By Taylor Sutton, MS, RD
United Supermarkets’ Lifestyle Desk
It’s that time again, back to school time! Let’s talk about meal prepping with kids. It can look very different depending on what stage of life your child or children are in, but doing it can relieve so much of that initial back to school stress.
Meal prepping and planning can be anywhere between planning family dinners for the week to premaking every piece of food you consume. To be fair, most people fall somewhere in the middle. Plus, try getting the kids involved. Here are some tips to get you started.
First step, make a plan. Before stepping in the grocery store, make sure to have an idea of your menu or components of the meals you’re planning for the week.
A great place to start is hitting all of the food groups on MyPlate. If you want the kids to help with the cooking, pick a recipe or two from a kid friendly cookbook. Writing down some meals or ingredients beforehand will save you time and money in the long run. It will also help you not to forget anything.
The next step is choosing a time for you that works best for prep. You will want to pick a day and time that works for your family especially if you are having the kids help. Usually weekends are best with more free time, but this can be any day of the week that doesn’t have long times with homework or extracurricular activities.
After you have your day and time selected, get your ingredients together. Once you get the groceries home, set up a “mise en place”, a.k.a. “Everything in its place” station for what you’ll prep. For example, instead of diving into the recipe and prepping ingredients as you go you’ll prep everything before and then simply add everything together when it’s called for.
Finally, it’s time to start prepping. A great place to start is by dividing out the components in pieces of MyPlate and allowing them to choose what item they want on what day. There are many good items you can prepare in advance for lunch and snacks
- Protein: hard boiled eggs, nuts, sliced deli meat
- Fruit: cut apples or pears, grapes, clementines, fruit pouches
- Veggies: prepackaged carrots, celery, cucumber, hummus/ranch/guac dips
- Dairy: individual milks, cheese sticks, drinkable yogurts
- Fun Foods: granola bars, mini candy, bear-yos roll-ups
There are also items you can prep for quicker dinners during the week
- Cooked grains such as rice and pasta
- Baked sweet potatoes
- Roasted veggies
- Beans – especially if cooking from scratch
- Batches of meats such as chicken can also be prepped but you may want to use less seasoning so they can be added to any dish later.
One of our favorite meal times is one with little prep. Boiling a bag of noodles and thawing a few frozen veggies is always a meal prep win.
Easy Chinese StirFry
What You Need
1 lb shrimp, steamed at seafood counter
1 bag Signature Kitchen Frozen Peppers and onions, defrosted in fridge
1 medium zucchini
1, 5oz box spinach
1 package KA–ME Chinese Noodles
1/3 cup Far East Teriyaki Ginger Sauce
2 Tbsp. toasted Sesame Oil
Optional: Chopped green onion, sesame seeds
How It’s Made
1. Pick up the shrimp from the seafood counter and ask them to steam it for you and when you start making this dish set it out to let it start coming to room temperature
2. Boil noodles according to package directions
3. Dice and saute zucchini
4. Add in peppers and onions and cook out any additional water
5. Add in spinach and wilt completely
6. Toss in shrimp and noodles
7. Add in sauce and oil and mix to combine
8. Top with green onion and sesame seeds as desired
Serves 6
