Episode 57: 9 Minimalist Meal Prep Strategies

Trainer Tips

Apr 24

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Do you struggle to eat healthy when life gets hectic? In this episode of the Coaching Corner podcast, I share my top minimalist meal prep strategies to help you stay on track with your nutrition—even during your busiest weeks.

As a personal trainer, I know how overwhelming traditional meal prep can be. That’s why I focus on simple, time-saving tips using grocery store staples like rotisserie chicken, salad kits, microwavable grains, steamable veggies, canned beans, tuna packets, and frozen meals. I also share high-protein snack ideas like Greek yogurt, jerky, protein bars, and hard-boiled eggs that keep you fueled on the go.

Plus, I cover how to balance convenience with fresh foods, stay mindful of sodium intake, and still build meals that support your goals—whether it’s fat loss, muscle gain, or just feeling better overall.

👉 In this episode, you’ll learn:

9 minimalist meal prep tips that work
My favorite healthy grocery store shortcuts
Quick snack ideas that don’t require cooking
How to save time without sacrificing nutrition
A simple mindset shift to make meal prep sustainable

🎯 Whether you’re a busy professional, a parent, or just someone trying to eat better without the stress, this episode is packed with practical nutrition hacks you can start using today.

📘 Want more help with your diet? Grab my Healthy Diet Makeover Handbook Paperback or Ebook

🎙️ Subscribe to Coaching Corner for weekly episodes on fitness, fat loss, nutrition, and mindset.

#MealPrep #NutritionTips #HealthyEating #FitnessPodcast #MinimalistMealPrep #JaydHarrison #BusyLifestyle #MealPrepHacks #CoachingCorner

If you’re trying to get leaner without losing strength, or just want to train smarter during a fat loss phase, this episode is for you.

Links:

Jayd (00:00):
A lot of grocery stores in their deli section have ready to eat, ready to go, meals and snacks. So take a look at those sections of your grocery store. That's another simple, very, very fast way to meal prep if you don't have time to fully cook. Hey there. Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I've been a personal trainer for about 10 years and I created this podcast so I can share with you some of the tips and tricks that I share with my personal training clients. In today's episode, I'm going to share a couple of tips for minimalist meal prep. We all have weeks where we are just too busy or too tired to go through the process of planning and cooking our meals for the week, and when that happens, it can be very easy to get off track on our diet plans.
(00:55)
So what I'm sharing in this episode are a couple of really fast and healthy ways that you can still meet your macros with spending minimal time in the kitchen. Now, if you like the tips and tricks that I share in this episode, make sure to check out my Healthy Diet Makeover book, which you can buy off Amazon or you can download the ebook from my website In my Healthy Diet Makeover book, I've created a five-step process for cleaning up your diet, starting with how to put healthy food on your plate at every meal, and I'll also show you how to figure out how many calories you should be eating and how to split those calories up between your macronutrients like protein, carbohydrates, and fats. This book also comes with a bunch of recipes that you can try as well as a seven day example meal plan. I'll show you how to meal plan and how to meal prep as well. There's other tips in this book as well on how to eat healthy on a budget, how to eat healthy while traveling, et cetera. So make sure to pick up a copy of the book. You can find a link for that in the video description below if you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening to this podcast, you can find links for the book in the show notes. Now without further ado, let's get into the episode.
(02:12)
I had a client a couple weeks ago where she just had sort of a bad mental health weekend and the weekend is when she usually does her meal prep, and then she was really worried about getting off track that week when I saw her on Monday and I was like, well, why don't you just get the stuff that's like ready to eat right from the grocery store? So you have to do very minimal stuff. We were brainstorming some of the things that she could do to make sure that she was hitting her macros and hitting her calories so she could continue to work out as hard as she needed to reach her goals. She's got a wedding coming up, so these are some of my tips. I have nine tips for simple minimalist things that you can do to make sure that you're sticking to your diet plan even if you just don't have time to meal prep or maybe you your window for meal prep.
(03:00)
My number one tip that I recommend people if you're not vegan or vegetarian is to just grab a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store because the rotisserie chickens from the grocery store are number one guaranteed to be tasty. They're well cooked right, and they are usually cooked really with the right amount of seasoning and everything. You can eat them right out of the box. You could just literally just buy one and eat it depending on what your protein and your calorie goals are and how much you have to eat at a meal, you might have to eat half a chicken, right? If you have the funds for it and you want to go a little step further, then go to a Peruvian restaurant. They'll also give you basically a whole, it's like brick grilled chicken. Now you can eat it whole right as it is, or you can very quickly take that and turn it into some chicken salad or you can add it as a topping to a sandwich.
(03:59)
You can make a wrap out of it. You can turn it into some quick tacos. It's very easy to make multiple things using a rotisserie chicken or a Peruvian chicken, and a lot of times the Peruvian restaurants will give you an option, half a chicken, a whole chicken or whatnot. So this is something very, very easy, very minimalist. You literally could just keep it in your fridge and then just cut off a few pieces as you go so you don't have to worry about cooking it yourself. Now, if you are in a calorie deficit, if you're watching your calories when you're using the rotisserie chicken, you can easily reduce the calorie intake of that chicken by just not eating the skin because rotisserie chicken are usually cooked with the skin on. Just peel the skin off and eat just the meat and then be careful about what sauces you're using.
(04:54)
But you can easily make a pretty low calorie high protein snack or full meal using rotisserie chicken. It lasts at least three days in the fridge. You could get a couple of them or you could get one every couple of days if you have a particular week where you're not going to be able to cook, just get a rotisserie chicken at the beginning of the week and then another one midway through the week. Okay? Another thing number two is pre-washed salad kits. You can get these from the grocery store and these are great. You can pack 'em right into your lunchbox. You can eat them right out of the package. They usually contain a mixture of different vegetables. You can also find ones that have a variety of different proteins like boiled eggs or chicken Turkey or ham, and they have other ingredients too. So this is another really easy you can grab and go right from the grocery store to make sure that you're getting some fiber and some vegetables in your diet even if you don't have time to meal prep.
(05:56)
However, I also have to say it is also super, super fast to just build your own salads for meal prep. This is something that I do a lot of times when I have those weeks where I'm just like, I cannot be bothered. I'll just buy a bunch of kale or spinach and then whatever other ingredients because with just a couple of different vegetables, like a bag of greens and then some other vegetables, depending on what kind of salad you're building, you can build out seven different meals using all of those things, mixing and matching the different proteins and toppings that you use. So that's another simple, very, very fast way to meal prep if you don't have time to fully cook. And you could use the rotisserie chicken for part of the protein, boiling some eggs. You can also buy boiled eggs from the grocery store.
(06:48)
A lot of grocery stores in their deli section have ready to eat, ready to go meals and snacks, so take a look at those sections of your grocery store. That's where you'll often find the pre-washed salad kits as well. If not there, you'll also find them in the vegetable section. Number three, another thing that can be super helpful if you don't have a lot of time to cook is microwavable grains fellow twitch streamer and bodybuilder slash powerlifter cure the hermit or hermit earnest on other social media. One thing that his community used to give him a hard time about was his microwavable rice. He'd get, was it Uncle Ben's? Yeah, he'd get packs of Uncle Ben's rice, microwave them, and then have that with some tuna or some other packaged chicken or something for a quick post-workout meal, and his community is to give him a hard time for using the microwaveable rice, but it's legitimate and that's what you got to do what you got to do.
(07:50)
There's nothing wrong with having, honestly, if it's the difference between you not eating at all versus eating some microwavable grains, freaking get the microwaveable grains. So this is super, super simple way to get in some healthy grains without having to go through the whole process of cleaning your rice and then boiling it and then steaming it, et cetera, et cetera. You can skip all of that and just get some little packets and you can go from any grocery store. Number four, precut veggies and steam bags. Another great way to get in your veggies with very minimal cooking time. Just go to the frozen food section of your grocery store and you'll find steam bags all over the place. Some of them have different sauces that they can add to give some different flavorings. My colleague and coach really likes, it's like a cauliflower rice that has this cheesy sauce and he'll get two of those and microwave two of those and have those for lunch with some protein.
(08:55)
Very fast, simple, pretty good tasting, at least that's what he tells me. You'll find a lot of different microwaveable and steam bags like that with flavoring or without flavoring, and if you go to the produce section, a lot of times you'll find pre-cut veggies that are ready to eat right out of the box, and sometimes they'll even come with a little bit of ranch dressing or some hummus or something. That's another really simple way to make sure that you are getting some veggies in, even if you haven't meal prepped. You can also do the same thing if you diet allows for deli meats. You can also find party trays that have deli meats and cheese and hummus, and sometimes there's a mixture of veggies and veggies and deli meats and et cetera, so those are some good options as well. Number five, if you are up for just a little bit of cooking, boil some eggs.
(09:53)
When I have a minimal prep week, one of the first things I do is pop between six and 10 eggs into a sauce pan, boil them, and then I don't even peel them. Once they are cooked, I stick them in the fridge and some ice water and then I use them as I go throughout the week. I'll make egg salad or I'll use them as toppings on a wrap or for a salad, frozen Turkey burgers or veggie patties, so frozen foods like that that you can keep in your freezer and then just pop them in the microwave when you're ready to eat. Still a little bit of cooking, still a little bit of prep. You get something that's nice and warm, but you don't really have to make the patties right, they're already ready to go. Also, pre-cooked chicken sausage or summer sausage again, like deli meats, that kind of a thing.
(10:48)
If your diet allows, just keep in mind when it comes to sausage and deli meats, you got to be mindful of the amount of sodium that's in it. If you are trying to eat a low sodium diet or if you're watching your blood pressure, this might not be the best option for you. And number two, sausage a lot of times has a lot higher fat content, especially saturated fat, so if you're watching your saturated fats, you want to be careful about sausage, but that is another option as well. Number six, a couple of shelf shelf stable staples that you might want to just keep in your kitchen at all times for when you have a week like this when you don't have time to cook are things like canned beans. These are super easy to just warm up, add salt, pepper, and maybe a little bit of seasoning.
(11:40)
You could eat them exactly like that or you could add them to salads, add them to protein bowls, et cetera. They're a really great source of dietary fiber and protein. I mean, honestly, you could live off of beans because they are a complete food. They have carbohydrates, healthy fats, and also protein, so I always recommend keeping canned beans in your pantry at all times and then just use them on weeks when you don't have time to cook. Tuna and salmon packets are also a really great staple to keep in your pantry. Another thing that you can very easily whip together, add onto a sandwich or add onto a salad or make tuna salad with crackers. Very quick, easy, high protein and healthy fat food. You want to also keep some soup or chili in your pantry or in your freezer too. Sometimes what I'll do is make a soup or a chili like a big batch of it, like a family size batch of it that has between six and eight servings, and then I will freeze the soup and keep it in my freezer For weeks like this, when I don't have time to meal prep or I don't have time to do a whole meal prep, I can always grab those frozen meals that I've created for myself from a couple of weeks before.
(13:06)
There are a lot of companies who make pretty healthy frozen meal options. The only thing that you have to watch out for these is sometimes they don't have enough calories. If you look at the nutrition on the box, it is just 310 calories. A lot of them are like 310 calories, 400 calories, and that is for most people, not really enough calories for an actual meal, but if you have two of them, it's full of vegetables, it's full of, usually they don't have as much protein as you need to, but if you eat two or one and a half, then you can probably get your protein intake. So there's a lot of good options for frozen meals that you should probably keep stocked in your freezer just in case. And if you have a week where you haven't meal prepped or you don't have time, you can always just go to the grocery store, grab a couple of those and just have them in your freezer.
(13:55)
Just keep in mind when it comes to these pre-made frozen meals, a lot of times they do have a lot of sodium in them, so again, if you're watching your blood pressure, you want to be mindful of how much sodium is in these frozen foods. The same thing when it comes to the shelf stable canned foods as well. Those canned foods are going to have a lot more sodium in them too, so it just makes sure that you're balancing that out with drinking plenty of water to help flush your system, but you want to balance out these shelf stable and frozen foods with fresh foods, so that's why I first recommended the rotisserie chicken and the precut veggies, that kind of thing. I also have a couple of tips for snacks, for snack ideas if you want to maximize your protein. Some snacks that you should keep in your kitchen are Greek yogurt cups.
(14:46)
A lot of them have at least 12 grams of protein. Oikos has this product that's called Ocos Pro, and it's like 20 grams of protein for a small half a cup of yogurt. It's good to have those and keep those in your fridge very quick, easy 20 grams of protein right there, and it's not very high calorie, either string cheese or those cheese rounds. Just make sure that if you are watching your calories go for skim or low fat. Again, keeping hard boiled eggs in your refrigerator is a good choice for snacks, you could just pop on some salt and some pepper, maybe some a drop of vinegar, and you can easily have a little snack that's 12 grams of protein, two eggs, right? Keeping jerky like beef jerky in your pantry is a great way to get a protein dense snack that is fast.
(15:39)
You don't have to cook it and it's ready to go right out of the package or meat sticks so you can get Turkey beef jerky. You can also find plant-based jerky as well that's made with lentils or soy roasted at a mame or chickpeas. You can get them in these little snack packs, these little pouches, keep those in your pantry. Easy way to get a good balance of carbohydrates, fats and protein, and then protein bars and shakes. Of course, many bodybuilders and power lifters. It's kind of a staple of our kitchens. We always have protein shakes or protein powder and some protein bars somewhere, so these are some fast protein dense snacks. If you are looking for something that's like more like fresh and fruity, you could find some pre-sliced apple packs, unsweetened applesauce cups, another really good choice for something sweet and fresh. And now number nine.
(16:36)
I'll be honest on the weeks that I don't have a lot of time to meal prep and I am just kind of flying by the seat of my pants, I'm more likely to go for stuff that is sweet. I'm more likely to eat things that are sweet and desserty. I'm more likely to crave that, and if I haven't meal prepped, it's likely because I'm busy and I'm stressed, so I know going into it that I'm probably going to want something sweet. So if I'm going to the grocery store to pick up some stuff that's going to be quick meal prep. I'm also going to grab some stuff that's a pretty nice little sweet treat that's going to go towards my macros, so you can get those yaso frozen Greek yogurt bars. Those are so yummy. If you like ice cream or if you like frozen yogurt, that kind of thing.
(17:24)
Those are really yummy. Protein bars are a really good, they can just sometimes scratch that itch for something sweet, especially if you like chocolate, and I do so keeping chocolate protein bars and using them as sort of like a dessert when I'm feeling like I want something sweet. It's a good way to satisfy that when I'm stressed, but also add to my protein for the day. You can also find a lot of protein snacks like protein cups, premier Protein, and Cozy Shack simply, well, they make protein pudding. You can also find high protein ice creams like Halo Top. These are all good options for if you have a sweet tooth and you want to satisfy that sweet tooth and also have it go towards your macros and calories for the day. Those are my nine tips for how to tackle if you haven't had time to meal prep or if you don't have time to meal prep and you want to still eat in a way that's going towards your goals and in alignment with your goals. Now I'm curious to see what are the things that you guys do when you have a week where you don't have time to meal prep? When you don't have time to cook, what do you do in order to stick to your diet plan? If you're watching this on YouTube, leave those in the comments below this YouTube video. I really want to hear what your tips and tricks are.
(18:50)
Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of The Coaching Corner podcast. Again, I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. If you are interested in working with me or if you're interested in the products and services that I offer, head to my website, Jaydigains.com. I am taking on online personal training clients right now for a variety of my programs, so make sure that you check out those options. You can also hang out with me while I'm live on my Twitch channel. That's Twitch tv slash Jaydigains, so make sure to follow me there so that you can join me in the live chat while I'm doing my workouts and doing the podcast. And that's it for this episode. I'll see you in the next one. In the meantime, make sure that you eat your veggies, eat your protein, stay hydrated, and take good care of your body, and I'll see you next time. Take care.