make a large batch of sauce and freeze it; my son doesn’t like anything he needs to choose and doesn’t like the texture of meals often. So what do we do? Make the batch of bolognese sauce and blend it before freezing it. When we cook the fresh pasta, mix it with this sauce when necessary with some cheese; it works like a charm every single time.

Chili: A big pot of chili can go a long way for the family. It is healthy and nutritious, and the flavors often develop the day after it is cooked!

Also, explore these 20 Family Batch Cook Recipes for a treasure trove of meal ideas perfect for batch cooking.

2. Get Yourself an Effective Storage System

Meal-prepping, especially batch-cooking, requires enough space to store your well-prepared meals most efficiently and effectively. Knowing that the meals are well organized and fresh will give you a good feeling about the week ahead.

I recommend you use an organization system for the refrigerator, clear storage so that you can easily see what is inside, and that can optimize your refrigerator most efficiently. Here is my recommendation: click the link to find the best fridge organizer under $20 available on Amazon! 

Final Thoughts on Meal-Prepping for Busy Working Moms

Meal-prepping is a game-changer for busy working moms. I guarantee you will love it once it becomes your routine. Regular planning brings you so much ease in life and releases you from the stress and mom’s guilt. Knowing that you control the meals, you know the family will enjoy nutritious and delicious meals daily without hassle. You can save a lot of time daily struggling and cooking for the family and use this time for yourself, something for you!

So, embrace these meal-prepping tips and templates, and hope this improves your life quality and reduces your stress from meal-prepping!