Tried meal prepping vs just buying frozen meals for a month and the winner was clear

I spent a whole Sunday cooking 5 days of lunches and it cost me $60 in ingredients plus 4 hours of my time. Meanwhile, a week of frozen healthy bowls from Aldi ran me $25 and took 5 minutes in the microwave. Has anyone else given up on fancy meal prep for the simple stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

patricia31715d agoMost Upvoted

Nah I gotta disagree hard lol. That $60 probably bought way better ingredients than what's in those frozen bowls. I meal prep every Sunday and my chicken and rice with roasted veggies costs me around $35 for 5 lunches. No preservatives, no mystery sodium, and I actually know what's in my food. Those Aldi bowls taste fine but they're loaded with salt to make up for the lack of fresh flavor. Plus I can switch up my seasonings each week so I don't get bored. I'd rather spend the time cooking than the time feeling bloated from processed stuff later.

kai_park15d ago

So are you really tracking how much sodium you're actually saving? Because I checked the back of one of those Aldi bowls once and it was like 600mg which is high but not insane. And that $35 chicken and rice thing you're doing, is that including the seasoning and oil and all that? I feel like when I try to meal prep I end up spending more because I want to actually enjoy eating the food for 5 days straight