Betty Vasquez: Meal Planning Made Easy

One of my big resolutions for the year is to finally get on top of meal planning. Yes, I’ve made this resolution in the past but this year I have a secret weapon; the meal planning service Prep Dish.

I asked my contributor, Kaley, to review it for me and, based on her experience, we’re starting at our house next week.

If you’d like to learn more, here’s Kaley with her thoughts…

Last year, my husband and I did the Whole30. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Whole30, it is very similar to Paleo, but it only lasts for 30 days.

We both felt amazing!

But the meal planning, preparing and cooking basically consumed my life for 30 days. Eating only whole foods is a lot harder than throwing together a box of pasta and a jar of sauce and calling it a night. It takes a lot of thought.

We really wanted to keep up with our clean eating, but needed some help.

We thought about signing up for one of those subscription food delivery services but the prices- ouch!

So I decided to try a free review month with Prep Dish, at only $14/month or $99 for the entire year (only $8.25/month!), it’s so much more affordable if we want to keep using it. Plus, I really like the model of

Plus, I really like the model of doing the prep on the weekend so that dinners are SUPER quick and easy on busy weeknights.

Prep Dish’s motto is “Shop once, PREP ONCE, enjoy healthy, stress-free meals all week!” which is exactly what I needed. And once I found out they had a Paleo version, I was sold.

What is Prep Dish?

Prep Dish is a subscription meal planning service that offers Paleo or Gluten Free menus, allowing you to streamline your meal prep, saving time and ensuring healthy, balanced meals.

The idea is simple:

Invest 2 to 3 hours prepping the meal on the weekend (or any day you choose).
Spend only 5 – 20 minutes getting dinner on the table the rest of the week!

The meals are heavy in fruits and vegetables and focus on seasonal ingredients. And although the menus are Paleo or gluten-free, they would work for just about anyone who wants to eat a little healthier.

Here’s what you need to know about the plan options:

The basic plan is $14/month.
You can save a lot of money by going in for the year subscription at $99. This takes your monthly cost down to only $8.25 per month AND with this plan, you get access to the archives of all the previous meal plans and Super Fast Meal plans – so helpful!
If you’re interested in starting off the new year with a Whole30 Reset plan the $149 Premium Yearly Plan is for you. It also comes with access to an Autoimmune Protocol plan and nutritional info. on each of the menus. The cost here breaks down to $12.42/month, making it the best value for what you get.

Each month, you get access to 4 weekly menus. (Both Paleo and gluten-free, so you can choose between the two.)

There’s also a Super Fast menu, which I think may turn out to be my favorite. Within each weekly menu, you receive recipes for 4 dinners, a salad, a breakfast, a snack and a dessert.

Follow along to see how my first week with Prep Dish went!

Grocery Shopping

Each weekly menu gives you a complete shopping list, broken down by category. This may not seem like a big deal, but it saves a ton of time in the grocery store!

I simply printed up this list, added a few of our household staples and I was on my way.

Following the list was pretty straight forward. I had to go to a few different stores to get everything I needed, but I think this had more to do with the small stores I shop in overseas than the actual list itself.

After grocery shopping, I had so much yummy food! And I loved that everything I came home with was fresh and super nutritious. I was so motivated to get going with the prep.

Prep Day

This is where things started to get a little crazy.

I was expecting to prepare each day’s meal separately. Instead, the menu has tasks broken down by chopping, cooking, blending, etc.

This is actually a much more efficient way to do things, it just took me a while to wrap my head around how it was going to work, and trust that everything would work out in the end.

I got right to my prepping. I had out all of my beautiful fresh food, cutting board, knives, containers to store everything in, pots and pans, blender…and then I ran out of room.

Attempting to prepare and cook 6 meals at once in my tiny European kitchen was quite a challenge.

So I moved half of my prep out to the kitchen table, and moved a lot of my ingredients onto trays that could be shuffled around the kitchen and dining room.

This worked fine and I continued with my chopping, sautéing, blending and seasoning.

When the prep was finished I had 6 meals that were nicely wrapped up in containers in the fridge. I was feeling pretty great about having the week’s dinners ready to go.

Dish Day

If I was feeling any doubt on Prep Day, it turned into pure joy on Dish Day.

The weekly menu tells you exactly what you need to do to finish the day’s meal, and it is usually as easy as throwing something in the oven, or pouring dressing over a salad. It was such a relief to come home after a long day and realize that dinner was already nearly done!

All of the meals were great, and I really appreciated that we were getting out of our dinnertime rut.

I feel like we eat the same things over and over again, simply because I can’t think of anything else to cook! But with Prep Dish, we were trying all sorts of new things.

This Pomegranate, Walnuts & Blue Cheese Salad with a Balsamic Vinaigrette was our favorite meal of the week, and it will definitely be in permanent rotation as long as pomegranates are in season. I loved having a healthy, delicious and filling lunch ready to go in less than a minute.

Prep Dish took all of the guess-work out of meal planning and preparation. I was able to keep up with my clean eating, without devoting half my life to planning our meals.

If you want to eat healthy, seasonal meals, and not spend hours in the kitchen on busy weeknights, you should definitely give Prep Dish a try.

What have you got to lose?

Again, here’s what you need to know about the plan options:

The basic plan is $14/month.
You can save a lot of money by going in for the year subscription at $99. This takes your monthly cost down to only $8.25 per month AND with this plan, you get access to the archives of all the previous meal plans and Super Fast Meal plans – so helpful!
If you’re interested in starting off the new year with a Whole30 Reset plan the $149 Premium Yearly Plan is for you. It comes also comes with access to an Autoimmune Protocol plan and nutritional info. on each of the menus. The cost here breaks down to $12.42/month, making it the best value for what you get.