7 Life-Changing Heart Healthy Meal Prep Tips You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner

By Samantha Chabior, RD

Are you feeling totally overwhelmed by meal planning and preparing heart healthy meals? Think it will take you hours in the kitchen every day to cook nutritious foods that are good for your heart, but actually taste good too?

Meal planning is one of the most important things you can do to improve your heart health, but it can sometimes feel so overwhelming. In fact, one of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is that they don’t know where to start and are put off by the thought of spending hours cooking. Well rest assured, this article will go over some of my top tips that will get you ready to take on meal planning – you’ll wish you had started doing these things ages ago!

Want to get a head start on meal planning delicious, heart healthy meals? Download my FREE printable weekly meal planner and grocery list.

Before you even get started with a meal planning routine, it’s necessary to understand why meal planning is so important when it comes to heart healthy eating. It’s important to create a meal prep routine for 4 main reasons: 1) it gives you the greatest control over what you put in your food and usually cuts down the salt, sugar and fat in your meals 2) it saves you a ton of money compared to eating out at restaurants and eating pre-packaged foods 3) meal planning actually saves you TIME (I know it doesn’t feel that way, but TRUST me on this one), and probably most importantly 4) it creates a planned routine that makes it EASY to follow a heart healthy diet.

Because as the saying goes, “if you don’t plan, then plan to fail”.

Read on to learn about the 7 Life-Changing Heart Healthy Meal Prep Tips You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner

1. Choose Time Saving Cooking Methods

My favourite time saving cooking methods are using a slow cooker, oven roasting, and one pot dinners.

A slow cooker is the perfect time saver, just dump your ingredients in and go! I love slow cookers that allow you to saute your food directly in the slow cooker, which saves clean up time because you don’t need to use another pan to saute certain ingredients. I personally find that many slow cooker dishes taste way better when you saute the protein choice as well as onions and garlic before tossing them in the slow cooker. So having a slow cooker that does the job of a frying pan and a pot is a serious life saver!

I also love using the oven for roasting “sheet pan” dinners. You literally season your protein, carbs, and veggies and toss them on the same baking sheet to cook in the oven. It really cuts down the amount of time you need to spend hovering over your stove, constantly adding ingredients and stirring things.

And lastly, who doesn’t love a good one pot dinner? Throwing all your ingredients into one pot makes things SO simple and cuts down cleaning time afterwards.

2. Batch Cook Your Meals

There’s lots of different ways to batch cook, but one of my favourite ways to save time is to plan one day every week where you cook up a storm. Spending 3 hours on one day is far more efficient than 1 hour every day – that saves you at least 4 hours each week in the kitchen!

3. Rely on Leftovers

Cook once, so you can eat twice! I always recommend doubling recipes so you can either freeze the leftovers or have them later in the week. It’s also a great way to make sure you have a heart healthy lunch ready to go for the next day! And you’ll always have a healthy meal in the freezer for those busy days when there’s no time or energy left over for cooking.

4. Plan Your Meals One Week at a Time

A meal plan isn’t a plan without a grocery list! If you’re struggling with what to put on your grocery list and how to plan out your meals for a whole week then you will love my free printable menu planner and grocery list template. I recommend only grocery shopping once per week and planning out all your main meals in advance so you already know what you are cooking each day. Otherwise you’ll be tempted to resort to a quick frozen meal or restaurant food.

For some reason it feels like it takes so much more mental energy to think up interesting meals during a busy work week rather than planning them all out on one day at the start of the week! Try it out, and I promise you’ll be so much more likely to actually eat the food in your fridge and stick to your meal plan!

5. Try Grocery Delivery Options

For those people who are seriously tight on time, or just want to avoid the temptations and struggles of heading to a grocery store each week then an online grocery delivery service just might be the way to go. There’s tons of options out there, but depending on your location you can choose from individual grocery items delivered to your house, pre-measured ingredients where you just need to assemble and cook, or even fully prepared meals (I would try to avoid this last option unless you are very confident that the ingredients used to prepare the meals are truly heart healthy).

The benefits of a grocery delivery service is that it saves you time from grocery shopping and helps you avoid impulse buying in the aisles! There’s literally no better way to ensure you stick to your grocery list.

6. Cheat With Pre-Packaged Foods

Frozen vegetables and fruits are just as healthy as the fresh ones and are so easy to throw into smoothies, casseroles, stir-frys, soups and so much more! You can also buy pre-washed and chopped fresh veggies, fruit & veggie trays, or bagged salads, which save you a ton of prep time in the kitchen. They’re more expensive, but I find that having pre-prepped produce ready to go in the fridge increases the likelihood that you actually eat or cook them.

I also love No Salt Added canned beans, chickpeas and lentils – you can eat them raw in a salad or throw them into any dish and simply heat them up! Another huge time saver in the morning is quick cooking steel cut oats with some frozen fruit thrown in! Takes literally minutes to prepare and is so heart healthy!

7. Make Your Glass Storage Dishes do Double-Duty

I think I saved my favourite meal prep tip for last! It’s probably not as well known, but it’s something I use everyday when I prep meals. I strongly recommend investing in storage containers that are durable, and do double duty for both cooking and storage. My glass baking dishes are oven and microwave safe and come with plastic lids that I can use to cover them when I store them in the fridge. It’s just another great way to save time and minimize cleanup! It’s also great if you don’t have a lot of storage space in your kitchen for a ton of different kitchen items.

Let me know if I missed any of your favourite meal prep tips in the comments below!