How can you manage to get a healthy meal on the table when you have no time to cook?! The immediate answer may often seem to be picking up pizza or some other takeout, and not getting the nutrition that your family needs. But that’s not your only choice.

So what’s the secret to finding time to make healthy meals when you’re ALWAYS short on time? It all  boils down to one word: PREPARATION.

Here’s how to make it happen:

1. Involve the family when creating your shopping list.  Ask everyone which vegetables they’d like to see included in meals for the week.  Also ask them what one new vegetable is that they want to try.  If possible, take your children along to the grocery store; teach them how to select good produce and how to identify an organic piece of produce versus conventional.
2. Select a day to shop and prep.  Schedule a 2.5 hour window so you may complete your grocery shopping and then come home and clean and prep all your vegetables.
   • Purchase a vegetable crisper to house all your prepped vegetables.
   • Wash, peel if needed, and chop your veggies into snack size bites.
   • When it’s time to use them in a recipe, you only have a couple more cuts to make and you can throw them in the pan.
   • I do not prep my greens ahead of time unless I have time to wash them and let them completely air dry before refrigerating them.  If needed, you can store your greens in a plastic shopping bag with a paper towel inserted into the bag to soak up moisture after washing them.
   • Berries should not be washed until you’re ready to eat them, so only wash what you need at the time.
3. Choose a night on the weekend to soak your beans and brown rice in preparation to cook the next day.  Or you can opt to soak them during the day while you’re off at work.  Beans and brown rice should both soak for 8 hours, then be rinsed before cooking.
   • After 8 hours of overnight soaking, I cook a large 8-10 serving pot of rice to be used for the week ahead.
   • After 8 hours of soaking, I’ll cook my beans on the stove top or pop them into the crockpot on low to cook throughout the day (I do add water of course).  They’ll be ready for my meals in the week ahead and while the beans are cooking I can be prepping other meals.
4. Do as much as possible during your sheduled prep time to create marinades, make soups, prep vegetables, and possibly even cook some of the vegetables you’ll need.  I often will roast two large cookie sheets of vegetables.  I then use these in the breakfast scramble, breakfast burrito, brown rice bowl, and on top of a salad.  While my beans and rice are cooking away I’ll make one or two pots of soup and make sure any sauces or marinades are prepared.  Before the afternoon is done, I have soup, veggies, sauces, beans and rice all ready to go.  My week ahead will be an easy one!
5. Sometimes I make a double recipe of a meal that will freeze well.  We eat one meal for dinner and I’ll freeze the other for an easy go-to meal for the weeks ahead.  This is very easy to do with soup recipes!

Food prep doesn’t have to be intimidating and take hours of time each night; it’s simply a matter of being strategic, putting a plan into place over the weekend, and taking a little time to prep!

Enjoy!