The Basics and Flow of Meal Prep (Kitchen Day)

One day per week, my morning/afternoon is dedicated to Kitchen Day…the time I dedicate to meal prep. I focus on things like: bread, buns, rolls, mixes and seasonings, chopping veggies, washing and cutting fruit, breakfast prep for the week, pantry staples, etc.

I have found that if I take one day per week and dedicate it to cooking and meal prep, it saves me SO MUCH TIME both at breakfast and dinner time. And for me, that’s a game changer. If you want to know more about how I “schedule” my days, you can check out that in the Homemaking How-To ecourse I offer.

I usually post my After photo on Instagram and sometimes I do a tutorial up in the Stories. And without fail, every week. I get asked two things:

1. What do you do with your kids? (answered in the link)
2. How does your day flow in the kitchen?

So, today I want to give you a basic guide of how I schedule the day. If you’d like to see an actual walk-through, you can check that out in my Instagram Stories. 

First things first…

The first thing I ALWAYS do is start a batch of yeast dough – yeast dough will be mixing and doing it’s thang while you’re using the oven and stove top. By getting it started first, you aren’t going to be in the kitchen longer than needed, waiting on dough.

I use the Bread Beckers Basic Dough every time and I mix it up in my Zojirushi Bread machine. I choose to take the dough out and bake it in the oven – but that’s just personal preference. At that point, I take inventory of two things:

1. What’s in the fridge/freezer that needs to be used up?
2. What’s coming on the meal plan that I can prep NOW?

Make a list, and prioritize.

After I do those two things, I make a list. What’s on the list? Things that need to be used up and items I want to make. If I write it down, I can make a plan. I take that list and number it, based on what I am going to do it. 

I like to start something in the oven immediately, like Baked Oatmeal or Blueberry Muffins. Why? Because your oven should always be BUSY. When your oven is BUSY, you are BUSY doing things that don’t require the oven. You use that in-between time to chop and mix. Then as soon as one thing is done, another is ready to go in. Let me give you an example:

1. Yeast dough
2. Muffins
3. Chop onions and peppers
4. Make Ranch Dressing
5. Prep and bake Baked Oatmeal
6. Mix up taco seasoning
7. Mix up more Ranch Dressing seasoning
8. Wash and slice strawberries and cantaloupe
9. Prep and bake Oatmeal Raisin Scones
10. Make Freezer Biscuits
11. Boil eggs
12. Bake Yeast dough

My goal is always to be done by the time the bread comes out of the oven. That gives me a time of about 3 hours total to finish – and that is usually plenty of time. If I need to make additional yeast dough, that goes in as soon as my first batch of dough comes out. I just work it into my numbered list, based on what I am making that day.

Granola is a whole other beast. It can take 45-60 minutes, so you don’t want it taking up your oven time when you are baking oatmeal and muffins, etc. When planning for Granola, it’s my LAST item instead of bread. When my bread comes out, Granola goes in so that it’s my last task while I am cleaning up the kitchen.

Kitchen Day can go really smoothly when you go into it with a plan, but also know that any time you start with something new, you should show yourself GRACE and start SMALL. Just one hour of meal prep time per week can save your hiney later in the week. And saving your hiney is a good thing indeed.

Don’t underestimate a “small start.”