With me being a working mom who works two full time jobs, getting meals ready each and every day can be a tough task. Either I run out of time or I forget to grab groceries, and then we are stuck ordering out once again which isn’t too healthy for our family. Over the years, I’ve relied on my slow cooker to cook meals quickly for me while I sit at my desk and work, but that also requires me to take out the frozen meat the night before. And even when I actually do take out the meat, I typically find myself missing an important ingredient that the recipe calls for and heading out to the grocery store that day is not easy or within the time frame that I’m working with.
These past few months, I’ve buckled down and set out to make a plan. When it came to preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I wanted to make sure that my family had fresh meals each and every week. So I sat down and made a plan, and within that plan, my Walmart+ membership became the one thing that made the plan so successful.
If you hadn’t heard, the Walmart+ membership has been my ultimate mom hack. It’s helped me get my son’s day to day needs like diapers, wipes, and snacks. And it’s helped keep our fridge stocked and even has helped me when I may have forgotten a few of the ingredients I need for the week’s food recipes. Now that my husband is back at work and our little one had headed off to school, I decided that it was time to begin meal prepping not only for them but for myself as well. With so many things that I need to get done in one day, I often forget to eat or I don’t have time to whip up something quickly to eat between each and every meeting or deadline that I have to make.
But with Walmart’s fresh groceries and my Walmart+ membership, I have found a way to do an easy meal prep for myself, my husband and my little one so that we are all eating healthy and getting our favorite fresh foods each week.
Let’s Fresh Up ON THE WALMART+ MEMBERSHIP
I’ve talked quite a bit about how I use my Walmart+ membership and the many benefits of it. When it comes to groceries, I love that the membership comes with free same-day deliveries from our local Walmart (*with a $35 minimum & restriction apply). It allows for this busy mom to easily order fresh, high-quality groceries at Walmart’s same everyday low prices that I need as ingredients for the meals that I am set on making that day or week.
When it comes to how the Walmart+ membership benefits plays into your healthy meal prep, it applies to having fresh groceries delivered right to your door from your local Walmart quickly so that as you are gathering your meal prep ideas, you don’t get stopped by the process of having to go to the grocery store if you don’t have the time too.
Because, let’s face it, if we are meal prepping, we either may be doing it to help with our weight or for the fact that we just don’t have enough time in the day. The Walmart+ membership free grocery deliveries will help to give you time back in your day and then as you meal prep for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you’ll have time back because your groceries were delivered and also because you only really had to take one day out of the week to meal prep.
Easy Meal Prep FOR THE FAMILY
Whether you’re looking to make a salad, a burrito bowl, some fried rice or pesto chicken, the first place to start when it comes to meal prepping is to have a storage container that works for what you’re planning on making. I’ve seen lots of people use anything from a mason jar to recycled food bowls, but for me, I find it easy to get a glass container with an easily resealable lid that stacks easily and gives enough space to prep healthy portions for the healthy meal that you’re planning on making. With the Walmart+ membership, you can also get meal prep storage containers at great prices online with free shipping from Walmart.com with no order minimum (*excludes most Remove: excluding Marketplace items, location & freight surcharges Remove: freight, oversized and Marketplace items).
Once you have your container ready, it’s time to begin your meal prep. Online, you’ll find a lot of meal prep recipes and various meal plans that go along with those recipes, but either way, to make it super easy, make you plan, know what fresh groceries you’ll need, and then, like me, put your order in with your Walmart+ membership and have those groceries delivered to you directly. To get started, here’s a few ways to build up your meals as you begin to meal prep for the week:
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START WITH A PROTEIN
When you’re meal prepping, the first place that you want to start is with your protein. In my opinion, protein is the center aspect of every meal. Let’s face it, when you go to plan out your dinner, you may start with your meat or other source of protein and then work outwards towards your vegetables and starches. If you’re going the snack route for a meal prep, peanut butter is a great protein to use and lay on crackers or apple slices and to even use in overnight oats. You can also prep chicken and use that as your central protein to create lunches such as chicken burrito bowls. -
INCLUDE A FRUIT OR VEGGIE
Depending on whether you’re going sweet or savory with your prepped meal, you should include a fruit or vegetable. When I meal prep my charcuterie board that I snack on during the week, I like to include a fruit to balance out the savory flavors from the proteins. Then when I meal prep chicken for lunch, I like to include a sweet potato with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon as another way to balance out the savory. For other options with vegetables, I like to shop Walmart’s fresh selection of veggies such as broccoli and carrots, and then in my order I get some dill ranch to dip it in as another layer of flavor. -
USE SLOW COOKER RECIPES
After I get my fresh groceries using my Walmart+ membership, I often like to go into my collection of instant pot and slow cooker recipes. On the weekend, I can begin cooking the food in order to pack them up for our lunches for the week. I’ve leaned into a lot of beef and potato stew slow cooker recipes for the colder months. With a combination of beef, carrots, and potatoes, the slow cooked savory meal is an easy one to cook and a favorite to eat for the entire family.
Meal Prep Ideas TO USE THROUGOUT THE YEAR
As you plan to meal prep using your Walmart+ membership, remember that you don’t always have to have a plan for the following week’s meal ahead of time just so that you can make sure to grab your fresh groceries and have them ready on the day that you need to prep. For me, I often wake up in the morning on a Sunday and go online to Walmart.com and use my membership to put in the order that day so that I can meal prep later that evening. It’s simple and it’s easy and it helps me to keep going even after I procrastinated all week.
Additionally, don’t think that meal prep is only for lunches or dinners. Though many people typically meal prep for lunch, it’s a great option for breakfast, dinner and even for full snacks. As mentioned, I meal prep breakfast, lunch, and snacks for the entire time for the week. It truly helps my husband because he can sleep in a little later in the morning and easily just throw his containers into his lunch box and head out the door. Then at work, he can enjoy his breakfast, snack throughout the day and then enjoy lunch.
I’ve gathered up a few ideas for easy meals preps for breakfast, lunch, and snacks that the entire family will enjoy.
BREAKFAST
Fruit Salad
Banana & Chocolate Chip Oatmeal
Ham Egg muffins
Breakfast Burritos
Chia Seed Pudding
Pre-Frozen Protein Smoothies
Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Tacos
Parfaits
Breakfast Bowls with potatoes, egg, cheese and bacon/sausage
LUNCH
Chicken Caesar Wraps
Beef Stew
Chili
Pesto Salmon with White Rice & Asparagus
Thai Chicken with Roasted Vegetables & Brown Rice
Taco Bowl
Vegetable Soup
Sushi Bento Box
DINNER
Charcuterie Board in a Bowl
Veggie Pack
Fruit Salad
Banana, Peanut Butter and Cracker Bites
Protein Pack with Egg, Cheese, Avocado and Nuts
Buffalo Chicken Dip
Beef Jerky with Crackers & Grapes
Garlic Parmesan Popcorn
This post is sponsored by Walmart+. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make LivingLesh possible.
