‘I spent 2 hours and £20 prepping meals for the coming week. Here’s what happened.’

By Polly Weeks

The reason I love the idea of meal prepping is the same reason I don’t actually do it: time.

Getting ahead with cooking would free up valuable hours during the week, but finding the time to invest upfront is tricky.

On the cusp of one particularly busy week, determined to break the catch-up cycle, I gave myself two hours to prep as many meals as I could manage. And in an attempt to turn it into a financial win too, I implemented a £20 budget.

Good job I like a challenge, then.

Finding the right recipes

The key, I knew, would be to find recipes that had a fair bit of flex. I’d need to make the most of pre-portioned ingredients in as many meals as possible. If a bag of three courgettes was the most cost effective way to buy them, I’d need to put them all to good use.

On top of this, I wanted nourishing recipes – and ones that would have me excited about mealtimes. If they were freezable, then all the better.

I don’t eat meat, so that helps keep costs down. But buying wallet-friendly dried pulses and beans wasn’t an option either, because of their long soaking and boiling times.

Eventually, I found myself with a meal plan.

Balancing the budget

I bought ingredients from two supermarkets – one mainstream, one budget – to use alongside some basics I already had in my cupboards. I’m talking the staples: plain flour, stock cubes, a few dried herbs and spices, salt, pepper and oil.

This is what I spent.

The cook

I started my stopwatch (this is a scientific experiment of the highest quality) and grabbed my first utensil: a pen. I wrote the quantities of veg I’d use in each recipe, so I could portion ingredients out. A well-spent two minutes.

I knew roasting the veg would take the longest time, so I turned on my oven to heat up and got the air fryer going in the meantime.

In went the sweet potatoes, then after 10 minutes I added more veg. Finally, I tossed in cherry tomatoes and a tin of drained chickpeas, and stirred in chipotle paste and oil. It was back into the air fryer with that for another eight minutes, while I cooked couscous in stock.

The grain, veg and chickpea meals were done. There was even some veg and chickpeas left, so I kept it aside for the soup.

With the oven now hot, I got a load more veg in there to roast for the frittata, curry and soup, having coated it first in oil and dried mixed herbs.

While they were doing their thing, I cracked on with the fritters, then the quesadillas, having to chuck the odd wrap I burnt while I was checking on the veg. Multitasking is an art.

Frittatas are my nemesis – they stick, they go sloppy, they taste bland. But because they’re such a great budget lunch, I was determined to get it right this time.

I went for Dr Rupy’s recipe because it was made to allow for substitutions. It ended up with peas, sweet potato, red pepper, onions, cauliflower and spring onions. I stuck with his quantities and also used the feta he recommends.

Before putting it in the grill, I added swirls of pesto and a handful of grated cheddar to boost the flavour and use up other ingredients.

For the first time, I actually aced it. It looked and tasted great. And, while the recipe said it serves four, I definitely got six decent portions out of it.

Curry, soup and pasta are properly in my wheelhouse – I make these types of dishes on the regular – so I left them until last, knowing they'd be quick wins.

To make life easier (and give myself a chance of hitting that two-hour target) I went with a shop-bought jar of pesto for the pasta. I also substituted kale for spring onions and courgette, and used dried mint.

Always keen to bolster fibre and protein in my meals, I added a tin of chickpeas to the curry and again I made a few substitutions, like using sweet potato and swapping out carrots for more of those courgettes.

This was a super simple one which really packed in flavour: I’ll definitely make more batches of it.

For the soup, I took all the remaining roasted veg and blended it with veg stock. Job done.

The upshot

Needless to say, it was a pretty full-on two hours of cooking. But it was just two hours. And I made enough meals to see me through a whole week of lunches and dinners, with a few extra portions too.

Because there were six different dishes, I didn’t get bored of repetition either – which I often can with big batch cooks.

I also had enough leftover ingredients – three eggs, some feta, onions and half a red pepper – to make a bonus quiche.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe how much time this saved me during the week. Not only cooking, but also staring blankly into the fridge after a long day trying to engage my brain and decide what to make.

And it was financially worth it too. I spent far less on food than usual.

I was heavily reliant on my fridge and freezer to store all these prepped meals though, and it reminded me how lucky I am to have that space. I definitely wasn’t as rich in storage capacity when I was house sharing.

After the relative spontaneity and excesses of summer, I’m determined to get into the swing of meal prepping and batch cooking. Although I might ease off on the pressure next time and give myself a few more minutes and maybe some extra budget for a better variety of veg.

Originally published September 2025

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