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  • Monday: 8 AM to - 6 PM
  • Tuesday: 8 AM to - 6 PM
  • Wednesday: 8 AM to - 6 PM
  • Thursday: 8 AM to - 6 PM
  • Friday: 8 AM to - 6 PM
  • Saturday: 10 AM to - 4 PM
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After-hours Emergency Maintenance Number: 1 (888) 982-4908
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Guide to Easy Meal Prep Ideas for Work or School

Guide to Easy Meal Prep Ideas for Work or School

A busy life leaves little time to cook. You can eat healthy and save tons of money by making food at home, but when you're trying to balance a packed school or work day, cooking every meal from scratch isn't an option. 
The answer is meal prep. Whether you're packing lunches ahead so you can toss one in your bag, prepping quick breakfasts, or cutting your dinner cooking time in half, a little meal prep goes a long way.  
 

Meal Prep Day

Start by setting aside one day to do all your meal prep. You can meal prep with friends or put on your favorite TV show while you chop, organize, and pre-cook ingredients for a week-worth of meals.

Pack a Week of Cold Lunch Boxes

When you eat lunch away from home, you can make sure that you always have something healthy and tasty by packing box lunches ahead of time. When you have a stack of box lunches in the fridge, you can throw one in your bag in the morning and refuel your energy mid-day without worries. The key is to choose foods that stay fresh and delicious after you pack them.

Start with tupperware lunchbox containers with different sections to keep your food separate, and stock up on protein, produce, and carbs to make each lunch filling and complete. Here are a few essentials you can add:

  • Lunchmeat rolls
  • Burritos and cut sandwiches
  • Potato salad, cold pasta salad, or tuna salad
  • Hummus and pita slices
  • Veggie sticks and dip
  • Energy balls (ex: rolled oats, peanut butter, and raisins)
  • Crackers, pretzels, and small cookies
  • tangerines and strawberries
  • Trail mix
  • Baked bites
A person is holding a wrap with rice, beans, and vegetables.

All-Week Bites

One of the best things you can make on meal-prep day is all-week bites. These are things like protein muffins, egg bites, pasta bites, and other recipes you can make in a muffin tin. Bites provide a combination of protein and carbs that you can enjoy as a snack, add to lunchboxes, and use as sides for quick-cooked meals throughout the week.

There are tons of "bites" and "muffin" recipes that you can try, but these are our favorites.

  • Protein muffins: use protein powder in your muffin mix for tasty power-ups
  • Egg bites: little omelets shaped like muffins, great for quick breakfast and lunch-boosters
  • Pasta bites: tiny pasta bakes in muffin shape, perfect for lunch and dinner
  • Pizza muffins: bake rust dough and pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings into muffin tin bites
  • Cornbread muffins: Simple carb snack you can add to any meal. Sweet cornbread is even dessert.
  • Energy balls: No-bake bundles of protein and carbs

Sunday Chop-Up Party

If you like to cook meals from scratch but want to save time, plan a Sunday Chop-Up party. Chop and prep all your raw ingredients and organize them into Tupperware containers so that cooking only requires throwing everything together into a hot pan. The chop-up can cut your cooking time in half and make it possible to get creative with your supply of ingredients during the week, even on a busy schedule.

In shared living, you can do the chop-up together with friends. Hanging out can make a large-scale meal prep more fun and you can explore possible weekly recipes together while you chop up versatile fresh ingredients.

Three containers of food with rice, beans, vegetables, and chickpeas.

Buckets of Sandwich and Burrito Fillings

If you make sandwiches ahead of time, the bread can get soggy. Burritos last a little longer, but the tortillas can also get soft if wrapped and refrigerated for too long, especially if you like saucy or moist fillings like chicken salad or beans and rice.

So instead, you can streamline your same-day sandwich-making process by preparing buckets of sandwich and burrito filling ahead of time. Then, you can load up your sandwiches just a few hours before a truly delicious lunch. Or you can even pack little pots of filling and fresh bread to make your sandwiches on-site.

  • Tuna salad
  • Chicken salad
  • Shredded barbecue
  • Beans and rice
  • Taco chicken and beef
  • Lunchmeat and cheese stacks
  • Lettuce leaves and tomato slices
  • Egg salad
A sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and turkey on whole grain bread.

One-Dish Meals to Bake and Freeze

Last but never least are delicious one-dish meals that you can make, bake, or freeze and enjoy by the slice. We're talking casseroles, lasagnas, pasta bakes, egg bakes, and anything else that you can bake in a giant pan and then eat one serving at a time.

One-dish meals can be made in a deep baking pan, cut into squares, and served up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner all week long. Even better, you can prep two giant pans of food, bake one for the week, and freeze a second one for next week. You can separate up individual squares for quick meals or heat up the pan to host a dinner with friends. You can freeze individual squares, cooked pans, or uncooked pans.

  • Casseroles
  • Lasagna
  • Pasta bakes
  • Egg bakes

 

Make the Most of Your Apartment Kitchen

If you are looking for a student apartment in San Angelo, TX, with a full kitchen, find the perfect place to try these meal-prep ideas at the River Ranch Apartments. Each apartment features a kitchen with a full-sized fridge-freezer and dishwasher so you can explore all the joys of cooking while optimizing your busy schedule with weekly meal prep.