Almost every weekend, Adam and I spend a couple of hours in the kitchen prepping food for the week ahead. Split between us, it’s only about an hour each in the kitchen, plus clean up. We really notice a difference if there’s a week that we miss doing this! We end up eating out more, or generally spending way more time in the kitchen during the week after work, when we don’t really feel like it.

Since this has become such a routine, I wanted to share exactly what we do so that you can do it too. I promise, you’ll be SO grateful on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!

The Saturday Grocery Shop

On Saturday, we always do a big grocery shop.Usually Adam takes Sophie in the stroller and they make an outing of it. We intentionally shop on Saturday so that if we want to start cooking first thing Sunday, we can. Plus, then it splits up the task of shopping and cooking into two days. We sometimes use a grocery list from one of our weekly meal plans.

You can be sure that the following are always on our list:

• chicken
• salmon (or another fish)
• some sort of red meat
• veggies to roast (bell peppers, carrots, zucchini, squash, broccoli)
• yams
• brown rice
• arugula
• spinach
• coconut yogurt
• bananas
• avocados
• frozen berries
• lemons
• hummus
• cans of chickpeas and black beans
• nuts, seeds and nut butters (if needed)

The Sunday Cook

If you’ve ever used our meal plans, you know that we always give you the order in which to cook  everything that is the most efficient. Sometimes you might have two or three recipes on the go because each is at different stages.

We usually start with Adam chopping as many veggies as possible and getting them roasting. We roast most of it without much on it (sometimes a bit of avocado oil or some spices) because we usually will make a couple of sauces/dressings for the week. We roast it all at 425F on Convection Bake because the oven is pretty full!

PS - Our favourite flavouring for yam fries is a sprinkle of cinnamon, chili powder and cumin!

While Adam’s chopping veggies, I often make a batch of these muffins. Sophie loves them so I’ve been making the without the maple syrup or chocolate chips. Then, we’ll make some sort of protein dish. I like making a massive batch of something cozy when it’s winter, like this bolognese sauce. I’ve also been making one of Oh She Glows’ curries on the regular.

Then, we almost always make a crockpot full of bone broth to sip throughout the week. The weekend I took these photos, we had actually roasted a small chicken Saturday for dinner, and then put the carcass in the crockpot overnight with some other ingredients (bone broth recipe here). I love roasting a chicken on the weekend because it leaves you lots of meat for leftovers and is a really hands off meal to make. You can see how we use 7 ingredients to make 3 different meals with a roast chicken here.

Last but not least, if I have time, I’ll try to make a quick sauce or salad dressing to have on hand. Here are some ideas:

• Two Minute Salad Dressing
• 3 Dressing Recipes to Make You Love Salads Again
• The dressing from The Dino Bowl
• Hummus

That’s really it! Of course you will need to prep a few more things throughout the week, but you’ll have such a good start that dinners will be easy throughout the week.

Don’t forget that we have weekly meal plans with delicious, simple recipes that are gluten free, dairy free, high protein and refined sugar free, so that you have daily recipe inspiration plus a weekly grocery list (organized by section of the grocery store).