Meal prep without eating the same dinner all week
Last updated October 5, 2026
If five identical meal boxes make Thursday feel a long way off, try meal prep with two cooked bases and fresh sides. A pot of chili and a pot of lentil soup provide the mains for five dinners for two. You will eat chili three times and soup twice, with different accompaniments. The main pots are done; potatoes, toast or rice still need making on the evening you eat them.
Choose the dinners before the batches
Start with how many evenings you want to cover and your freezer space. This example runs from Sunday to Thursday, including the evening you cook. It needs space for six frozen portions, packed as three dinners for two. If that is more space than you have, choose fewer dinners before you start shopping.
The two bases are Lisa Bryan's vegetarian three-bean chili, which makes six portions, and Nisha Vora's Mediterranean lentil soup, which makes four. Both creators give freezing instructions. These are the recipes' stated servings: choose the size of your sides to suit your appetite.
Read the full recipes before shopping. The chili has beans, peppers and tomatoes; the soup uses green or brown lentils, preserved lemon and herbs. Follow each recipe separately, keeping the quantities for each pot apart as you chop.
Shop once, keep the recipe lists separate
These ingredients appear in both recipes. The table adds up what you need for one full batch of each, using the recipes' own units.
| Shared ingredient | Chili | Lentil soup | Total needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onion | 1 large | 1 large | 2 large |
| Carrots | 2 medium | 3 medium | 5 medium |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | 6 cloves | 10 cloves |
| Vegetable broth | 2 cups | 4 cups | 6 cups, plus an optional extra cup for the chili |
| Bay leaves | 1 | 2 | 3 |
This is not a complete shopping list. Add everything else from both recipes, then the accompaniments below. For the soup's full spice quantities and method, use Nisha Vora's original recipe. For the chili, use Lisa Bryan's original recipe.
For this week's sides, allow two baking potatoes, bread for two soup dinners, rice for two on Wednesday and tortillas for two on Thursday. Add herbs for Sunday's soup topping and optional yoghurt for Tuesday. Decide the amounts of bread, rice and tortillas around what the two of you normally eat; the batch count covers the mains.
A meal-prep plan with every portion placed
Two portions are eaten on Sunday, two go in the fridge for Monday and six go in the freezer for the later dinners.
| Dinner | Main for two (2 portions) | Finish on the day | Where the main comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Lentil soup | Bread and the recipe's herb oil | Freshly cooked |
| Monday | Chili | Two baked potatoes | Sunday's chilled portions |
| Tuesday | Lentil soup | Toast and optional yoghurt | Sunday's frozen portions, defrosted in the fridge |
| Wednesday | Chili | Freshly cooked rice | Sunday's frozen portions, defrosted in the fridge |
| Thursday | Chili | Tortilla wedges alongside the bowl | Sunday's frozen portions, defrosted in the fridge |
Bread, herb oil and yoghurt come from the soup's serving suggestions; the chili creator also suggests rice. The potato and tortilla dinners are serving ideas for this plan. Spoon the chili over a split potato, or keep it in a bowl with tortilla wedges alongside.
Cook Wednesday's rice fresh and serve it that evening. If you want to keep rice for another meal, read how to store and reheat rice before adding that job to the plan.
Sunday's job includes putting the food away
Set out the containers before cooking. Cook the two dishes according to their full methods; if managing both pots at once feels crowded, cook them in turn.
As each dish finishes, divide the portions for their destinations:
- Soup: two portions for Sunday dinner, two for one freezer container.
- Chili: two portions for Monday in the fridge, four split between two freezer containers.
Label the stored containers with the dish, cooking date and intended dinner. Leave headspace in the soup container, as its creator advises. Add the herb oil and yoghurt when serving; make Sunday's herb oil for that meal.
The Food Standards Agency's chilling guidance says to cool cooked food and refrigerate it within one to two hours. Smaller portions help it cool. Keep your fridge at 0–5°C, and eat refrigerated leftovers within 48 hours or freeze them. Cool and put away each batch promptly, even if the other pot is still cooking. Freeze the portions marked for Tuesday onwards after cooling.
Make room for defrosting
Move Tuesday's soup to the fridge on Monday evening, Wednesday's chili on Tuesday evening and Thursday's chili on Wednesday evening. Those reminders give you a place to start; overnight is not a guarantee that a container will fully thaw.
The FSA says to defrost food in the fridge and use it within 24 hours of being fully defrosted. Check the centre before dinner. If it is still frozen, use your microwave's defrost setting, following its instructions, then reheat immediately once the food is fully thawed. If you cannot defrost it that way, leave it in the fridge until fully thawed and choose something else for tonight.
Reheat only the portions you intend to eat. The FSA's reheating guidance says leftovers should be steaming hot throughout and reheated only once. Stir soup or chili on the hob so it heats through. In a microwave, stir or turn the food and follow the standing-time instructions.
Keep the plan small enough to use
Choose two bases you would happily eat more than once. Different sides change the plate, but Thursday's chili is still chili. If repetition is the part you dislike most, prepare fewer dinners and leave a night for something else.
For one person, the same full batches make more than this five-dinner plan uses. Assign five portions to dinners and freeze the other five promptly for future meals, in portions you can defrost individually. Do not leave those extra portions in the fridge waiting for a gap in the week.
For evenings you want to cook from the cupboard instead, bean and lentil weeknight dinners offers a different starting point.