Meal Prep for Beginners: A Simple First Week
Meal prep for beginners: three ways to prep, a 90 minute first session, how long food keeps in the fridge and what to freeze.
By the Matlaro teamPublished 8 min read
Meal prep for beginners comes down to this: cook two or three things once, portion them into containers, eat from the fridge for the first two days and from the freezer after that. Start with one session of about 90 minutes, one big pot and one tray, and lunches for four or five days. You do not need special containers or a whole Sunday.
The rest of this guide covers the three ways to prep, a first session you can copy, and how long prepped food actually keeps, according to the UK and German food safety agencies.
Three ways to meal prep
Full meals
Cook complete dishes and portion them. Best for lunches you want to grab and go.
Batch components
Cook a grain, a tray of vegetables and a sauce, then mix them differently each day. Best if you get bored easily.
Ingredient prep
Wash, chop and marinate only, then cook fresh each evening. Best for dinners that taste better hot from the pan.
For a first week, do full meals for lunch. It is the easiest to get right and the one that saves the most decisions.
How long meal prep keeps in the fridge
This is the question that matters most, so here are the sources rather than a rule of thumb.
Sources: the Food Standards Agency on chilling and freezing and the BfR's meal prep FAQ (in German, 8 July 2025).
The two agencies differ slightly, so plan to the stricter one: two days in the fridge, everything after that goes in the freezer on the day you cook. A few more points from the same sources:
- Cool it fast. The FSA says to get cooked food into the fridge within one to two hours, and to split it into smaller containers so it cools quicker.
- Reheat it properly. The BfR advises heating food until it is above 70 °C everywhere for at least 2 minutes.
- Thaw in the fridge. Overnight in the fridge, not on the counter.
- One meal per container. The BfR suggests each container holds no more than one meal, so you never reheat food twice.
- The coldest shelf is the bottom one, at the back. That is where the BfR suggests keeping prepped meals.
Your first session: 90 minutes, five lunches
Pick one dish for the pot and one for the oven or a second pan. Both of these are in Matlaro's catalogue.
Beetroot Soup (Borscht)
- 30 min
- Serves 10
- Ukrainian
- 4 steps
Ingredients
Beetroot3
Olive Oil4 tbsp- Chicken Stock Cube1
- Water1.45 l
Potatoes3
Cannellini Beans1 can
+ 1 more
Cook it step by step in Matlaro
Recipe data and imagery: TheMealDBOriginal recipe
The beetroot soup makes 10 servings in about 30 minutes: beetroot, potatoes, a can of cannellini beans, a stock cube and dill. That is five lunches for two people, or five for you and five for the freezer.
Ratatouille
- 30 min
- Serves 4
- French
- 4 steps
Ingredients
Aubergine2
Courgettes4
Yellow Pepper2
Tomato4- Olive Oil5 tbsp
Basil1 bunch
+ 4 more
Cook it step by step in Matlaro
Recipe data and imagery: TheMealDBOriginal recipe
Ratatouille makes 4 in about 30 minutes and is a classic for reheating. Serve it over rice, couscous or bread.
- 1
0:00 Start the soup
Root vegetables take longest, so peel and chop the beetroot and potatoes first and get the pot going. Open the soup in cook mode and start the timer its steps give you.
- 2
0:05 Chop for the ratatouille
Aubergine, courgettes, peppers, onion, garlic. Everything into bowls before anything goes in the pan.
- 3
0:20 Check the soup
Taste it, and work through the rest of its steps while the pan heats for the ratatouille.
- 4
0:25 Cook the ratatouille
Follow its steps in cook mode. One tip of ours: fry vegetables in batches, because a crowded pan steams them instead of browning them.
- 5
1:00 Cool and portion
Both pots off the heat. Ladle into containers while warm, lids off, and let them cool.
- 6
1:30 Fridge and freezer
Two days' worth in the fridge, the rest labelled with name and date in the freezer.
The kit you need
- 5 to 10 containers that close tightly, one meal each. Glass reheats well, plastic is lighter
- A permanent marker or masking tape for name and date
- One big pot and one large pan or tray
- Freezer space for three or four containers
- A plan for what you will eat on which day
Make the recipe fit the containers
The beetroot soup makes 10. The ratatouille makes 4. If you want five lunches of each, change the servings. In Matlaro you change the number and every amount follows, so the ratatouille for 5 shows the vegetables, the oil and the garlic already worked out. We wrote up how the rounding works in how to scale a recipe.
When you cook, cook mode shows one step at a time. When a step names a time, cook mode offers a timer for it, so you start it with one tap and go back to the chopping.
What freezes well, and what does not
| Freezes well | Better fresh |
|---|---|
| Soups, stews, curries, chilli | Salads and raw vegetables |
| Cooked beans and lentils | Fried and breaded food (goes soft) |
| Tomato sauces | Boiled potatoes in large pieces (turn grainy) |
| Cooked rice and grains, frozen quickly | Dishes with lots of cream or yoghurt (can split) |
| Ratatouille and roasted vegetables | Soft herbs on top. Add them when serving |
The BfR gives freezer times at -18 °C: beef and pork 3 to 6 months, poultry 3 months, fish 6 months, vegetables and fruit 6 to 12 months.
Where to go from here
Once one session feels easy, try batch components: one grain, one tray of vegetables, two sauces. If you want the prep to stretch your budget, five cheap dinners for two uses the same trick of shared ingredients across a week.
Frequently asked questions
How long does meal prep last in the fridge?
The UK Food Standards Agency says to eat leftovers within 48 hours; Germany's BfR says cooked meals within 2 to 3 days. Freeze anything you will eat later than that.
Is it safe to meal prep for 5 days?
Yes, if you freeze part of it. Keep two days in the fridge and freeze the rest on the day you cook, then thaw each portion in the fridge the night before.
What is the easiest meal prep for beginners?
One soup or stew in a big pot and one tray of roasted vegetables, portioned into lunches. Soups, curries and chilli also freeze well.
How do I reheat meal prep safely?
Heat it until it is steaming hot all the way through. The BfR advises above 70 °C everywhere for at least 2 minutes.
Photo credits
- Olive Oil: Oliven V1.jpg, by Poyraz 72, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Cannellini Beans: Cannellini beans.jpg, by Bean appreciator, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Sugar: Sugar 1.jpg, by Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
