Dr Oz: How To Meal Prep For A Week Of Healthy, Tasty, Cheap Meals

Dr Oz: 5-Day Meal System

Have you been struggling to figure out what to feed your family lately? Now, just two hours on Sunday can give you a variety of healthy, affordable, and tasty meals to feed your family all week long. Julia Collin Davison from America’s Test Kitchen designed a specific 5-day meal plan for families that doesn’t take too much time or cost too much, like so many meal prep plans can. Additionally, the plan can help with weight loss!

When prepping on Sunday for the week, it’s important to remember to cook extra for dinner in order to have leftovers you can eat for lunch the next day. It’s also a good idea to think of what tastes good chilled because then it’s even easier to enjoy! While most of the 5-day meals can be stored in the fridge, you should also keep your freezer in mind to help you store items for later on.

Dr Oz: Grocery Shopping For Meal Prep

It all starts with a trip to the grocery to make sure you have everything you need for the week. You can find a full list on Dr Oz’s website, but the most important things to shop for are lean proteins, green vegetables, and a little cheese and fresh herbs to add flavor to the meals. If you add all the ingredients together and divide them up for meals for the week, you’re only spending about $1.50 per meal!

Also, prepping is all about storage so you want to make sure you have the right ones. First, get about 20 mason jars because they’re perfect for breakfast, including meals on the go. You also want to have some different size storage containers, but bags are most important because they’re cheap, reusable, and can lie flat.

Dr Oz: Make Ahead Oatmeal Breakfast

A great place to start is with the mason jar oatmeal breakfasts. Grab five of those jars and to each one, add the following:

• 1 C oatmeal
• 1/4 C chia seeds
• 1/3 C walnuts
• 1 C raspberries
• hot milk or water (when ready to eat)

Dr Oz: Prep Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner For The Week

After you take care of breakfast, you’re ready to move on to lunch and dinner. Julia suggested starting with the chicken and potatoes. By cooking a bunch of chicken, you’re giving yourself chicken for two dinners and some lunch. She cooked about 2.5 pounds of slices fingerling potatoes in a roasting pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then added 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken on top. Brush with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, then place in the fridge. You can then have it ready to go to roast it in the oven for an hour and a half on Monday evening for dinner, Tuesday lunch, and Tuesday dinner.

You then want to wash and prep the salad and vegetables for the week. First, slice and chop or spiralize then pack into plastic bags with a damp paper towel and store in the fridge. Yes, it’s that easy!

Once you take care of your vegetables, you’ll want to use your slow cooker to cook something like chili. Let pork and bean chili cook in the slow cooker, only cooking the oil beforehand, and then freeze it for the week.

Lastly, it’s important to label everything properly. You want to label whatever is in the bag or container, as well as how to cook it, so that you already have the recipe right in front of you.

Dr Oz: Make Meal Prep Work For You

Dr Oz spoke to three women to find out how the plan worked for them. They were thrilled to share that it was all easy to use and saved them a ton of time and effort. Additionally, they saved a lot of money and their families thoroughly enjoyed the meals.

Julia loved that one meal made for dinner can easily be transformed into lunch for the next day, in a different way. For example, a meatloaf with rice and vegetables for dinner can turn into meatloaf sandwiches for lunch. Don’t be afraid to get a little creative!