Preparing Food in Advance for Phase 2 and Phase 3

Most of the recipes in this blog are for a single meal, but many can be made in larger batches and then divided up into multiples meals that will be ready to heat and eat.

Phase 2 is often one of the more challenging times since your portions and ingredients are so restricted that you are probably cooking your own food and then may also be cooking for your family.


You can go ahead and mix up a pound of ground beef into meatballs, and then either cook them all and save them to be reheated, or freeze them raw and then bake them until done for a meal.  The same goes for meatloaf.  I made a batch of chicken soup and saved enough for three more meals.  Chili would work well for that, and even the sauce for zucchini spaghetti.

One of my favorite time-savers is to portion out my meat ahead of time so I can just cook it up without having to weigh it out.

Ground beef is great because you can get a package of it and weight it out, form it into balls or patties and freeze it for later use.  Then take out a couple at a time and put them in the fridge to thaw so they're redy to go when you're ready to cook.

I have also cooked a roast, then shredded it up while still hot so the fat separates easily, and portioned it into containers for individual meals.  The same idea works well for chicken breasts.

I have a hard time getting motivated to make myself a salad - when not on P2 and restricting how many/much goes in, I want a really hearty salad with lots of different things. I like to chop up lots of veggies, but it's time-consuming to get them all out, chop, etc. I don't usually want to do it just for myself. BUT if I can make a bunch of salads at once, it's totally worth it. I saw this idea on pinterest one day and loved it. It works great for me and the salads easily last at least a week in my fridge.

What have you made ahead or in larger portions?

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