Clearing out your busy schedule can be almost impossible during the week. Having to commute to and from work, do your job all day long, squeeze in some sort of workout, and worry about what you’re going to eat is a daily struggle for most people. There has been a large push in recent years to prepare your meals ahead of time, making it easier on yourself when the time comes to actually putting things together. But how will you know which recipes are the best for planning purposes? Luckily, we’ve done some legwork for you and found some of the top meal prep cookbooks on the market today. No matter what kind of food you like or what dietary restrictions you have, there’s a meal prep cookbook out there for you. We’ve highlighted some of the best options for you to check out to hopefully free up some more time during your week.
Best Meal Prep Cookbook for Beginners
If you’ve never meal prepped before, you’re probably unsure how much you actually need to do ahead of time. With The Healthy Meal Prep Cookbook: Easy and Wholesome Meals to Cook, Prep, Grab, and Go by Toby Amidor, you’ll ready your meals whether you’ve never cooked before or if you’re a meal prepping pro. This provides you with three complete meal plans, from shopping lists to prep day directions to walk you through the process. This has three, two-week meal plans, as well as over 100 recipes to give you some healthy meals for your entire week. This gives you detailed guides on storage necessities, freezer basics, staples for mix and match meals and more. You’ll be set to reheat breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners after you’ve done your meal prepping for the week.
Best Gluten-Free Meal Prep Cookbook
For those who are allergic to gluten or prefer not to eat it, there’s Cook Once Eat All Week by Cassy Joy Garcia. This gives you 26 weeks of gluten-free meals that are affordable and will help you preserve some time. You’ll also get a bonus chapter full of 20-minute meals for when you’re running short on time. You’ll be batch cooking a protein, starch, and vegetable each week and then assembling them in different ways to make you multiple meals throughout the week. This book has a Real Food foundation, in which it supports dietary approaches such as gluten-free, dairy-free, Paleo, low carb, egg-free, kid-friendly and more. You’ll get a week’s worth of meals from one session of batch cooking.
Best Keto Meal Prep Cookbook
Many people follow the ketogenic diet, which is a high fat, adequate protein, low carb diet. With Keto Meal Prep by FlavCity by Bobby and Dessi Parrish, you’ll be able to jump right into that diet. You’ll be able to maximize your time and cook seven days worth of meals in one evening. You’ll spend less time cooking overall and more time enjoying ketogenic meals. This includes 125 recipes that are all low carb and delicious. This allows you to mix and match base recipes to come up with tasty combinations. You’ll receive 50 keto meal prep recipes as well as 25 individual keto-approved recipes, so you don’t just have to use this cookbook for meal planning.
Best Fitness-Conscious Meal Prep Cookbook
Spending significant time at the gym will help you tone your body the way that you want, but cooking properly is also a big factor, which is what makes Fit Men Cook by Kevin Curry such a solid choice. This will save you time, money, and inches on your waistline if you adhere to it. Inside this book is 100 easy, quick meal prep recipes to get you through tough weeks. The book maps out everything you need for a healthy lifestyle, from shopping lists to common dieting pitfalls to Kevin’s ten meal commandments for meal prepping. This reminds you to be careful when you’re indulging and to keep an eye on portion sizes.
Best Meal Prep Cookbook for Lunches
Bringing your lunch from home can save you so much money and Lunch! by Olivia Mack McCool makes you want to make lunch at home. Combining superfoods, ancient grains, fresh herbs, vegetables, and delicious proteins into weeks worth of recipes is what this book is all about. What we loved about this book is the variety it offered each week when it comes to planning out lunches. It’s not just about making salads or sandwiches. You’ll be putting together bowls that will give you the energy and power to finish off the rest of your workday. It gives you a rundown of shopping needs as well as how to cook the ingredients and assemble them for your amazing meals.
