How to Organize Your Meals for the Week: Kits or Self Prep
We’ve been using meal kits for a couple of months now – we’ve tried two different companies, Hello Fresh, and EveryPlate. We’ll talk more in depth about those in a future post – still testing ;). The thing is though, unless you can keep all of the ingredients organized, you’re still going to have a ‘chasing your own tale’ kind of dinner experience.
What to do? What to do?
Let’s talk about how to get those ingredients organized. First of all, I’m writing from the perspective of a meal kit. You can ABSOLUTELY apply the same ideas and principles to your own meal prep.
You’ll need the following items:
Let me know, in the comments, if you’re meal kit or DIY meal prepper…
(I’ve added more details descriptions and links below the video):
- Your recipe ingredients
- Bins for your refrigerator
- Bins for your pantry
- Freezer Bags and/or a bin for storing extra meats.
If you’re prepping your own meals, add the following:
- Kitchenware needed to prep your meals.
- Small storage containers or bags for ingredients, sauces, etc.
Here’s how we organize four meals each week – you’re going to LOVE how nicely it all fits in the pantry, AND how easy it is to START COOKING – the number one goal!
Shopping Links for items used in the video and some other recommended items:
When you make purchases for organization, you’ll want to create a budget and stick to it! Though items are generally returnable, think about your purchases and what will be the most useful. Also, get something you like. If you hate it, you likely won’t get much use out of it.
Please let me know if you need more suggestions and recommendations.
The Get Creative Case I used to store the dry goods is on sale! There are TONS of storage/organization options HERE, as well – and we will be talking more about those next week!
Stackable Bins. I got mine at various retailers: Ikea, Walmart, Target, the At Home Store. It’s not so important where you get them – you just want them fit well together, perhaps nesting when not in use AND be in your budget. I’ve linked a set from Amazon that has a price reduction at the moment and great reviews.
Plastic Bags, reusable or disposable. I haven’t really shopped much for these – if you’re going with disposable, stick with name brands, like ZipLoc, for your meats. For other items you are storing only short term, store brands or generics will do. I grabbed these from Target – I have not used them enough to give you a thumbs up or down yet.. CLICK HERE to shop reusable storage bags on Amazon.
I will never understand how people live without a good pair of Kitchen Shears…I know, that has nothing to do with organization – but if you’re going to prep your meals or use the kits, you’ll thank me later. You’re welcome.
If you are looking for a more balanced life, and ORGANIZED kitchen, be sure to connect and join us on this journey!
You can simply subscribe to emails, below, or visit my about page and connect on social media.
If you’d like to join our Pantry Organization Group on Facebook, I’d love to have you. (If I don’t know you personally, please comment on this post so that I may ‘vet’ you to join the group in order to protect Cheryl, other group members, and myself.) My amazing friend Cheryl was gracious enough to come over and help me think through the process, repurpose storage things I already had on hand, see where I could save money, and still make my beautiful kitchen as functional and organized as it was designed to be. The small changes we have made already have absolutely been GAME CHANGING. Cheryl has YEARS of experience in this, and has talked me through so much!
The Great Purge Continues!
Keep up to date with THIS PAGE, where I do try to keep current progress updated for those you who are actually fascinated by all of this purging and minimizing business!
Come back on #TackleTuesday next week for a tour of our progress and pantry plans! I have the video recorded, but still need to edit it. I’ll also be talking about micro v macro organizing soon.
Much Love to you and yours!
Cindi
Self proclaimed Godmother of the Messy Bun Mafia.
