Even more reason you should meal prep in advance – science proves food tastes better the next day

The Healthy Mummy is all about making life easy and one way a lot of our community achieve this is by meal prepping and getting the weekly meals ready in advance. This saves on time and to help keep you on track with the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge. Now science proves that the food even tastes better when you prepare it in advance.

Even more reason you should meal prep – science proves food tastes better the next day

A report from BBC Science Focus claims that when your bolognese, lasagna, soup, stew or curry is sitting in the fridge overnight, it’s getting even more delicious by the minute. Why? Because the ingredients are still marinating and breaking down like they would during a slow cook.

The gelatin in meat also continues to break down for about half an hour after it’s taken off the heat.

“In the fridge, this will set to a firm jelly and when you reheat it, the gelatine melts to create a silky feel in the mouth,” the study says.

The study also shows that dishes with excess water, like pea and ham soup, taste even better the next day because the water soaks into the dish’s starch over time. Leaving it full of deliciousness after a night in the fridge.

Tomatoes also benefit from long and slow cooking to release flavour molecules within the skin, and a speedy mid-week spaghetti bolognese won’t have time to reach peak tastiness until it has had those extra hours to marinade.

So a bit of meal prep in advance will result in some mighty delicious meals that everyone will thoroughly enjoy.

The best way to meal prep

By spending time once or twice per week chopping, cooking and packaging up your meals and snacks in advance you can save time off your weekly cooking chores and ultimately make more flavoursome dishes.

Meal prep can be made up of simple tasks like chopping ingredients and storing them in airtight containers, making a batch of healthy snacks from the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge or cooking a double batch of your favourite healthy meal, so you can freeze some for another day.

Some great recipes to prepare in advance from the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge include:

• Stovetop lasagna
• One-pot spaghetti bolognese
• Lamb curry
• Pumpkin soup
• Minestrone soup
• Beef stew

For great meal prep tips check out these articles:

• How to master super QUICK MEAL PREP for weight loss success
• The ULTIMATE meal prep guide for mums who don’t know where to start
• 7 simple, healthy recipes to get you back on the meal prep bandwagon
• 6 Healthy Mummies share their top 10 meal prep and money-saving tips

Join the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge for all these tasty recipes and thousands more you can meal prep ahead of time.