So I just want ya’ll to know I do not enjoy cooking. Like at all. Like if I had the money to I would eat out probably every meal except breakfast (because I can pop an Eggo into the toaster) and my husband would completely second this thought.

We just love to eat out and neither of us has really come to enjoy cooking. Or baking, or grilling, or really anything that requires prep work or clean up.

But alas, our bank account doesn’t appreciate all of our dining out. So I turned to Pinterest to find cheap easy ways to do some meal prepping.

(For Ethan anyways, I have issues eating leftover meat. I mostly make salads for my lunches and eat cereal for dinner. Healthiest option? No, it’s not. And I don’t care.)

So Pinterest has literally a bazillion pins on meal prepping, but I’m going to be real with you here. If something has more than say 3 ingredients and 5 steps it’s not for me. You can call it lazy, I call it I know who I am and am happy.

Some of these meal prep plans are literally amazing! The pictures are so enticing and it’s all so healthy and fresh and just incredible! I want to be one of these women!

I want to make one hundred and seven meals in 3.6 hours that will feed my family of seven for three months from our freezer with all organic veggies and homemade bone broth and spices straight from the African bush.

Unfortunately, I have no brain capacity to force myself into this.

So I came up with literally the easiest meal prep ever for Ethan’s work lunches all by myself. Because I know how little I am capable of in the kitchen. I will not stick with anything other than the simplest of simple.

These are not fancy meals, in fact, they are super boring. I don’t know how he eats them every week honestly, but he does and claims he enjoys them (kidding!). They are however semi-healthy in comparison to vending machine junk food.

So here it is… the world’s easiest meal prep/plan.

The Veggies

Rice. Instant Rice out of a box. Sometimes I make white, sometimes I make brown. I like to live on the edge. The rice takes exactly 7 minutes to make (the box says 5 but I’m including water boiling time here).

I cook (ha, I mean heat up) a can of black beans or pinto beans or green beans. Yes I’m aware canned food is not the healthiest. Again it’s not Doritos or Velveta cheese.

When I make only 3 meals this is the end of the side list. When I make more than 3 (usually 6), I also heat up a microwaveable side like frozen steamable mixed veggies or broccoli or asparagus or brussel sprouts.

Something that has green in it and takes five minutes in the microwave.

For the record, I do these steps simultaneously. So I start the meat first usually, then put the water for the rice on to boil, then pop the bag in the microwave.

I also boil 8-10 eggs every week for my salads and snacks. (I do actually use cage-free, free-range brown eggs that I get at a really good price from Lidl!)

The Meat

So the meat, I mostly make chicken breasts (one per meal, but this could be adjusted depending on how much meat you plan to eat). I buy frozen individually wrapped breasts from Sam’s Club. So I’ve already thawed these in the sink in cold water, this is not counted in my overall time because it takes no effort from me.

Once the chicken is thawed, I pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. I spray the baking dish with olive oil cooking spray (the healthy part!) then I put the breasts in the dish. I lightly salt and pepper them, sometimes I use all-season salt instead of regular salt. Then I put slices of butter on top of each chicken breast (the not healthy part, but butter makes everything better).

I cannot tell you how many teaspoons or tablespoons of any of this I use.

That is basically a foreign language to me, just do it ’till it looks good!

I put the chicken breasts in the oven for 20 minutes, then I start all the other things. After 20 minutes, I flip the chicken over salt and pepper that side, add more butter and throw them back in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until they’re cooked through.

I use these neat meal prep container things to store the food in. I usually put the rice in the medium-sized compartment, the beans or veggies in the small compartment and the meat in the large compartment. This can also be adjusted based on what you want to eat more of.

I just lay all the containers on the counter and put the food in as it becomes done. At some point, I will peel the eggs while I’m waiting on the other food to get done.

Once the chicken is done, I cut it into bite-ish sized pieces. Once everything is done and in the containers I usually let them sit for a few minutes before putting them in the fridge.

The Clean Up

The whole process takes me usually an hour to an hour and a half. Ethan has lunches for a week. I didn’t have to use more than 3 ingredients, and I only dirtied up 2-3 pans! It’s a win-win and that’s the kind of meal prep I like.

I also have some really great helpers who make sure no scraps are wasted and everything goes into the dishwasher completely cleaned off 😜.

I would love to know if ya’ll have any other super easy meal prep tips or recipes!