Cooking meals every day is a fantastic way to unwind, but can often leave us with too many random odds and ends of ingredients. One of the best ways to avoid food waste is meal prep and meal planning!

I’ve been meal prepping for nearly a decade now, and one aspect I’ve loved is being able to easily use up whole veggies in recipes and find creative ways to use up the odds and ends. When I started Workweek Lunch in 2016, my goal was to help other recent college grads save money on food by meal prepping, and learning to reduce waste was a huge part of my journey along the way. Since starting WWL, I’ve taught classes in meal prep, recorded hundreds of online tutorials, and our meal planning subscription service helps thousands of people make meal prep happen all over the world.

Planning meals carefully also helps me significantly reduce food waste because it helps me buy the right amount of ingredients in the grocery store and cook the right number of meals for the week.

The trick to making meal prep and meal planning is choosing meals you’ll actually look forward to eating (and won’t toss in the trash). 

Meal Planning To Avoid Food Waste

Have you ever tried to plan meals while food shopping? It makes the grocery store experience stressful and makes shopping take a lot longer. This is where meal planning is so important. If meal prep isn’t your thing, at least try meal planning to reduce food waste.

At the most basic level, meal planning involves choosing meals you want to make for the week, then only buying groceries for those meals. I recommend always looking at your calendar first to fill in any gaps. Plan around your social and work events to avoid cooking too much food. And it’s good to leave some meals open/unplanned just in case things come up or you change your mind about what you want to eat.

Once you’ve figured out how many meals you need to plan for, choose recipes. To really reduce waste (and save money) try shopping your pantry, fridge, and freezer first to use up any lingering ingredients from previous cooking sessions. Choose recipes and meals that include these ingredients to reduce waste and spend less at the grocery store (a win-win!).

You don’t have to whip out a spreadsheet or fancy app for meal planning. Writing out the recipes you want to make, as well as the ingredients you need to buy on paper or in the Notes app on your phone is good enough. I like to plan my meals on a spreadsheet calendar as it’s more visual, but the tools you use are entirely up to you!

Keep reading for some easy recipe templates below that are great for meal prepping to reduce food waste. 

Meal Prep Tips

Recipes for one-off meals generally call for smaller amounts of ingredients, leaving you with leftovers to deal with... but recipes for batch meals (meal prep) utilize larger amounts of produce and perishable ingredients so there’s much less food waste.

What’s helped me reduce food waste with meal prep the most is letting go of the idea that certain veggies “go” with certain meals. Technically, you can throw any vegetable into almost any recipe, and it would work. 

Unlike baking, which is more of a science, cooking is flexible. If a recipe calls for 1 cup of chopped bell pepper, you can absolutely just throw the entire chopped bell pepper in the pan to use it all up. If you’re like me, you probably have random bits of mismatched pasta and grains hanging out in your pantry. Combining different types of grains and pasta in recipes is always an option to reduce food waste and continue using up what you have. Don’t be afraid to get creative! It’s so hard to ruin a dish and most recipes are easy to fix.

Knowing how to use up ingredients in meal prep is helpful, but what about making sure you actually eat what you prep? One of the biggest barriers to meal prep is the fear that you won’t be in the mood for what you cooked on the weekend during the week. While it definitely happens, one of the best ways to avoid this (and avoid wasting food) is to choose meal preps that are easy to freeze. The most freezable recipes are soups, stews, curries, chilis and casseroles. 

Another big meal prep challenge is finding easy recipes that creatively use up different ingredients. Here are a few of my favorite template recipes that make using up whole ingredients or leftover odds and ends easier. 

Easy Meal Prep Recipe Templates To Try

Stir-Fries

What I love about stir-fries is that they hold up very well for meal prep for a few days (up to four in the fridge) and they’re endlessly versatile. When it comes to vegetables and even some fruit, you can throw in anything you have on hand and it will be delicious, making it a perfect meal prep to reduce food waste. Noodles or rice work so well as a base, and you can use any protein you enjoy. I love chicken, shrimp, and tofu in stir-fries, but have made them with salmon, ground meat, and tempeh too.

Our recipe: Basic Stir Fry Over Rice

Quesadillas

Quesadillas are perfect for using up random sauces and small amounts of leftover ingredients. Grab your favorite veggies, protein, some sauces and cheese, layer them between two tortillas and you’re good to go. I like baking quesadillas because it’s easier to do a few at once, vs cooking them one at a time in a pan on the stove. Quesadillas last for up to four days in the fridge and six months in the freezer.

Our recipe: Sweet Potato Black Bean Quesadillas

Frittatas

Another endlessly versatile dish, frittatas make for a great meal prep breakfast, lunch, or dinner to reduce food waste. Whisk some eggs, add in any veggies and your favorite breakfast meat (I love adding bacon), some cheese if you’d like and stick it in the oven while you clean up. You can freeze frittata pieces for future breakfasts or store them in the fridge for up to four days.

Our recipe: Veggie Frittata

Mac N’ Cheese

If you learn how to make a cheese sauce from scratch, you can turn any leftover ingredients into a delicious mac n’ cheese. Cook pasta and your cheese sauce, prepare your leftover veggies and toss everything together. You can eat it right out of the pot or transfer it to a baking dish to bake and crisp up. Mac n’ cheese lasts for up to five days in the fridge and six months in the freezer.

Our recipe: Roasted Veggie Mac N’ Cheese

Rice Bowls

In the mood for something more wholesome? Try piling up your leftover veggies (preferably roasted!) over rice. Roasted veggies tend to get very soft when stored in the fridge, and rice soaks up the extra moisture well for meal prep. Other grains work for this template meal prep as well. Top with your favorite condiments, toppings, and sauces, and call it a day. Rice bowls aren’t freezer-friendly, but they last in the fridge for up to four days.

Our recipe: Bibimbap-Inspired Bowls

For more meal planning & prep tips from Talia, be sure to visit WorkWeekLunch.com and follow her on Instagram.