Low Carb Meal Prep For An Effective Diet

Between snooze buttons, coffee runs, and rush hour commutes, mornings can leave little time for substantial breakfasts and quality packed lunches. Add to that list jam-packed evenings filled with workouts, happy hours, and work functions, and cooking up any kind of dinner dish seems just as daunting—especially when it’s a low carb solution you’re seeking. That’s why a low carb meal prep plan can be a total game changer.

Meal planning is a great way to maintain your busy schedule and still eat low-carb friendly. It involves time-saving and strategic shopping outings, plus single or bi-weekly kitchen sessions. In other words? This is your workweek’s new best friend.

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How to Make a Low-Carb Meal Prep

To ensure you’re getting ahead of the clock while still adhering to your low-carb nutrition goals, remember to keep protein and veggies front and center. When shopping, stock up on items like lean beef, chicken, and fish (opt for grass-fed beef and wild-caught fish when possible), along with eggs and plenty of colorful vegetables (from spinach and broccoli to cauliflower and carrots).

Meal Prep Tips

To help make the most of your time (and energy), call upon these high-efficiency kitchen tips when you’re making your low carb meal prep:

Choose one day to meal prep: Pick the best day to make culinary goodness happen. This is the day that you will choose your recipes (read: below), purchase your ingredients, and work your magic in the kitchen. While any day of the week is fair game, Sundays are a day for good many people, thanks to the extra down time and the chance to plan for the coming workweek.
Start small. Instead of spending hours strategizing meals for the entire week, choose to focus on one or two days. This approach will help you save time in the kitchen come prep day, and can help shape your meal prep goals and capabilities— like what recipes you love and which ones were the easiest to pull off.
Cook in bulk. If three of your weekly recipes call for chicken, roast enough chicken breasts during one prep day to avoid the need to schedule another day of cooking. Another time-saving way to cook in bulk? Consolidate recipes that call for the same or similar oven temperatures, so that multiple components can be cooking at once.
Cook in the right order. If you’re mindful of the order in which you cook items, you can limit the amount of cleaning you have to do, and possibly add flavor to dishes. For example, use a food processor for ingredients that you know you can easily clean before blending a second component that might be stickier and require scrubbing. When using a cast iron pan, use the drippings or seasonings from your first component to help enhance the second one. Even measuring can be made easier! Measure out items like oil before stickier ones (i.e. honey or maple syrup) to help the latter come out in a cinch.
Get the right tools: Make room for plenty of meal prep containers and jars, which will come in handy for daily lunches and breakfasts on-the-go. Think: freezer and refrigerator friendly air-tight containers. For cooking days, you’ll want to be sure you’re equipped with some essential kitchen tools: a chef’s knife, measuring cups, cutting boards, mixing bowls, and a sauté pan.

19 Low Carb Meal Prep Ideas

To help kick off your meal planning routine, check out these prep-and-pack recipes—all low on carbs and full on flavor.

Note: There’s really no exact definition of what “low carb” is, but we chose these recipes that place more emphasis on the protein and fat macros than on carbs.