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meal prep

meal prep

1 3.3
Preparing meals ahead of time for the week to save time and eat healthier
  • noun
  • /miːl prɛp/
translation icon : preparación de comidas
  • So now that that's all done, I'm going to meal prep a cottage pie.
  • make meal prep

Dan, care to show your baggie with our meal prep?

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Examples

  • His busy schedule meant that meal prep was essential to ensure he ate well every day.

  • We're trying to drop off the meal prep I did for my mother.

  • None of these things are bad; it's just that when I think of "quick and simple" meal prep, it usually only involves one pan.

    Blog text (9)
  • So I usually meal prep on Sundays for work.

  • I've been trying to get my Tuesday meal prep down, and I think I'm almost there.

    Blog text (8)
  • Melissa—meal prep is so much fun now, and the food is GREAT!

    Blog text (30)
  • I also found that getting my family involved in the meal planning encouraged them to participate in the meal prep itself and to actually eat more of the dinners I was preparing, too.

    Blog text (16)
  • I always set aside Sunday for meal prep so I have healthy lunches ready for the week.

  • After finishing her meal prep, she felt relieved knowing dinner would be ready in no time.

How Prepared

to precook
3 2.7
meal prep
1 3.3
ad hoc
9 7.0

Surface Forms

meal prep singular
meal preps plural

Morphology

meal + prep

The meaning 'preparing meals in advance' is directly and transparently built from 'meal' (a food occasion) + 'prep' (short for prepare), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the activity. This follows a productive English compounding/nominalization pattern and the concept is cross-linguistically common, making the phrase readily comprehensible.

Etymology

The phrase meal prep comes from the simple image of cooking several meals in one session as prep and storing them to eat later. So, it means 'preparing meals in advance' to save time and help you eat healthier.