The Ultimate Meal-Prep Cookbook: One Grocery List. A Week of Meals. No Waste.

by America's Test Kitchen

Turn meal prep aspirations into dinnertime reality

1 short shopping list gets you 5 weeknight meals

Meal prep no longer means filling your freezer with boring casseroles, dipping into the same pot of beans every day for a week, or spending all day Sunday cooking. Instead, use these smart meal plans to customize fast, fresh dinners that fit your ever-changing schedule. We've done the work of building 25 weekly plans that minimize shopping and kitchen time and guide you through prep-ahead options, make-ahead options, and ingredient substitutions. So now you can reap the benefits to make your life easier, your grocery bill lower, and your dinners better.

ATK's meal plan strategies are easy to put into practice:
* Prep your vegetables and grains for the week in a weekend "power hour."
* Prep bulk pantry ingredients ahead in a "pantry power hour" so they're ready to go in a flash.
* Cross-utilize fresh ingredients creatively to prevent food waste and dinner boredom.
* Make, store, and reheat full meals with no loss of flavor.
* Double meals or meal components to freeze half for later.

Let's-get-real features streamline your cooking:
* Weekly grocery lists max out at a dozen items.
* Active cooking time for recipes maxes out at 45 minutes.
* Loads of pantry substitution suggestions let you adapt recipes according to what you have on hand.
* To make planning even more flexible, we've added a chapter with 30 pantry meals that don't add anything to your weekly shopping list, making them perfect to prepare any night.

With a grocery list of just 11 items and some on-hand pantry staples, you can enjoy a week of Crispy Chicken with Carrot, Orange, and Chickpea Salad; Meatballs and Lemon Orzo with Mint and Dill; Teriyaki Stir-Fried Beef with Green Beans; Herb-Poached Salmon with Cucumber-Dill Salad; and Sun-Dried Tomato and White Bean Soup with Parmesan Crisps.

A thorough introduction explains how to build a strong, diverse pantry (and make the most of it), how to store prepped ingredients to keep them fresh, how to store cooked food safely, the smartest ways to reheat food, essential meal-prep equipment, and more.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference, Culinary, Health

336 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2021

About the author

America's Test Kitchen, based in a brand new state-of-the-art 60,000 sq. ft. facility with over 15,000 sq. ft. of test kitchens and studio space, in Boston's Seaport District, is dedicated to finding the very best recipes for home cooks. Over 50 full-time (admittedly obsessive) test cooks spend their days testing recipes 30, 40, up to 100 times, tweaking every variable until they understand how and why recipes work. They also test cookware and supermarket ingredients so viewers can bypass marketing hype and buy the best quality products. As the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines, and publisher of more than one dozen cookbooks each year, America's Test Kitchen has earned the respect of the publishing industry, the culinary world, and millions of home cooks. America's Test Kitchen the television show launched in 2001, and the company added a second television program, Cook's Country, in 2008.

Discover, learn, and expand your cooking repertoire with Julia Collin Davison, Bridget Lancaster, Jack Bishop, Dan Souza, Lisa McManus, Tucker Shaw, Bryan Roof, and our fabulous team of test cooks!

Learn more at https://www.americastestkitchen.com/.

Reviews

[Drew Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually went to the grocery store with their grocery list in hand and bought the ingredients, and then made the meals. I substituted some vegetarian options for some of the meat but I stuck to their exact recipes for most things. I made the salmon with cucumber salad, the meatballs with orzo so far, and I’ll make the rest of the dishes tomorrow or the next day. So far, everything has been excellent and is also toddler-friendly. I like the fresh herbs and the not-complicated prep. It also seems to be more of a Mediterranean diet, which is our preferred way to eat. My intention is to make everything in this book!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing....many of the meals couldn't be made ahead, or weren't recommended to be reheated, so what's the point?

The "meal prep" in ATK's case means washing and cutting veggies, herbs and greens and planning, but most of the dishes take so long to cook, they're not really feasible for week-night dinners.

Glad I could get this one from the library, and didn't have to buy it.

[Leticia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was it filled with delicious recipes and good-intentioned tips for prepping ahead? Absolutely. Will I ever put this much detail into meal planning or try any of the plans? Absolutely not. Great inspiration, though.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ultimate Meal-Prep Cookbook: One Grocery List. A Week of Meals. No Waste. isn’t a bad cookbook, definitely not. It’s just that I would have expected more from America’s Test Kitchen. A new cook might find this a five-star read, but usually America’s Test Kitchen has something for everyone, and that’s just not the case here.

[Alisa]

Is this the winner-winner-chicken-dinner of meal prep books?? Ugh I should have known that America's Test Kitchen would be my favorite and just gone straight to the source.

This book meets all my criteria: tips on food storage, good photos, a variety of flavor profiles, and a weekly meal planning guide with a list of what to buy, prep and cook ahead.

This book relies on the strategy of prepping ingredients and then cooking quickly the day-of so everything tastes fresh -- basically get your chopping and saucing out of the way, and then dinner comes together much faster. The majority of the meals are meat + veg and it is mostly up to you to add a carb and salad. The weekly plans, from what I could see, aren't really coordinated to use the same ingredients in different dishes, so that could be a plus or a minus for you depending on if you like variety or prefer to simplify prep work.

Each week has 4 recipes + a "pantry meal" suggestion. The pantry meals are in their own chapter at the back of the book and are super quick to toss together with stuff that you can find hanging around the back of the pantry (eg tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches). I like the flexibility with the pantry meal, a kind of take-it-or-leave-it solution to Friday nights when you are really tired of cooking. Overall the recipes are contemporary American cuisine, and some have a more mature touch with additions like arugula, goat cheese or sun dried tomatoes.

This book definitely works better as a physical book than an ebook - the page layouts just aren't as functional in the ebook format. The physical book is designed to help you quickly spot the most important information you need to know to prep efficiently.

So now the real question: should I buy it??????

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more a weekly menu with grocery list for 5 nightly meals. You can do some prep in advance such as chopping onions, grating cheese and cooking rice. All of the recipes are simple to prepare with a dozen or less ingredients. The recipes all look good and photos are included. There is variety from shrimp burgers to a fast chicken noodle soup. If you are regimented in your meals, like variety and quickly cooked meals - this might be for you.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love America's Test Kitchen cookbooks. Unfortunately, this book isn't really what it purports to be.

1. Very little can be prepped more than a day or two in advance. I don't know about the people who left glowing reviews of this book, but the partial prep of ingredients at the start of the week, followed by prepping steps of the recipes partway through the week, depending on which day you plan to make each dish, then keeping track of the various components, while waiting for the planned day to make the meals requires so much planning, organization, and multiple nights of cooking that it pretty much defeats the purpose of a meal prep plan.

2. Considering the alleged reason for grouping the meals as they are in the book, shockingly few ingredients are shared between them. Many weeks have only 1-2 fresh items used by multiple recipes, especially if you exclude items that can be easily swapped out for other ones or seem almost entirely optional.

3. These weekly plans are set for 4 meals using the provided grocery lists (with a suggested 5th meal you can make using only "pantry" items you're expected to have on hand. This means that all the abovementioned time, effort, and fridge real estate don't include whatever you plan to do for your other meals for the week.

Assuming the "traditional" expected meals in a week, this provides 4-5 meals (let's say dinners), leaving you to figure out breakfast, lunch, and snacks on those days, plus all your meals the other 2 days of the week.

I know what you're thinking - The unspoken and obvious solution is that you eat leftovers for those other meals. If I follow the advice in this book, that can't be true because most of the meals are not recommended to be reheated.

There's nothing obviously wrong with the recipes themselves. They seem fine, if nothing to get excited over. But as a meal prep guide, I find this book utterly lacking.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird errors

Okay, I have so many opinions about this book. Mainly, this isn’t a meal prep book. It’s a meal planning book. There’s a big difference. I wanted meal PREP options, so this is not for me. If you’re looking for help planning your weeknight dinners and aren’t sure what you can/can’t chop ahead of time? This is for you! If you want to meal prep some lunches or dinners ahead of time? This isn’t for you. Can you cook some of these recipes ahead of time? Absolutely you could, but that’s not the purpose of this book—to give you a week of lunches/dinners/whatever. It’s misleading.

Also, there’s so many glaring errors in here that I would not expect from ATC. Ingredients missing from the ingredients lists. Steps missing from the steps list. Very weird. ALSO, while I was excited by some of the vegetarian options…a bizarre amount of them were just tortellini recipes. Like, they used dried or refrigerated tortellini in various ways. Some were like ALMOST vegetarian. They were vegetarian, but then they had bacon on top. So yeah. Veggie adjacent. The options were pasta/tortellini, grain bowls, or soups. Cool. Also, there’s cheese enchiladas.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

True confessions: I was a committed and practiced meal prepper already when I read this book. Lots of common sense in this book (well, I call it that as I had already reached the solutions with no previous exposure to a guide book). But, I did gain insight into ideas and approaches that I hadn’t previously considered. I found it a valuable read, but I am already a devotee to this approach to grocery shopping, pantry, fridge, and freezer stocking — and most importantly, time and energy saving. I love to cook, but it can be a drudge with regards to the say to day. Getting some new ideas is always good.

[Viviana · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I was expecting to find new ideas to prep ahead, I found that most of the suggestions were not feasible to prep ahead. I try to cook one day and then have food ready to be consumed for the next 5, sometimes 6 days, so... it wasn't what I expected. For me, this wasn't a meal prep book. Chopping doesn't count as prep...

[cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best cookbooks that I have read in some time. Great recipes!!!

[Katinka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently, my husband checked this cookbook out from the library for us to look through to see if it might work for us. We often find that while one or two recipes in a cookbook work well for our family, there’s rarely more than that. But this book was different. We found quite a few recipes that we could use with only minor alterations of substitutions of ingredients.

I was really impressed by the format of this book. It discussed not only ingredients, but storage options for leftovers as well as foods that had not yet been cooked, simple methods of cooking various foods, what changes to make if you are using dried ingredients rather than fresh ones, and it divided things into weekly meal plans that utilized a lot of the same ingredients in different ways so that you could reduce the number of shopping trips/ amount of items needed to purchase for the meals on that week’s recommended dishes.

The book also provides grocery lists for the various dishes, including either the full week’s meal plans as suggested as well as separated by individual dishes if you don’t intend to make all of the items listed in any of the weekly menu plans they’ve suggested. That made it really convenient for us as quite often we’ll like a dish from one grouping but not the others for the rest of that week.

The book provides complete and easy to follow, step by step cooking instructions on how to make the various dishes that have been thoroughly tested out by America’s Test Kitchen so that they will be easy enough for those of us with little or no cooking experience to follow. And for me, that alone was a huge plus over other cookbooks that are not designed for new or inexperienced home cooks to be able to easily follow & end up with a delicious meal.

I also like that at the back of the book it includes nutritional information on each dish so that anyone watching what they eat can clearly see the information they might want or need in one location, as well as a chart for conversions and equivalents for ingredient portions and an index to make it nice and easy to find a dish without needing to know which meal grouping it was in.

I found this book very well organized and extremely helpful. And after having made a few of the meals for ourselves & loved them, we ordered a copy of this book to keep in our home library as we will soon need to return this one to the library. If you think this book sounds like it might be a good one for you as well, I recommend starting out by borrowing it from your local library to test out a few of the dishes yourself. I suspect you’ll also wind up finding it a good one to buy for yourself as well, but this way you’re not out any money if it turns out not to be right for you.

[Cindy (BKind2Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cookbook was lovely and the recipes look nice, but I had reservations on a lot of this.

- This is not so much about meal prep as it is about coordinating your menus to utilize selected ingredients effectively. For instance, if half a bag of spinach is used in one recipe, there is usually another recipe that week that uses the rest of it. Less waste is a great idea.

- Most of the recipes / menus are set up to serve 4 people. (And truthfully, you’d better hope they are not little kids…I just can’t see them eating dishes like Salmon, Grapefruit & Avocado Salad.). I really wish there had been a few menus geared towards smaller groups (singles, empty nesters, etc.), not to mention a few with lower calories and fat.

- The recipes seem to have some of the same ingredients time after time. I’m looking especially at asparagus and eggplant. While I *might* eat these occasionally, they’re not on the menu regularly (asparagus is expensive and not a favorite at my house).

- The menus *at best* include a protein and a veggie. Even adding a salad or bread, it seems sparse. I like to serve at least 2 veggies AND a salad. So the menus seem incomplete at best.

- I did not see a huge amount of prepping ahead. Indeed some of the dishes (like the fish) specifically recommend preparing within a few days of purchase (or short term freezing). That feels like it would really not give the best use of your time, especially if you are under the gun to get your family fed. Really I had sort of thought that there would be recipes where you cook something with the intent of using part of it in other dishes (like making a pork roast one day and setting aside some of it for a stir fry and/or BBQ sandwiches later in the week). Now THAT would be useful.

I did like the pantry recipes (recipes that can be pulled together without a grocery trip, using common pantry items).

So overall I did not see a lot here that I would be able to use, but it was visually nice and I might be able to use a few of the recipes.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far the major drawbacks of the recipes I've tried are: almost everything is meat-focused (to be fair, so is American food in general) and my partner doesn't like eggplant or cauliflower (but I'll just eat those extra servings).
This book gives you a weekly shopping list for a set of four recipes (4 servings each) & "pantry meals" recipes, and full color photos of each meal.

So far, the recipes have been easy to follow (except I haven't quite figured out how much a pan of oil is meant to be preheated) and very tasty. These are not minimalistic recipes with a couple ingredients, but today I made (pan fried) parmesan chicken and it was four ingredients for the chicken and two ingredients for a basil salad plus salt and black pepper... Pretty reasonable.

This book is not "meal prepping" meaning "cook one day a week and have microwave-ready meals to go every other day". If you take advantage of the "prep ahead" recommendations, then it's more like "cook and chop half a day then cook for ~30 min four other days". This might not work for people who have very tight daily schedules, but it works for me.

This is not a "I don't know how to cook" book... But if you're somewhat comfortable in a kitchen and just need ideas for what to make and (my favorite part of this book) what to buy for it, this is great.

[Awwwtrouble · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been on a cookbook run lately and I decided I could count them was read if I 1) actually read them, and 2) made something from them.

I'm definitely into thinking about a full week of menus and having them coordinate and doing meal prep to make each night easier. I like this has the week as 4 recipes, plus one "pantry meal." First, I love pantry meals - it's nice to know you have things stocked that will make a meal. And second, with all the kid activities and various commitments we often don't need to make more than 4 recipes a week.

We made the second set of recipes over about a week and a half - and they were each surprising - easy to make and better than expected. (well, the farro didn't go over well with the kids but it was still good). Three of the 4 we will 100% repeat. This week we're making 2 from one set and a third recipe from another set, and from a shopping and prep perspective it was easy to mix and match. And last night's meal was 5 stars - a definite keeper.

There's a lot of pork, which doesn't work for us right now but it generally works to sub in chicken.

I've got to return this to the library and am buying it to have a copy.

[Jenny Knostman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this cookbook!!!!! It has delivered amazing recipe after amazing recipe. It’s so thoughtful and well laid out. There’s a grocery list for the week. There are Ideas for prepping ahead, tons of easy to put together pantry meals as well as substitution ideas. I pretty much started on week one and am now on week twenty two. This not how I usually use a cookbook.
Yes cooking still probably takes 30-60 min a night. Sometimes I am able to do some prepping on the weekends. Just having the meals already planned and an easy grocery list have been a game changer at our house. I do think we are saving money because the same ingredients are used multiple times in the week. We rarely order take out and go out. Highly recommend!

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Meal prep" is a misnomer, because most recipes can only be partially prepped a couple days in advance. Maybe "meal plan" would have been a better choice? Most vegetarian recipes have minimal protein and in generally don't have a much thought out into them as the meat recipes. Meals range from under 300 to over 900 calories per serving; most people's appetites are reasonably similar from day to day so this doesn't make sense.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not really meal prep

There are some nice recipes and menu ideas but it doesn’t really fit a “meal prep” description. The recipes give you one or two things that can be done in advance but basically it’s cooking every day as usual. The recipes don’t even double up on ingredients very much.

[Kisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like the concept but honestly, most of these recipes are things I wouldn't make, and I definitely wouldn't use the full week they list. Part of the reason I wouldn't make these meals include that there are several ingredients that would be difficult and/or expensive for me to buy for a regular weeknight meal.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the setup of the book! This gives 25 weeks of meals with the week’s grocery list and recipes. Plus they are meals my family will eat (not weird stuff with crazy ingredients). They also have a pantry section of prep meals that you probably already have all the stuff to make.

[Brianna Sowinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of this but between dietary restrictions and just being picky not many of the weekly meals work for us in entirety which is the whole point.
I found the pantry meals to be the most useful section of the entire book. These are the recipes I needed this time last year!

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best of the meal prep books that I have read. I did the suggestions on organizing your kitchen. Most recipes has prep ahead, make ahead and notes. Not bad recipes but a lot did NOT appeal to me.

[Mossygoblin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well meaning book but very meat-centric and I already knew a lot of the meal planning tips from other sources so it didn't really work for me. There are some really cool recipes and tricks that I'm going to try out but all in all this isn't one of their better cookbooks for my library.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed several recipes but did not follow the meal prep concept. The cocept and book layout is clever. It would work better as an app or website, where you could enter the foods you don't eat, etc. I would love to see an all vegetarian version of this book.

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't expect to get much out of this cookbook because I'm a vegetarian, but I picked it up to see if I could get some tips on meal prepping. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of meatless (and nearly meatless) meals, mostly in the Pantry Meals section at the end.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d recommend purchasing this book so you can truly enjoy the pantry lists, repping etc. However, you can copy from the library copy. There are some tasty recipes.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read cookbooks regularly. This is the best one I've picked up in years. That sounds kinda dramatic, but I would make 80%+ of these recipes and I don't know if ever said that.

[Mskychick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad I could check this out via the library- I figured out I don’t need to own this one

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very useful cookbook

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good Meal Prep book and ideas for the future.