Quick, Lazy, and Frugal Keto Meal Prepping Tips

Search the Blog

4 meal prep meals

A common misconception is that people think that the Keto diet completely restricts carbohydrates from your diet, but this is not true. The Keto diet forces your body to burn fat for energy rather than carbs. 

This begs the question: how do you start your keto diet? It all begins with meal prepping.

What is Meal Prepping?

Meal prepping is the process of cooking your meals in advance for an extended period. Some people do it for a few days, others for a whole week. This is also ideal for people with busy lifestyles since prepping your meals beforehand saves time. 

Purpose of meal prepping

The idea behind this is to ensure proper calorie intake and nutrition requirements are met. For someone on a keto diet, this is an excellent way to track carbohydrates and ensure that your dietary needs or restrictions are consistent. So what do you need to start meal prepping? 

Benefits of meal prepping

There are many benefits of preparing meals in advance, the biggest one being that you’ll save time and energy. People who have long working hours may not have the time to cook dinner. So, meal prepping in advance will ease the way; you’ll only have to heat the food when you’re ready to consume it.

You also save money when you make and store your food beforehand. Spending too much on takeaway food can drain your wallet and make you gain extra pounds. 

What do you need for meal prepping

First, it’s best to figure out how often you want to prepare meals. Some people hate eating the same meal for more than a few days in a row. Once you establish this, you should break down the ingredients you choose for your meal to understand the nutritional content and calorie count.

Ideally, depending on how many calories you choose to consume daily, these meals will be tailored to your dietary needs. On average, you should consume between 20 to 50 grams of net carbohydrates per day so keep this in mind when meal prepping. 

Use a keto calculator if you need to discover your daily macro limits.

How often should you meal prep?

It is ideal to meal prep every weekend to have food prepared for the rest of the week. Meal prepping once a week is an excellent way to save time.

How To Setup A Keto Meal Prepping Plan

Keto meal prep shouldn’t be challenging, but there are a few things that you’ll have to consider before you start. 

If you’re new to this diet, you may find yourself asking, “how to set up a keto meal plan?” You should start by making a grocery list of all the keto-friendly ingredients that you like.

This is important because meal prepping with ingredients you dislike wouldn’t be pleasant and may even put you off the diet. 

Process of deciding a keto meal plan

Once you’ve made your grocery list, you can select a meal for breakfast, lunch, snacking, and dinner. You’ll need to make sure that all the meals you eat add up to a certain amount of calories and other macros. 

And since this is keto, you will also need to make sure that there is only a limited amount of carbs in your meal prep plan. Once you have decided on your meals, you can go and shop for the ingredients.

Factors to keep in mind

Some factors you need to keep in mind when you meal prep on keto is that even though you should consume protein and fats, it is best to steer clear of bad fats. Instead of using canola oil, switch to olive oil instead.

Another way to consume good fats is by adding nuts, seeds, and fish into your meal prep plan. You should also add a snack to your meal plan since following a strict or restrictive diet can often make you feel hungrier.

Now that we have discussed how to meal plan keto, here is how you can prepare for each meal. 

Keto Prepping for Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and should be full of healthy ingredients that boost energy. Some great ingredients for keto breakfast meals include eggs, bacon, fruits, nuts, and healthy fats like avocado. 

A wonderful lazy keto recipe is baked egg cups. To make these, you just have to whisk up some eggs with your favorite seasonings and ingredients, pour them into muffin tins, and bake until fully cooked. You can also add ingredients like bacon bits, jalapeños, spinach, and cheese to your egg cups.

Not only are these super delicious, but very easy to make. Served with a side of fruit and avocado, this nutritious breakfast can give you an energy boost and is quite filling too!

Steer clear from breakfast foods like cereal, toast, and pancakes as each serving is usually loaded with net carbs greater than 50g of net carbs. Be sure to use our keto recipe search engine to check for keto-friendly recipes.

Breakfast Recipes to Consider

Keto Prepping for Lunch

Lunch should be on the heavier side to keep you full and satisfied until dinner. For lunch, you can use ingredients like shrimp, vegetable pasta, salad, and chicken. An excellent way to satisfy pasta cravings is by making vegetable pasta, which is a great and filling meal.

To make this, you’ll need zucchini noodles, which you can either eat raw or boiled. Add your choice of protein and pasta sauce to the noodles for a hearty meal. You can even add a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

If you’re looking for a more lazy keto recipe, you can make lettuce tuna wraps for lunch. Drain and add canned tuna chunks into a bowl and add mayonnaise, pickles, onions, and your favorite seasonings. Mix and spread onto lettuce leaves, wrap, and enjoy.

You can add a side of fruit or cheese so that you stay satisfied for longer.

Lunch Recipes to Consider

Keto Afternoon Snacks

Having an afternoon snack, especially after you have worked out, is an excellent way to avoid hunger pangs. Keep your afternoon snacks light and simple. You can have snacks like cheese strings, nuts, applesauce, or fruit.

Snacks like these can be bought in bulk and are great for keto meal preparation. They are on the cheaper side as well, so you can stay healthy on a budget. A great way to incorporate healthy fats into your diet is by snacking on nuts like almonds and walnuts.

You can also snack on sunflower or pumpkin seeds since they are both nutritious and delicious. Ensure your afternoon snack is light so that you don’t pile on extra calories.

Snack Recipes to Consider

Keto Prepping For Dinner

Dinner should also be light since it is best not to overeat before you sleep. Overeating can make it harder for one to fall asleep, but eating too little isn’t good either. Dinner can include a protein, side of vegetables and also some healthy fats. 

An easy meal prep idea is to make baked salmon with steamed veg. If you don’t like fish, you can even have steak. Add healthy greens like spinach, broccoli, and kale. 

Instead of using starchy vegetables like carb-heavy potatoes, you can incorporate cauliflower. Top your steak with a thin slice of herb butter for extra flavor.  

Another easy dinner meal prep option is grilled chicken with cauliflower rice. If you use substitutes like cauliflower rice, you can curb your carb cravings. After dinner, a cup of decaf green tea can help you digest your meal better.

Dinner Recipes to Consider

Good Keto Grocery Shopping Lists

We have discussed how to plan your meal keto style, but what about the ingredients you should use? What to buy and what to avoid? What is a good keto shopping list? Here’s how to keto meal prep for the active and lazy:

Keto meal prepping for fast cooking

If you like quick and easy meals, you can buy frozen vegetables to save yourself some time. Frozen veggies are mostly pre-cooked and need to be heated. This saves you the hassle of washing, chopping, and cooking them.

You can also buy frozen cauliflower rice to minimize cooking time. You can also purchase pre-washed and skinned chicken so that you don’t have to do all that yourself. Tinned food can be bought, but make sure to read the ingredient list and avoid buying food with extra sugar or carbs.

Keto meal prepping for frugal shoppers

What if you’re on a budget and want to prepare meals for cheap? Proteins like steak can be expensive. Instead, you can opt for cheaper proteins like chicken and canned tuna.

Eggs are also a great ingredient to use if you’re doing keto on a budget. Buying your food in bulk is a great way to stay within budget, especially when it comes to vegetables. Instead of buying ready-to-eat keto meals, which can be pricey, it’s cheaper to cook your meals.

Keto meal prepping for lazy chefs

Another benefit to buying frozen foods is that they’re easy to cook, which can be great if you’re lazy. If you don’t like putting in much effort in meal prepping, you can try using a slow cooker. This way, you can rest while your food gets prepared and then store it in containers. 

Meal Prep Resources

Keto meal prep doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. It can be easy and frugal. Even if you’re a lazy and frugal chef, you can still follow a proper keto diet and get fit in no time!

KetoFoodist Content

KetoFoodist.com provides this content to help keto diet practitioners and is intended for educational purposes only. It is recommended that you consult with a medical professional prior to starting any diet or following product suggestions.

Search the Blog