Keto Low Carb Meal Prep

In this post I will share with you my experience, tips and inspiration on how I Meal Prep for Keto and Low Carb.

Cooking is often the last thing I want to do after a long day at work, and I often ended up choosing quick but not very nutritious meals.

Here, I’ll share my tips and tricks for meal prep, with a focus on making low-carb, keto-friendly, and high-protein dishes.

What’s meal prep?

Meal prep is a fantastic habit where you plan and make your meals ahead of time. This simple strategy offers many benefits:

1. Stay on Track: You have control over the ingredients, helping you stick to your dietary goals.
2. Time Saver: By preparing in advance, you gain more free time on busy weekdays.
3. Budget-Friendly: It can save you money compared to eating out or ordering in.

You can have flexibility in your approach. You can prep all your meals for the day, including breakfast, snacks, lunch, and dinner, or just focus on one or two, depending on your preferences.

In my case, I typically meal prep for five days, giving me two days of freedom to cook something fresh, dine out, or enjoy other options. For me, I mostly prepare dinners since I rarely eat breakfast, and lunch usually involves a quick egg-based recipe.

Meal prep is adaptable to your lifestyle and needs, making it a versatile and rewarding habit.

Meal prep Pro & Cons

Meal prep has its upsides and downsides:

Pros of Meal Prep:

1. Time Efficiency: A single 1-2 hour cooking session can cover your entire week’s meals.
2. Ready-to-Eat: Your meals are ready to go, reducing cooking time during busy days.
3. Reduced Food Waste: Planning portions minimizes food waste, which is both eco-friendly and economical.
4. Less Cleanup: Fewer dishes and pans to wash daily.
5. Dietary Discipline: With prepared meals at hand, you’re less likely to indulge in unhealthy options.

Cons of Meal Prep:

1. Freshness Challenge: Some foods may not stay fresh in the fridge for a whole week, requiring immediate consumption or exclusion from your prep.
2. Boredom Potential: Eating the same thing all week can become monotonous.

Meal prep tips

1. Plan your menu. Decide what you want to eat and organise your shopping beforehand, considering your dietary goals and preferences, such as keto, high protein, vegetarian, etc.
2. Prepare Simple Recipes: Pick recipes that are easy to make and don’t require a lot of ingredients or cooking time. Look for recipes with minimal steps and readily available ingredients.
3. Prepare Recipes that you like: select recipes that you truly enjoy.
4. Add Variety, to avoid food boredom. For example you can add different sauces and spices to the same meal.
5. Find the Right Day and Time to cook in bunch your meals: in this way it will be easier to stay consistent over time.
6. Focus on Your Nutritional Goals: if you have a specific calorie/macros goal, help yourself with a macro counter app or a kitchen scale or measuring cups to portion your meals accurately.
7. Invest in Containers: Use a variety of airtight containers in different sizes to store your prepped meals. Glass containers are a great choice as they’re durable and don’t retain odors, but they are not practical on the go.
8. Stay Organised: Arrange your meals in the fridge in an organised manner, so you can easily grab what you need. Label if needed.
9. Mind Food Safety: Ensure your cooked meals cool down to room temperature before refrigerating. Reheat your prepped meals thoroughly to kill bacteria.
10. Freeze for Later: Some meals can be frozen for longer storage. Consider making extra batches for future use.
11. Start small: once you’ve mastered one meal per day, you can gradually expand your meal prep to include more meals or different menus.

What do I need for Meal Prep?

To start meal prepping effectively, you’ll need a few essential items and tools. Here’s a list with the very essentials to help you get started:

1. Containers, Meal Prep Bags and Lunchboxes: Invest in a variety of airtight containers in different sizes to store your prepped meals. I love these from Igluu.
2. Food Storage Bags: useful for snacks on the go, such as cutted veggies, nuts, ecc.
3. Cookware: Basic cookware such as pots, pans, baking sheets, and a slow cooker, Air Fryer or Instant Pot can be incredibly useful for preparing different types of meals.
4. Food Processor or Blender: These appliances are helpful for chopping lot of ingredients.
5. Kitchen Scale: A kitchen scale helps you accurately measure portions and ingredients, which is essential for tracking macros and controlling portion sizes.

Start with the basics and adding specific tools as you go is a practical approach to building your meal prep kitchen.

The best Keto Low Carb foods for meal prepping

Below, the best ingredients for high-protein keto that hold well for 5-7 days in the fridge.
The fish will hold good for 3 days, so consider to eat your fish based recipes on the first days of the week.

To keto Meal Prep just mix and match the 3 macros (protein, fats, carbs) and make your unique meal.
You can prepare the same menu for the whole week or diversify by changing protein or veggies.
Combine the products according to your macros goals.

Best Protein for Keto Low Carb Meal Prepping

1. Animal lean protein: all seafood (also frozen or canned), all meat, lean cuts of chicken, turkey, beef, protein buns.
2. Vegetarian protein: eggs, unsweetened low-carb yogurt, cheese or tofu.

Don’t be boring with your proteins! Cook the meat as you fancy, with the help of instant pot, air fryer, slow-cooker, or simply your pans.

For high-protein cheese option, check Eatlean cheese.

Best Fats for Keto Low Carb Meal Prepping

1. Nuts and seeds: peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, hemp, flax seeds,..
2. Nuts butter, such as almond or peanut butter.
3. Olives
4. Avocado
5. Olive oils, ghee, butter, heavy cream, coconut oil,..

For high-protein meals, cut the fats, and stick to the good ones: avocado, oil, olives, and do not overboard with them.

Best Carbs for Keto Low Carb Meal Prepping

1. Non Starchy Veggies (such as cauliflower rice, kale, broccoli, tomatoes, asparagus, pumpkin, aubergine, lettuce, …)
2. Berries
3. Almond and Coconut flour
4. Keto commercial products, such bread, pasta, crackers, etc,..

Best Keto Meal Prep Recipes for breakfast or snack

• Don’t forget to prep healthy snacks like cut veggies, fruit, or nuts: this reduces the temptation to grab unhealthy snacks.
• Make sure your breakfast or snack has enough protein to keep you satiated all day: involve eggs, or greek yogurt, smoked fish,…

A few ideas:

• Eggs muffins recipe here
• Boiled eggs and smoked salmon
• Cottage cheese and chicken meat
• Greek yogurt with berries, nuts, peanut butter, chocolate or seeds.
• Overnight chia pudding
• Keto cereals

Best keto meal prep recipes for lunch and dinner

Make sure you eat enough protein, fats, and the right amount of carbs.

A few ideas:

• Salad in a jar, with chicken or salmon, nuts, oil, feta cheese, tomatoes, onion,…
• Tuscan Salmon with cauliflower rice and edamame
• Mince meat with cheese and roasted veggies
• Grilled chicken with edamame pasta pesto or roasted pumpkin
• Meatballs and cauliflower rice
• Keto pizza

Best Keto High Protein Meal Prep

As I recently started a high-protein approach to the keto diet, I couldn’t miss a section about this.

• The focus is on protein: meat, seafood, sugar-free yogurts, eggs, tofu, high protein cheese (such as Eatlean).
• Make sure to use a low amount of fats, preferring high-quality ones, such as extra virgin olive oil, olives, avocado.
• Get your carbs from veggies, and avoid the commercial keto products.

Best Keto Low Carb Meal Prep – No Cooking Required

Yes, you can meal prep without cooking. Fill your food containers with products that doesn’t have to be cooked (or barely cooked).

A few ideas, to mix and match:

• Veggies that be eaten raw, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, lettuce.
• Lunchmeat, salami, sugar-free jerky or biltong
• Cottage cheese
• Boiled eggs, must be always available in your fridge
• Olives
• Cheese
• Sugar-free yogurt
• Keto products, such as bars, bread, crackers, or an homemade keto dessert…
• Make sure you have enough peanut butter, seeds, nuts

Storage and reheating guidelines for the Keto meal prep

• Roasted or pre-cooked veggies can be warmed up in the oven/magnetron. Keep the raw veggies in separate containers.
• Keep your meals in the fridge, in a airtight container. Make sure your containers are suitable for magnetron or oven.
• If you are freezing your meals, be careful with glass container, as they can break if warming up while still frozen.
• The fastest way to warmup your meal is with your magnetron., 300 W for 5 minutes.
• In the oven, 5-10 minutes are necessary at 180C.

Tips to make Keto Low Carb Meal Prep less boring

1. Mix and match. Even if you don’t focus on a big diversified menu try to shake things up, by adding a few variants.
2. If you cook the same protein for the whole week, try to change the sauce or the spices you use.
3. Diversify the veggies.
4. Incorporate one of your favorite foods every day.
5. Add small add-ons in different days (one day one egg, one day one piece of cheese, one day some wurstel, etc,…)
6. Add keto treats.

How long will meal prepped food last?

With the right containers and habits, your meals will last 5-7 days.

Choose good quality containers, like these ones.
Try to consume first the fish-based meals, since fish will last for maximum 3 days.
Consider to freeze the meals that you think are more delicate, like fish, leafy salads, etc,..

Keto Low Carb Grocery Tips

1. Select the meals for the week. I suggest 2 different meals for lunch and dinner, and 1-2 for snacks/breakfast. Keep it easy, especially if you are a beginner.
2. Use the calorie app counter, to guide you in the ideation of your meals, according on your goal.
3. Multiply the quantity food for how many times you are going to eat them and for many people you are cooking.
   Translate the quantity of every food on your shopping list.
4. Make the grocery shopping 1-2 days in advance.
   Be ready to a plan B in case some foods won’t be available.
5. Maximize your time by cooking different ingredients at the same time.
6. Maximize the power, by organising meals that need the same cooking method to be ready. For example you can cook egg muffins together with roasted veggies in the oven.

My favorite Keto Low Carb meals for meal prep

You can combine endlessy all the high protein keto food. Here below my favorite ones, and very easy and fast to prep:

Cauliflower rice and meatballs
Edamame spaghetti with fish
Sausages and veggies

I hope you enjoy this post. Happy Keto Meal prep!

My name is Simona, a keto enthusiast, based in the Netherlands.

I live with my husband, my cat Newton, and a fridge full of cheese.

You find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and sometimes on Facebook.

I also write a lot of keto recipes on my Italian blog keto-with-simona.

Check also:

Keto products review
Keto favorite products

“This post may contain affiliate links. This means I will get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. All the opinions are my own. Read the full disclosure here.“