How to Save Time Preparing Paleo Meals

By Camille Macres in How To Articles

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One of the main things that holds people back from eating paleo consistently enough to see the results they’re after is the time it takes to prepare meals from scratch. Unless you were already preparing all of your meals and now you’re just doing it paleo, there are some new habits that you may like to adopt.

Here are some on my favorite strategies taken from inside Paleo Cooking School (to get the complete lesson with all of the videos and recipes, get access  here).

1. Make meal planning a priority.

Planning your weekly meals is essential if you want to waste less food and avoid last-minute convenience food trips.

Look to the week ahead and ask the following questions:

  • How many activities or nights planned out do you have?
  • Do you need to bring food for any of them?
  • How many lunches will you need to prepare ahead?
  • How many nights will you be arriving home late and need a meal that’s mostly ready to go?
  • What days do you have time for batch cooking and grocery shopping?

I like to use an old-fashioned calendar and mark these down, then use about two hours on a Saturday or Sunday for meal planning and a big supermarket trip, then an additional 3-4 hours to do cook one big batch of food for the week. I also do another smaller shopping trip midweek for the rest of my fresh meat and produce, and another shorter batch cooking night that takes about two hours.

2. Choose meals that can be made in large batches and freeze a portion of most everything you cook. 

Here’s what you need:

  • A variety of containers, both BPA-free plastic and glass (never put hot food in plastic). Over the last year, I have started using lots of silicone baking cups (like these), too. I can bake muffins in them, freeze, and pop out into a bag. In addition, I also put individual portions of soups, casseroles and side dishes. I even assemble mini sliders with mushrooms and layered eggplant parmesans in them! Anything that is a bit wet can be portioned in these, frozen on a sheet tray, and then popped into a freezer-safe bag, then thawed and heated individually for a quick meal. I REALLY have come to love my Vacuum Sealer Food Saver machine. It keeps foods fresh in the freezer without freezer burn for over a year!
  • Freezer space. Clean out your freezer of the stuff you don’t need to make space. Also consider buying a chest freezer. Then you can buy shares of cow, lamb or swine and you also have ample room for your sheet trays.
  • Organization. Keep a small dry-erase board or even a sheet of paper with your freezer intventory. Each time you make a batch of something that goes in the freezer, write the date, name and number and cross off each time you eat something. Easy peasy!
  • Thing outside the box! Most things are freezeable, you’d be surprised. This includes, soup, stew, slow cooker things, casseroles, muffins, cookies, and sauces. I cant think of much but raw veggies that aren’t ok to freeze. Get into the habit of making double or triple and freezing it in a single serving container (a sigle serving for a family is different than a couple or individual, basically the size your clan would eat in a 1-2 day span).
  • Freeze with care. If your freezing something like muffins or waffles, make sure they get frozen individually, otherwise you could end up with a big hunk of stuff which doesn’t help much when you want just one. Freeze separate on a sheet tray and then put in a ziplock bag once frozen to save space. If you don’t have space for your sheet tray in your freezer, you can put squares of parchment paper between them to prevent sticking together when freezing.Here’s a couple of my favorite recipes

3. Invest in a couple specific appliances that cut down on your veggie chopping time.
Many years as a private chef have taught me that how you cut your produce can make or break your efforts to make a fast meal. I also don’t recommend the pre-cut convenience veggies: you start losing nutrients as soon at the veggies are cut, and they’re much more expensive per pound than their whole alternative.

Instead, I love using my food processor. If the food isn’t something I can cut with a food processor, I always ask: what’s the fastest way to cut that? For example, you can cook your winter squash and potatoes whole, then cut them, instead of peeling and cutting them up when they’re raw and hard. So much faster! I also LOVE chopping veggies up into really small pieces in the food processor and hiding them so the kids will eat. This works really well with sauces, meatballs, and chopped salads. Here’s a couple options: 

Another food processor I love is my Saladmaster. Its the one in this video from Season 1 of Camille’s Paleo Kitchen:

 

4. Choose your recipes wisely. This should go without saying, but if you want to save time making your paleo meals, you should probably avoid recipes that have many steps and complicated instructions. Questions I ask before making a new recipe:

  • Can I multiply this recipe and freeze all or any part of this for another meal?
  • Can I chop or slice my veggies in a food processor?
  • Is this going to take less than 15 minutes of prep time?

Unless I can answer yes to at least 2 of these questions, I rarely make it unless its REALLY special.

To send you on your speedy paleo meal journey, here are a couple videos for recipes I love making in large batches and stocking into my freezer.

If you would like access to my whole library of cooking education which includes over 70 videos, click here to checkout Paleo Cooking School

Pumpkin Waffles:

Slow Cooker Beef Stew:

Omelet Muffins:

I hope this article has shown you that YOU CAN prepare delicious meals from scratch without slaving away for hours on-end. All you need to do is make a plan, consider cooking in large batches and freezing portions, using some veggie chopping help and choose your recipes wisely! The more you reap the rewards of feeling great eating paleo, the more motivation you will have to keep going! You can do it!