I used to spend an embarrassing amount of money on takeaway. Not because I loved it — honestly, most of it was mediocre — but because by 6pm I was too tired and hungry to think about cooking. Sound familiar?

Meal prepping changed that for me. Not the Instagram version where everything is in matching containers with colour-coded labels. The messy, practical, “I just need to eat something decent this week” version. Here’s how to get started without overcomplicating it.

Start With Just Three Meals

The biggest mistake beginners make is trying to prep every single meal for the entire week on a Sunday afternoon. That’s a recipe for burnout, not food. Start with three. Pick three dinners, make enough for leftovers, and you’ve covered most of your weeknights. Lunches can be last night’s dinner reheated. Breakfasts can be something simple you throw together in the morning.

Three meals. That’s your starting point.

Pick Recipes That Scale

Not every meal lends itself to prepping. Stir-fries get soggy. Salads wilt. Crispy things go soft. What works brilliantly are things like curries, stews, grain bowls, casseroles, soups, and pasta bakes. Anything that reheats well and actually tastes better the next day.

Here’s my go-to starter list:

• Chicken and vegetable curry — freezes beautifully, pairs with rice
• Beef chili — makes a massive batch, works over rice, in wraps, or on its own
• Roasted vegetable and grain bowls — cook a big tray of veggies, a pot of quinoa or rice, portion it out
• Pasta sauce — make a huge pot of bolognese and freeze half

These aren’t glamorous. They’re reliable. And reliability is what keeps you meal prepping past the first week.

The Shopping List Strategy

Before you go shopping, check what you already have. Then write a list based on your three recipes. Buy only what’s on the list. This sounds obvious, but the number of times I’ve come home with random ingredients because they “looked good” and then let them rot in the fridge… don’t be like past me.

Also, buy in bulk where it makes sense. Rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, beans, frozen vegetables — these are your staples and they don’t go off quickly.

Batch Your Cooking

Here’s the actual prep part. Pick one day — Sunday is classic, but any day works — and block out about two to three hours. Put on a podcast or some music. Cook all three meals at once, or at least get components ready.

A typical session for me looks like this:

1. Get rice or grains cooking (passive — just let it sit)
2. Chop all the vegetables for everything
3. Get a curry or stew simmering on the stove
4. Roast a tray of vegetables in the oven
5. Brown meat for the chili or bolognese

By the time the rice is done, everything else is either cooking or close to finished. It’s way more efficient than cooking from scratch every single night.

Containers Matter (A Little)

You don’t need fancy containers. But you do need containers that seal properly and stack well in the fridge. Glass is great if you want to microwave without transferring. BPA-free plastic works fine too. Get a set of the same size so they actually stack, and label them with masking tape and a marker if you’re prepping more than one meal.

How Long Does Prepped Food Last?

In the fridge, most cooked meals are good for three to four days. In the freezer, they’ll last months. My approach is to keep three to four days’ worth in the fridge and freeze the rest. Pull something out of the freezer the night before, and it’s thawed and ready to reheat by dinner time.

Won’t I Get Bored?

Maybe. But you also get bored ordering the same three things from Uber Eats, and at least this way you’re saving money. The trick is to rotate your recipes every couple of weeks. Keep a running list of meals that worked well, and cycle through them.

Also, sauces and toppings do a lot of heavy lifting. The same roasted chicken and vegetables tastes completely different with sriracha versus tzatziki versus chimichurri. Don’t underestimate condiments.

The Honest Benefits

After about a month of consistent meal prepping, here’s what I noticed: I spent roughly forty percent less on food. I ate more vegetables. I stopped the nightly “what should I eat” decision fatigue. And weeknight evenings felt longer because I wasn’t spending forty-five minutes cooking and cleaning.

It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t photograph well. But it works. And that’s really the whole point.

Start this week. Pick three meals. Make a list. Cook on Sunday. See how it feels. You can always stop if you hate it — but I’m betting you won’t.