How to Meal Prep for the Week: A Beginner's Guide

Tender chicken, orzo and vibrant tomatoes bake together into a one-pan Mediterranean dinner, finished with a crumble of creamy feta and a scattering of dried oregano.

This is a genuine meal-prep workhorse: the orzo actually improves after a night in the fridge as it soaks up more of the tomato and chicken juices, and reheats gently in the microwave without drying out if you add a splash of water first. Batch cook a double portion on a Sunday and you've got two or three lunches sorted with almost no extra effort. Just hold back the feta until you reheat each portion, since it turns rubbery if microwaved from cold.

A fragrant, vividly coloured curry that pairs earthy beetroot with creamy coconut and crisp green beans, for a vegetarian dinner that only gets better with time.

Curries are the meal prep gold standard for a reason, the spices deepen overnight, and this one freezes just as well as it fridges, so it's worth portioning half straight into the freezer the day you cook it. Serve with rice cooked fresh each time rather than prepped in advance, since rice reheats less predictably than the curry itself. A dinner that looks like more effort than it actually is, and tastes like it too.

A comforting pasta bake loaded with tender meatballs, al dente rigatoni and a rich tomato sauce, finished under a blanket of melted mozzarella.

Bakes like this one are built for batch cooking: portion it into individual containers straight after it comes out of the oven and cools, and you've got a genuinely satisfying meal ready to reheat all week, whether that's the microwave at your desk or the oven if you've got 15 minutes to spare. It also freezes well in individual portions, making it one of the easiest wins for anyone building a freezer stash for busier weeks ahead.

A hearty stew of creamy beans, spicy sausage and nutritious kale, built for the kind of low-effort meal prep that barely feels like cooking at all.

Stews are forgiving in a way few other dishes are, an extra day in the fridge only deepens the flavour, and reheating is as simple as a few minutes on the hob with a splash of water to loosen the sauce back up. This one freezes in batches brilliantly, so it's worth doubling the recipe the first time you make it and stashing half away for a week when cooking from scratch just isn't happening.

A vibrant, aromatic curry of tender chickpeas in a creamy coconut and spinach sauce, served with fluffy basmati rice for a properly satisfying vegetarian dinner.

Chickpeas hold their texture brilliantly through reheating, which makes this one of the safest bets for a meal prep rotation, no soggy vegetables or split sauces to worry about days later. Cook the rice fresh each time you serve it rather than prepping it alongside the curry, since rice is one of the few things that's genuinely better made to order. The curry itself keeps for several days in the fridge or a few months in the freezer.