Eating at home doesn’t have to be bland, repetitive, or exhausting. With a bit of preparation, you can enjoy quick meals from your fridge without having to pay restaurant markups or delivery fees. Meal prep helps you do all of this and more. “Work smarter, not harder,” as they say; or in this case, eat smarter.
Table of Contents
In this article, we will give you the dos and don’ts of meal prep. We will be specifically looking at meal prep for refrigerator use.
Why Meal Prep?
There are plenty of great reasons to meal prep:
- Preparing food at home costs less than eating at restaurants.
- Preparing many meals in advance can save you a lot of time in the future.
- There will be food available for easy consumption before you leave the house and when you come home.
- At the moment, we are encouraged to visit the supermarket less. Buying groceries in bulk will lessen your need for frequent visits.
Bonus: You will slowly build up an important life skill and maybe even a career path for yourself. If you’re single, ‘being a good cook’ is a nice addition to your dating profile, too.
In addition, cooking your own food also lets you have a (literal) taste of your culture. Nothing cures homesickness better than a traditional recipe done right. Specialty shops that sell ingredients from foreign countries can be hard to find, but rest assured, they’re somewhere around Tokyo. That’s a topic for another post though.
Meal Prep Essentials
Choosing a Meal Prep Recipe
The first thing you will need to do is identify the time of day when having a ready-made meal is most convenient for you. For example, most people have enough time in the morning to eat breakfast, but not enough time to make breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so there are many benefits to having a proper one instead of a sugar-frosted one.
It’s also important to think about which recipes you want to make. A good starting point would be to pick quick and easy recipes that you already know and like eating. This will also make it easier to get in the habit of meal prepping.
Simple recipes are also better because one of the purposes of meal prep is to cut down on cooking time. You definitely can’t do that if you insist on making Grandpa’s secret baby back ribs or Grandma’s prize-winning meat pie. Besides, you can experiment with new recipes when you’re not doing meal prep.
You don’t have to be a Master Chef to make amazing 30-minute meals.
Before Going to the Supermarket…
Japanese supermarkets offer many pre-packaged spices and tare (タレ dipping sauce) for seasoning. You can get different cuts of meat (in typical Japanese style) and a range of vegetables, fruits, and even tofu. The spice mixes and tare are safe options if you want a reliable marinade but don’t feel like making your own.
If you prefer to avoid supermarkets, try finding the nearest butcher shop, farmers market, greengrocer shop, fish market, wet market, tofu shop, etc. Smaller shops are a good way to find fresher ingredients, cut down on unnecessary packaging, and help support local producers. If you want to use fresh herbs, some spices like thyme and rosemary are easy enough to grow by yourself, too.
An important thing to keep in mind is that meal prep can and will get very repetitive. This is especially true if you choose to make the same recipe over and over. To avoid monotony, schedule your meals in advance. Rosemary chicken is delicious, but an entire week of rosemary chicken is probably not the best way to enjoy it.
Organizing a Meal Prep Schedule
Pick one or two days each week (or every other week) to do your meal prep. Choose days when you can give cooking your undivided attention.
Storing Meals Properly
It’s important to think about how much storage space you’ll need. It’s also good to plan how soon you’ll eat your meals so you don’t make too much of anything. For example, only prepare enough meals for 2-3 days if you’ll be eating them immediately.
Food Safety First!
The most essential part of meal prep is food safety. Certain types of food may not be suitable for the fridge. The moisture level can also make food spoil faster. There’s much to learn about food safety. Thankfully, there are websites, like the USDA’s among others, which can help you learn about shelf life and types of food you can keep in the freezer. As complicated as it seems, these points apply to things you eat at restaurants, too, and can help you tell if you’re being served fresh food or not.
Temperatures dictate the possibility of microbial (bacteria, etc.) growth, and the range called the “Danger Zone” (63˚C to 5˚C; 145˚F to 41˚F) is when bacterial growth is fastest. Placing newly cooked food immediately in the fridge might increase the temperature inside. If this happens, you expose the other food inside to a microbe-friendly environment.
Remember to allow your food to cool properly before storing it in the fridge. But at the same time, don’t leave your food out for too long (more than 90 minutes) before storing it!
Need help figuring out life in Tokyo? Check out our Tokyo 101 guides for more posts like this one.
Do you do meal prep? What strategy helped you most? Which of these tips are new to you? If you think we missed something, let us know in the comments down below. Share with us your favorite meal prep recipes!
