How to Use the Meal Prep Calculator
Meal prep — cooking multiple portions at once for use throughout the week — saves time and helps maintain a consistent, healthy diet. The main challenge is scaling recipes correctly. This calculator tells you exactly how many times to multiply a recipe so you have enough food for everyone across your planned meals.
Input Guide
Recipe Yield: The number of servings the recipe produces as written, e.g., "Serves 4."
Number of People Eating: How many people will eat this dish. Enter 1 for solo meal prep.
Times Eaten per Week: How many times this specific dish will be eaten in a week. For 5 weekday lunches, enter 5; for breakfast every morning, enter 7.
Formula
Total servings needed = People × Meals per week. Multiplier = Total servings ÷ Recipe yield. Scale every ingredient in the recipe by this multiplier.
Storage Tips
Most cooked proteins and grains keep 3–5 days in the refrigerator. Label containers with the preparation date. Freeze anything you won't eat within 4 days and thaw overnight in the fridge.
FAQ
3–5 days is ideal for refrigerated storage. For a full week, freeze half and thaw midweek. This keeps food fresh and reduces the risk of spoilage.
Scale all ingredients by that amount. For items that can't easily be divided (like eggs), round up and use the extra in another recipe or as a snack.
Grains, roasted proteins, soups, and stews hold up best. Avoid anything crispy, fried, or delicate — these lose quality quickly and are better made fresh.