In college I worked for an organic farm running their farm stand at markets in and around the Boston area. It was one of my most favorite jobs ever and really solidified my deep appreciation for a farm to table, seasonal approach to eating whenever possible.

Since then, I’ve continued my routine of going to the farmers market every week during market season, which in Asheville, North Carolina where I live, is anywhere from April to December. This has become a ritual for me and one I look forward to so much. Although I’m lucky to live somewhere that has winter farmers markets, I usually skip them and spend two glorious weekend days sleeping instead. #noregrets

Every Saturday I have a routine of going to the market and then creating my meal plan for the week ahead before doing my prep on Sunday. Here are my tips for taking a market haul and turning it into your meal prep for the week!

1. GET INSPIRED

Farmers markets are my absolute favorite place to get inspired for the week ahead. Since my goal is to shop first and buy what looks good and exciting to me then prep second, I go to the market without any plan of what I’m going to get. This allows me to eat different foods along with the seasons changing, get a lot of variety in my diet based on what’s available, and be able to buy whatever I want instead of having to stick to a list.

We tend to buy a combination of 90% foods we plan on eating over the next week and 10% we plan on storing in the freezer or eating over a longer period of time. We really like to support local companies and farms and the market always has different vendors rotating in and out so we will usually splurge on a couple items just for fun. This can definitely hurt the budget though so keep that in mind as those things are totally optional.

***This weeks market haul:*** Spring onions, Lettuce mix x2, Spinach, Flowers, Leeks, Chives x2, Scallions, Cilantro, Broccoli microgreens, Vegan spicy queso, Vegan lusty dragon cheese, Sweet potatoes, Pasture raised ground sausage, Pasture raised bacon, Radish x2

2. TAKE INVENTORY

Once I get home from the market I write down everything I bought and everything we already have that I might be able to use for this week's meals. This is a great way of reducing waste and saving money so you don’t keep buying new stuff instead of using up what you already have.

While I’m taking inventory, I also write down anything we’re out of or running low on and staple items we usually buy every week like toilet paper, creamer, etc.

3. USE YOUR RESOURCES & MODIFY AS NEEDED

My favorite ways to get ideas for meal prep is to use resources like Pinterest, social media, cookbooks, magazines, and blogs. You can organize your Pinterest and make different boards for recipes you liked, recipes you want to try, breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. This way you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel every week and can slowly build up a library of recipes.

We also have a binder at home that we keep for recipes. Anything we made that we loved we’ll write down the recipe and whatever modifications we did or want to do next time in the binder. You can also put recipes you’ve ripped out of magazines or printed out in there too. An added bonus is that overtime you’ll have a binder of all your favorite recipes! Not only is it super cool to have your own recipe book but the more recipes you have in there the easier it is to rotate through them all without ever getting bored.

Once you have some recipes or ideas of what you want to make, see if the ingredients you already have can be used in place of any ingredients in the original recipe. For example, since we had a lot of spring onions from the market we used them in place of yellow or red onion in any recipe we made.

A resource we’ve been using for a few months now is this cookbook below. It uses 3 main ingredients to make 3 different recipes each week. Our meal prep Sundays have gotten much faster using this approach but we still have to make modifications along the way.

Many of the recipes seriously lack vegetables and fiber so we always add extra to each meal and make a big salad for the week to have with dinners. We also find that the quantity of meat is way too large for us so we decrease the amount we buy.

We will often replace some of the meat for another protein source so we get a bit more variety throughout the week instead of eating the same meat most nights. If the week calls for pork or beef, for example, we’ll swap that out and use some chicken for a recipe or two instead.

We usually have to come up with one extra meal to use in the rotation since we’re prepping for lunch and dinner all week.

The week we chose was ground pork, cabbage and red potatoes. Here are the swaps we made:

For the chorizo and potato tacos we did tacos two ways:
- Option 1: Tacos with a cilantro lime cabbage slaw from the book (so good!), chorizo with the pork we got from the farmers market, asparagus we bought at the store, and Siete cassava tortillas
- Options 2: Lettuce cups with the rest of the chorizo, slaw, and chopped cashews that we already had

We swapped the deconstructed egg roll recipe for a favorite of ours: no-noodle veggie pad thai from Real Food Dietitians (a great website to check out!). We also opted to use chicken for that instead of pork.

For the meatballs and mashed potatoes, we used all the pork from the market for the chorizo so we used a pound of ground beef that we already had in the freezer to make the meatballs. We swapped the mashed potatoes for roasted sweet potatoes we got from the farmers market and made a bunch of roasted broccoli to go along with it.

Our bonus meal was a spicy queso casserole - yes, you read that right! We used the vegan spicy queso we got at the market and made it into a sauce with steamed cauliflower, grated butternut squash (we already had the squash), leeks, onions, chives, and spinach from the farmers market. We combined the sauce with some baked diced chicken and gluten free pasta and voila, a random meal that we came up with on the fly but tasted super good!

4. MAKE A PLAN

Once I have an idea of what I’m going to make, I write out all the recipes and their ingredients, crossing off items from the “have” list as I go. This way I know what we’re using and at the same time I can write down anything else we need to get at the store.

As you make a plan, think about your week ahead and what you need from your meals and prep to be successful. Things to consider include:

Late or busy nights
How much time do you want to spend prepping dinner?
What meals are you prepping for? Just dinners? Lunch and dinner? Breakfast, lunch and dinner?
How many days are you prepping for? Monday through Friday? Monday through Thursday?
Are you planning on prepping most or all in one day, or splitting it up into smaller chunks of time throughout the week?

This grocery haul is part normal/part stocking up. What does that even mean? Well, every few grocery runs we might stock up on things like snack foods (especially if they’re on sale), chocolate, frozen wild salmon filets, and any pantry items we like to have on hand like gluten free crackers, pasta, broth, oils or condiments.

Since Kaighn was craving snacks this week we stocked up! I had been wanting to try Hu chocolate so I finally bought some this week. We also cut some corners and got pre-shredded broccoli slaw and carrots for one recipe, but you could save some money if you made those yourself.

5. GET TO WORK

Time to hit the kitchen! The picture below might look like a lot of food to you (because it is) but there are a few things to keep in mind.

My partner Kaighn works a crazy schedule of 7 days on (13 hour days)/ 7 days off so we need to make enough for him to have lunch and dinner most of those days, with the exception of the weekend when I usually make something different for dinners and sometimes for his last day or two of lunches depending on what’s leftover. We’re also both prepping for lunch and dinner everyday of the week. Your meal prep might be much easier than ours!

Because of our schedules, we spend a large chunk of our Sundays in the kitchen prepping. Another option is to prep for just the next 3 days, then do a bit more prep on the 3rd day to float you for the remaining days you want to be prepared for. There are honestly so many different ways to meal prep. From spending just 30 minutes to half a Sunday, the goal is to find something that fits your lifestyle and goals.

We make most of this food ahead of time so dinners are just reheating or assembling. This saves us a lot of time since we both tend to work later hours during the week. If we had more time at night we would only prep ingredients for meal prep and then cook the night of dinner. Consider that approach if you have a bit more flexibility with your weeknight schedule!

You might be wondering “How the heck are you guys spending most of your Sunday in the kitchen?”. Welp, we try to make it as fun as possible! We watch TV, movies, listen to podcasts or music, talk and just goof around. Even though we’re on our feet for a long time, we stay pretty entertained and try to get out for a neighborhood walk at some point for some fresh air.

This weeks meal prep:

Meal 1: No noodle pad thai (recipe adapted from The Real Food Dietitians website)

Meal 2: Grass fed beef meatballs with roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli

Meal 3: Spicy queso casserole with chicken

Meal 4: Chorizo tacos OR lettuce cups with cilantro lime slaw and asparagus

Side: Big dinner salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette