Meal prep is a lifesaver for Nigerian mums navigating the chaos of modern life. With the constant demands of caring for the kids, managing the home, and staying on top of work, the days just seem to fly fast.

Sometimes it feels like 24 hours is just not enough. You wake up early, rush through bath time, prepare breakfast, pack the children’s lunch, and before you know it, you are already thinking about dinner.

Then the next day the circle start again. One thing that often stress many mothers is food. What to cook, when to cook, and how to manage time around it. This is where meal prep can really help.

Meal prepping is simply planning and preparing your meals ahead of time, so that you do not have to cook from scratch everyday. It may sound like one of those fancy ideas you see online, but trust me, it works, and it can change how you handle both your family and work life.

For Nigerian mums, it is not about being fancy, it is about surviving and making life a little bit easier.

The Importance of Meal Prep for Busy Nigerian Mums

Food is very important in our homes. In fact, in many Nigerian families, if there is no food, there might not be peace. The children start to cry, the husband begins to frown, and you start to feel guilty even when you have done your best.

Cooking every day after coming back from work can be exhausting. Sometimes, you may even buy fast food or instant noodles because you are just too tired to cook proper meal. But eating out too often can be expensive, and also not always healthy.

Meal prepping helps you plan better. It saves time and energy. You can cook in bulk during weekends or on your off days, and store the food in the freezer.

In that way, all you have to do during the week is warm it. Imagine coming back from a long day at work and knowing that food is already waiting. No more rushing to start pounding yam or washing beans at 8 p.m.

Another benefit is that, when you meal prep, you reduce wastage. How many times have you bought vegetables or meat and forgotten them in the fridge until they spoil? With proper meal planning, you already know what to cook, and you use what you have before it goes bad.

How to Start Meal Prepping

How to start meal prepping may be the hardest part of it, but once you get used to it, it becomes part of your routine. The following are some simple steps you can follow for an easy start.

1. Plan your meals for the week:

• Take one day, maybe Saturday, and sit down to decide what your family will eat for the next week. You can write it down in a notebook or even on a piece of paper that you stick to the fridge.
• Plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make sure to include variety so nobody gets bored. For example, Monday could be jollof rice, Tuesday could be yam porridge, Wednesday beans and plantain, Thursday spaghetti, and so on.

2. Create your shopping list:

• After planning your meals, write down the ingredients you need. This helps you buy exactly what you need and not waste money.
• It also prevents unnecessary trips to the market during the week when you suddenly remember you forgot maggi or pepper.

3. Set out a day to cook in bulk:

• Most mums prefer Saturday or Sunday. You can cook multiple dishes at once. For example, you can have rice cooking on one burner, beans on another, and soup boiling in a pot.
• It may be tiring on that day, but will save you a lot of time and energy during the week.

4. Store your food properly:

• After cooking, let the food cool down before packing them into containers. Make sure you label each container for easily identification and to avoid mixups.
• That way, when you open the freezer, you know exactly what you are picking.

5. Do not forget breakfast:

• Many people only meal prep lunch or dinner, but breakfast matters too. You can boil yam, fry plantain, or even make pancakes ahead of time and store them in the freezer.
• You can also blend smoothie ingredients and keep them in small bags for quick blending before work.

Tips to Make Meal Prep Easier.

1. Do not try to cook ten different dishes in one day if you are just starting. Begin with maybe two or three, and as you get used to it, you can add more.
2. Let the children help with washing vegetables or peeling yam. It makes the work easier and also teaches them responsibility.
3. If your freezer is small, do not overload it. Store food in portions that can be finished at once, so you do not have to keep unfreezing and freezing again.
4. Use plastic containers that seal well, so your food doesn’t spoil or spill.
5. Sometimes meal prepping gives you chance to experiment. You can try making different soups or stews so your family does not get tired of eating same things everyday.

Nigerian Foods That Are Great for Meal Prep

Many Nigerian meals can last long in the freezer if they are stored properly. Some good examples are:

1. Soups like Egusi, ogbono, okra, vegetable, banga, and edikaikong soup.
2. Stews such as tomato stew, chicken stew, or fish stew.
3. Rice dishes such Jollof rice, fried rice, coconut rice.
4. Beans dishes like Beans porridge, moi moi, akara which you can freeze the batter for making the akara.
5. Swallows like Pounded yam, semo, eba, and amala can be made in advance and frozen in small wraps.

How to Perfectly Balance Work and Family

Meal prep is not just about cooking food. It is about managing time and reducing stress. When food is already taken care of, you can focus on other chores in the house like helping your children with homework, resting after work, or even spending quality time with your husband.

What stresses many mothers most times is not just the work itself, but the mental load of thinking about what to cook every single day. Meal prepping helps remove that mental stress because you already know what is available, so you just pick and warm them.

However, for some days that you will be tired and might not have energy to cook in bulk, you can just cook small and manage for a few days. The idea of meal prepping is to make life easier for you, and not to tow on it as part of your daily lifestyle.

The Common Challenges on Meal Prepping and How to Overcome Them.

Sometimes, meal prepping can feel overwhelming at the beginning. Maybe you cook too much and the food goes bad, or you forget to label your containers. It is okay to make mistakes as nobody gets it perfect from day one.

Another challenge is power supply. In Nigeria, light is not always stable, and that can make storing food difficult. One solution is to buy foods that can last longer outside the freezer, like beans, yam, or dried fish. Also, if you have a generator or inverter, it helps to keep your freezer running.

Time is another problem. This is because many working mums do not even have time to cook during weekend. You can try to divide your meal prep into two days. Maybe do some chopping and blending on Friday evening, then cook on Saturday morning. It is more convenient and stress free.

In Conclusion.

Being a Nigerian mum is a full time job on its own, even before adding office work. There is no shame in feeling tired or overwhelmed as they are inevitable, the important thing is to find ways to make life easier for yourself and your family. Meal prepping is one of those ways. It may take effort at first, but you are definitely going to enjoy it as time goes on.

You do not need fancy kitchen tools or a big freezer to start. Just start small. Cook what you can, store it properly, and enjoy the peace that comes with knowing your family will eat good food, even on your busiest days.