Meal Prep For Lazy People: 9 Easy Cheats For Healthy Weeknight Cooking

Have you often considered diving into meal prep, but find the thought of spending your whole weekend cooking and boxing meals unappealing? Plus, eating the same thing night after night might not be your jam – variation and convenience are what you crave. We get it, and we may have the solution. Here, we offer a few ideas to keep your weeknights full of healthy meals without too much planning or time spent in the kitchen.

Stock Your Pantry

It seems pretty self-explanatory, but great spur-of-the-moment meals start with a well-stocked pantry. Martha Stewart offers a solid grocery list to keep handy, and so does The Spruce Eats – though your culinary stockpile will also depend on your personal food preferences, of course. We like to have plenty of good-quality tinned fish at home, as well as a variety of nuts and dried fruits, dried mushrooms and an eclectic mix of global condiments and spices, from pomegranate molasses to oyster sauce, cumin to cardamom. 

The Neapolitan Sicchie d’a Munnezza, or ‘garbage can’ pasta is a great pantry dish that uses holiday leftovers (a variety of nuts and dried fruits). These pantry peanut noodles are a favourite as well. Meanwhile, lentils – with their long shelf life, nutritional value and versatile flavour profile – are a pantry superstar:

Think In Building Blocks

Rather than prepping five portions of the same meal for every weekday, take some time on the weekend to prepare ‘building blocks’ for your meals. Then, during the week, you can assemble meals using freshly cut (and tastier) vegetables and proteins. 

How it works: on the weekend, cook pulses, grains or wild rice (which takes longer to cook than white rice), make condiments such as sauces and dressings (more on those below) and create a stash of garlic and/or ginger paste stored in oil for easy access. Nisha from Rainbow Plant Life also suggests doing ‘mini-prep’ on some ingredients, such as draining and drying canned beans or cubing and pressing tofu to roast them later in the week. Cook ground beef or turkey in advance, and season it in different ways later in the week. Lastly, boil a batch of eggs for a convenient protein component.

Sprinkle, Spread And Dip

For simplified veggie prep that will keep your taste buds interested, spend a couple of hours (or so) of weekend time making your own spice mixes, spreads and sauces. They’re cheaper, healthier and more versatile than store-bought stuff, and easy enough for anyone to prepare at home. We love to drizzle tahini dressing on roasted veggies and salads, toss pasta with a two-minute fresh pesto, rub proteins with homemade jerk seasoning, add a bit of dukkah to pretty much everything, or dip our air fryer sweet potato fries in a simple immersion blender chipotle mayonnaise. With these tastemakers, you don’t need to follow complicated recipes to create a winning dinner.

Get A Veggie Subscription

Meal kits are awesome, but all the plastic packaging is not. Opt for a weekly vegetable farmers market box instead: not only does it come with recipe inspiration sans the waste, it also forces you to really get your veggies in. Win-win-win! Some farmers market boxes are available with meat, fish or other ingredients as well, and require very little additional grocery shopping.

Enlist The Instant Pot (Or Slow Cooker)

A kitchen craze for a reason, the instant pot has many functions, but the slow cooker setting reigns supreme for lazy cooks. Dump ingredients in, set the timer, go about your day, and find dinner ready in the evening. Identify a few greatest hits in your repertoire and put them on rotation: that way, you can prepare dinner with your eyes closed. A (vegetarian) chilli is always a good idea, no matter the season, as well as a veggie-loaded dal or vegetable pulao.

Embrace Your Oven

Whisper it: our love for the trusty old oven trumps our love for the instant pot. Not only does roasting bring out the flavours in any veggie, but you can also clean up and set the table while the oven is working its magic. We like to keep veggies chunky: not only does it save on prep time, but it also ensures that they retain a nice bite. Sprinkle some fresh herbs and crumbled feta on top… and voilà. We always keep a roll of dough in the fridge for making veggie Flammkuchen, a sheet pan pizza or a savoury tart in a cinch. A fillet of fish in parchment paper with seasoning requires all of five minutes to prep. Add a green salad on the side, and dinner is sorted.

Use Ice Cube Trays

Your freezer is your friend when it comes to meal prepping for obvious reasons, but once you discover the versatility of ice cube trays, you’ll be sold. You can portion out anything from fresh herbs to pesto, marinara sauce, fruit purées, pancake batter, compound butter and more, creating convenient small portions of something whenever you want to use it.

Cook Once, Use Twice

Busy weekend plans stand in the way of meal prep? You can always use shortcuts during the week to streamline dinner preparations. Challenge yourself to get creative in repurposing proteins into entirely different meals the next day: grilled rosemary and orange chicken is delicious in a salad; the meatballs in your spaghetti could end up in a tasty sandwich or wrap; leftovers from sheet pan salmon with veggies go great in a noodle dish.

Don’t Forget Breakfast Prep

Save some time on busy weekday mornings by pre-prepping breakfast. For overnight oats, rather than repeating flavourings and toppings, make jars with basic overnight oat ingredients, then top each one off with freshly cut fruits, nut butters and homemade fruit purées. Alternatively, prepare protein pancakes, freeze them, and choose a different sweet or savoury topping for each day of the week.