Protein in Bulk – Beef and Chicken Meal Prep
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Having problems like overcooking your protein such as beef and chicken? How about complaints on a lack of variety? Today is your lucky day! I’m going to spend less time discussing recipes and focus more on tips for bulk meal preparations.
Regardless of what special diet you’re on, there’s still a lot to learn in this article — even for vegans. Here, we’re going to tackle the exact meal prep and calorie counting. This will help you track your daily intake of calories and macronutrients from each meal.
Beef Meal Prep
Ground beef is one of America’s all-time favorite dishes due to its versatility. It’s quick and easy to add this to different beef recipes such as hamburgers, lasagna, tacos, meatloaf, and even pasta sauce.
For bulk preparation, it can be in the form of patties or meatballs. As for me, I prefer meatballs because it’s easier to portion out. You can even include it on crockpot or stir-fry dishes.
You can also eat it as is and dip it in a sauce of your choice, such as marinara sauce or even sour cream.
Chicken Meal Prep
Compared to pork chops and beef sirloins, chicken is considered to be the healthiest. It is a lean source of protein that doesn’t contain saturated fat — which causes a rise in cholesterol levels in the blood.
When preparing chicken in bulk, it’s better to cut it into smaller pieces. You can also divide it into portions and season it separately to have variations that will fit different chicken recipe meal plans.
Another tip for your preparation of chicken is to pat it dry before adding any herbs and spices to it. Doing this will remove any excess water and help the seasonings stick onto the meat.
I hope this advice will be of great help to those planning to prepare their beef and chicken in bulk. If you have other tips, feel free to share your thoughts by sending an email or even by commenting below.
Receiving your feedback and hearing about your meal prep preparations also helps me learn new things from all of you! Live happily and stay healthy as always my dear fit foodies!
With all of the writing I’ve been doing for my upcoming book on meal prep and meal prep recipes, I wanted to do a deeper dive on an article I wrote a while back on cooking chicken in bulk and having variety. Besides over cooking the protein, I often hear complaints about the lack of variety.
BEEF MEAL PREP
Ingredients
- Beef
Steps
Step 1
GROUND MEAT MEAL PREP (BEEF)
I like cooking ground meats with other veggies, but for calorie counting, I’ve found the most success with patties and meatballs. I prefer the meatballs over patties because smaller, cooked pieces of meat are easier to portion out, transport, cook and eat.
The quick process:
First, I start by adding a bowl to a food scale and zero-ing it out. This will allow you to know the weight of all the ingredients – including any additions such as chopped veggies and seasonings.
Write down how much the seasoned meat weighs and then divide that amount by the number of days you’re prepping for. And that should give you the amount for each day (or meal).
Remove it from the scale, then mix everything together.
Make the meatballs. Scoop out a portion of the meat, weigh it, roll it and then add it to a (mini-) muffin pan. I like using a muffin pan because it keeps the meat separate, it cooks in its own juices and keeps them round. Also, I find that the smaller pieces cook faster in the muffin tins because the metal around it is also hot. This is a plus because it cuts down on cooking time.
Keep in mind that leaner pieces of ground meat will cook much faster so you may have to either reduce the cooking time and/or temperature.
Chicken is likely the most common prepped protein, yet the one that gives the most grief. Besides overcooking, people always complain about the lack of variety. They prep everything the same. But you don’t have to.
Is calorie counting necessary to lose weight?
No. Is it helpful? Yes. If you’ve never measured or weighed food before I highly suggest doing it. Helps your “Kitchen IQ” so you know by “eyeballing” something how many calories are in it.
CHICKEN MEAL PREP
Ingredients
- Chicken
Steps
Step 1
The quick process:
First, cut up the chicken breasts into tiny nickel-sized pieces. This will allow for faster cooking and easier consumption.
One of the most important steps that people forget when cooking chicken is to pat it dry. This is especially true if you’re using frozen chicken breasts.
Take a paper towel and pat it dry. If you’re using frozen chicken breasts, then I recommend letting it sit on a paper towel for at least 20 minutes to get rid of excess water and enhancing solution. Once dry, then add it to a bowl on a scale.
Add base seasoning – the seasoning that ALL your chicken will have such as garlic and onion.
Next, divide the chicken by the number of types of variety you’d like. That will give you the equal amounts for each portion of seasoned chicken. In my example, I use 3.
Once the chicken is equally in separate bowls, add the various seasonings.
Get a baking sheet and aluminum foil.
Spread the foil over the pan and create equally sized rectangles by pinching parts of the foil together. This creates a ridge/barrier so that juices will not flow into the chicken adjacent to it.
Now, add the chicken to the individual spaces. Spread it out and make sure the chicken has breathing room. This will help cut down on cooking time and ensure all pieces are properly cooked, and not cooked together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hey, I'm Kevin
My name is Kevin. My life changed when I realized that healthy living is a lifelong journey, mainly won by having a well-balanced diet and maintaining an active lifestyle.
By experimenting in the kitchen and sharing my meals on Tumblr, I learned healthy eating is not boring! By making a few adjustments to my favorite foods, I could design a diet that could help me achieve my wellness goals while satisfying my desire for BANGIN food! 😅 Now I try to help people around the world realize that same level of freedom in eating regardless of budget. Welcome, let's #DemocratizeWellness together!