1. Pick Your Meals: Pick out all your weekly recipes in advance. Look carefully at the recipes you choose and plan your buying accordingly: don’t buy a whole bag of potatoes when one potato is all you need for three different meals!

2. Use Themes: Maybe one week will be salad week, and the next week pasta week. Or, instead of weeks, use days: you can plan to have a different theme night for each dinner and still cut back on your shopping when you buy easily stored supplies that can last more than one week.

3. Plan for Leftovers: If you live alone and always cook meals meant for two, don’t waste the second serving … find ways to “recycle” it! Either save the leftovers for lunch the next day or plan to repurpose them for another meal later in the week. Or, start the week with one big casserole dish and plan to eat from it all week with a variety of sides.

4. Early Prep for Faster Meals: Once you get home from the grocery store, start prepping your ingredients before you put them away! Slice, square, or shred your cheese for the various meals you’ll make during the week. Grill, brown, or bake your meats for an easy warm up come meal time. Prepare and store as many ingredients as you can early in the week so that by the time you’re pulling them out to cook, more than half the work is done!

5. Your Freezer is Your Friend: One of our favorite meal tricks is prepping dishes that freeze well. Why buy those frozen microwave dinners when you can enjoy a tasty reheated homemade meal? Make double batches of sauces, soups, stews, pastas, etc. and freeze them to satisfy the stomach of future you!

Happy Cooking!

The post Five Fast Tips for Weekly Meal Planning appeared first on University Square Apartments Blog.

There’s nothing like a nice, home-cooked meal … but who has the time to actually cook it? The answer is simple … YOU do! Finding fantastic dinner recipes has never been easier, with a wealth of recipes available with just a few clicks online. But especially if you’re new to the culinary game, you want to make sure you can find some nice and easy meals to try out. Here are some of our favorite websites to find quick and easy dinner recipes!

The post Five Sites for Quick and Easy Dinner Recipes! appeared first on University Square Apartments Blog.

But let’s be honest … we don’t always have time for cooking at home. First there’s planning meals. Then there’s actually making it to the grocery store to get all your ingredients. Add to that the time you’ll spend hunting ingredients, preparing to cook, and actually figuring out your recipes, and cooking t home may begin to feel like a nightmare. Fortunately, we’ve come across some awesome sites that will help you with that! Nowadays you can subscribe to just about anything—from monthly shoe deliveries to makeup, and more—and our favorite subscription service for the summer has to be meal delivery boxes! Here are three of our favorites!

Blue Apron

Blue Apron is probably the cheapest meal delivery box option out there. The meal box comes with ingredients for three meals for two people, making it the perfect choice for a few homemade meals for yourself and a friend, or almost a week’s worth of meals if you live alone and don’t mind repeats! Boxes are delivered on Thursday or Friday of each week in packaging meant to keep your food fresh for up to 24 hours after delivery in case you’re not home to get your box right away. And for just under $60 for what amounts to almost a week’s worth of food, you’re already saving on what you’d pay if you actually ate out all week (we’re guilty as charged) or went grocery shopping every week! Learn more and subscribe at www.blueapron.com!

HelloFresh

HelloFresh is probably second in popularity to Blue Apron, and comparable in price at just under $70 per week. This subscription offers a “Classic” or “Veggie” box with options for all tastes, and meal prep runs at just around 30 minutes making it a time saver in more ways than one. HelloFresh meals promise recipes that are seasonal, fresh, and of the highest quality. One added benefit of HelloFresh is the ability to choose three out of five recipes each week, giving you a little more control over your menu. The only downside is that some recipes can be a little harder to follow, but with a little patience you’ll get the hang of your new culinary prowess in no time! Check them out at www.hellofresh.com!

Plated

Plated is the most expensive of the meal subscription plans, but many people seem to prefer their recipes and suggest the fun and fresh flavors are worth a little extra bank. Just like the other weekly boxes, Plated provides pre-portioned ingredients to create delicious recipes for great meals with half the effort it’d take if you planned the meal start to finish on your own. Plated also offers a little bit more personalization, in that you share upfront what you like to eat to help the Plated chefs pick recipes just for you! Learn more and give them a try at www.plated.com!

Happy Cooking!

The post Three Subscription Meal Services to Try This Summer appeared first on University Square Apartments Blog.