Let’s face it — grilling is a blast. But shopping for food to grill every day is a drain on your energy and time. That’s why you need to learn how to meal prep like a boss with your pellet grill.

What Is Meal Prepping?

Meal prepping is what it sounds like — you buy all the ingredients you need for most of your meals throughout the week, and you prepare them at one time. Many people like to set aside a couple of hours on Sunday to slice, dice and cook items for the next three to seven days.

Wellness and Wallet Benefits of Meal Prep

If you’re trying to beef up the nutritional value of your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, meal prepping is a no-brainer. If you’re only going to the store once, you can load up on good stuff. As long as you’ve planned a menu for the week, you can grab your food and go through the checkout in record time. Plus, you may get some bargain buys on bulk foods.

Meal prepping frees you from both overspending and overindulging. It also forces you to get creative when mapping out what you’ll eat for the week. You can only eat baked chicken breasts so many times before they start to lose their excitement — that’s where cooking on your smoker pellet grill comes into play. 

Making Healthy Meals on the Grill

Flavor plays a massive part in whether you want to eat certain foods and stick to a diet. If you’re meal prepping, you want to add seasonings, spices and sizzle without excess fats or sodium. Wood pellets with hickory or pecan flavors allow you to infuse your veggies, fruits, meats, poultry and seafood with an intense taste that’s also healthy. 

For example, let’s say you find some heart-healthy grill recipes that go along with your high-protein, low-carb and low-fat eating regimen. You can start your grill meal prep on Sunday, then seal the foods in containers for storage and pop them in the refrigerator or freezer. You’ll only have to light your grill for one session as long as you make everything at once. 

Meal Prep Grill Ideas

What types of food should you experiment with for your meal prep adventure? Start with vegetables perfect for a pellet smoker. Just make sure you only cook them until they’re about five minutes from being done. They’ll continue to cook after they come off the grill and won’t get mushy when you heat them in the microwave.

Protein always belongs on the smoker grill, even tofu “steaks.” Take care to use new utensils every time you work with meat, fowl or fish to avoid cross-contamination. Be bold and make all your protein for the week at once by using the full grilling space. 

As a final word, make sure you invest in some heavy-duty plastic or glass dishes with lids. Otherwise, you’ll scramble at the end of your meal prep to figure out how to put everything away. Use labels to keep from wondering whether you pulled out a container of salmon with asparagus or beets and cold-smoked gouda.

Find Your Dream Grill