If you haven’t heard about them yet, just wait, you will! Meal Prep stores are all the rage and growing by leaps and bounds. These stores offer an easy, quick, affordable and fun way to prepare your family’s meals. We have found that Make and Take meals mean that we can put less thought, time and energy into preparing meals every single night and, instead, trade that time for quality time together as a family.
What It Is: Meal Prep stores offer a changing monthly menu of entrees that you prepare at the store and take home for future use. All of the entrees are intended to be frozen and cooked at your convenience. Meals usually feed 4-6 but I have found that we can comfortably feed a family of 2 adults and 5 children, often with leftovers. Many stores also offer side dishes, desserts and special holiday make-and-take events for an additional charge.
How It Works: The store offers “stations” for each entrée with the instructions for preparing the entrée, all of ingredients and equipment, and usually either a tin pan with lid or freezer storage bags for transporting your entrée. All you provide is yourself and a cooler or laundry basket to transport all of your entrees back home. It takes between 1 and 2 hours to prepare all of your entrees. Many stores allow you to split meals into two bags for smaller families so you end up with 2 half-sized meals instead of one meal that feeds 4-6. You can often customize each recipe to include more of one ingredient (except meat or fish, typically, which are controlled due to cost factors) and less or none of another. You can choose many of the same entrée or one of each or any combination that works for your family.
How Much It Costs: Prices vary considerably by location and store but it is not uncommon to prepare 12 meals for $200. Making fewer meals usually costs more per meal. The dinners come to approximately $3.00/person which is significantly less than eating out, even at your local fast food chain, and significantly healthier. Although this may be more than you would pay to make, from scratch, the same 12 meals at home, if you factor in the time you save on planning the meal, shopping for the ingredients, preparing the ingredients (pulling them all out, chopping veggies, etc), gathering all equipment and supplies and then cleaning it all up and putting it all away when you are done, it is clear that the savings, for many, in time and effort and energy is worth the slight increase in expense.
Finding A Meal Prep store near you: To find a retail store near you, check out the Easy Meal Prep Association directory, sorted by state.