The Gadgets You Need to Maximize Meal Prep

Has your Instagram feed become a seemingly endless stream of perfectly portioned, spectacularly colorful healthy and delicious eats plated (or boxed, or Mason jarred) with the skill of a champion Tetris player and the hashtag #mealprep? Ours too. Meal prep is all the rage, IRL too.

It’s no secret that cooking at home is healthier and saves you money. It can also be therapeutic, allows you to be in total control of your dietary preferences and food sensitivities, and is a great way to bring families together. But it’s also no secret that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. Between jobs, chores, and a million other responsibilities on your plate, packing nutritious lunches and making dinner at the end of the day can feel impossible. But meal prepping isn’t just for Instagram; it also makes your life a lot easier.

Set aside a few hours each week to prep your ingredients (many people love to do it on Sunday). Chop your vegetables; make a big batch of beans and grains; plan your proteins; and keep some sauces, condiments, and spices on hand. Once it’s time to make dinner, you’ll have your mise en place ready to go and all that will be left to do is the cooking and eating, which are the fun parts anyway. Here are some tools to make it easier.

Sure, a good old-fashioned chef’s knife will do the trick when it comes to prepping veggies, but if your hand hurts just thinking about slicing a week’s worth of salad and stir-fry ingredients in one sitting, you might want to consider a chopper. The Vidalia Chop Wizard™ makes it easy. It comes with chopping and dicing blades, as well as a compartment to hold the diced fruits of your labor. Chop fruits and vegetables individually, or cut a few into the container all at once for an easy salad or salsa. Customer Julie from Sarasota, Florida, writes, “I like to make veggie salads and have all the veggies be the same size. I could not survive without this kitchen gadget. It cuts my work time in half! I slice everything the same width, then I place the items onto the chopper to get the same chopped size.”

The OXO Good Grips® One Stop Chop Manual Food Processor takes it one step further. It allows you to chop, mince, or puree with the twist of a handle. In the mood for hummus? It’s easy to make your own—throw in some chickpeas, tahini, garlic, olive oil, and lemon, and voilà. It will add protein (and a bit of oomph) wherever you use it.

Immersion blender, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. If you’ve never used one of these, it’s a complete game changer. We love standard blenders, but sometimes you just don’t want or need to do all that cleaning.

Sauces and soups are some of the keys to a great meal prep. You can use your hand blender to make healthier versions of barbecue sauce, tomato sauce, roasted red pepper spread, and an assortment of other condiments that take food to the next level. Pick one or two each week, make a batch, and store them in the fridge. You can also use the blender to make all types of soups, which can be kept in the refrigerator or freezer all week long until you’re ready to eat them. Another idea? Smoothies. Create kits at the beginning of the week. Portion out prepped ingredients and when you’re ready to make the smoothie, blend them up and drink. You’ll be shocked at how much easier this little thing can make your life.

You don’t need an egg cooker to make egg-cellent hard-boiled, soft-boiled, or poached eggs. But it does help. While boiling eggs isn’t particularly difficult, there’s definitely a science to it, and you need to watch intently and time your eggs perfectly to get them just right. With an egg cooker, the guesswork (and babysitting work) goes away. Plus, as customer Kmjm writes, it “makes eggs so easy to peel.”

Another way to solve your peeling problems is with Egglettes™ Hard-Boiled Egg Pods. You crack them into the pod and boil them without the shell, eliminating the issue entirely.

We like to make a big batch of hard-boiled eggs on Sundays. We’ll add them to our breakfasts and lunches or have them as on-the-go snacks throughout the week.

We’ll admit that a mandoline is definitely more of a level two meal prep tool. We’ll also caution that it can be really dangerous if you’re not careful. But, when used correctly, this kitchen tool can elevate any dish. For cabbage, carrots, potatoes, kiwis, onions, and anything else you want sliced quickly and evenly, it doesn’t get much better (or more precise) than this. Use it for veggies you plan to roast, for slaws, and for pretty looking fruit salads to keep in the fridge for when you’re craving something sweet.

Pro tip: Leveling up is a great way to avoid sad lunches at your desk. We like to make one “extra” at the beginning of each week to add as a side or standout ingredient to keep things interesting. Sometimes that’s a slaw for better sandwiches, sometimes it’s a bean salad, other times it’s veggie chips (which, incidentally, are the perfect use of a mandoline).

For added safety, use a glove. You might feel silly but it’s worth it.

While the spiralizer is probably most famous for making zucchini noodles (which we love), we wouldn’t recommend this vegetable noodle for meal prep. Zucchini has a ton of water in it, and it won’t hold up well in the fridge. Instead, spiralize carrot, sweet potato, rutabaga, or butternut squash noodles, which will all keep better. When it’s time for dinner, add some chicken, vegetables, and your favorite sauce. Your delicious meal will be ready faster than the time it takes to have your pizza delivered.

You’ve probably heard about the Instant Pot®—it makes food really quickly, and it’s also a meal prep miracle. Use it to prep a big batch of brown rice or quinoa for the week. For lunch, we love to use brown rice for taco bowls or quinoa in salads. For dinner, grains make excellent bases for side dishes, or they can be eaten on their own.

Now that you’ve done all the prep work, you’re going to need somewhere to put the fruits (ha!) of your labors. We recommend using glass storage containers in a variety of sizes. They’re dishwasher-safe, better for the planet, and keeps foods fresh.

And just like that, your fridge is #goals. Happy prepping!