Meal Prep Recipes Chicken Breast

How to meal prep chicken for the entire week, including an easy chicken breast recipe, all for under $5 per meal!  Cook once and eat all week!

Alright, let me guess. You want to eat healthy, but every time you go to grab something from the fridge, nothing is ready to eat and you really, really, REALLY don’t feel like cooking a full healthy, well-balanced dinner.

To be honest, I don’t really like cooking dinner at…dinner time. When I’m tired and hungry and just want sustenance that’s good for me, I usually don’t ALSO feel like cooking in that moment.

Honey Garlic Chicken Breast Meal Prep

That’s what makes meal prep so super duper awesome. I choose the time and day I actually have energy and time and prep my meals ahead of time.

I know it’s cliche, but failing to plan really is planning to fail. By learning how to meal prep, you’re gonna make your life and healthy eating lifestyle SO MUCH EASIER.

Okay, so how do we start to meal prep chicken? First, we need to decide on the chicken recipe. Because chicken breast is lower in fat and a great lean protein, I usually use chicken breast over chicken thigh in my meal prep chicken recipes.

Greek Chicken Meal Prep (+ 10 More Ideas!)

The big trick with meal prepping chicken breast is to marinade it. Seriously. Take the 30 minutes it requires to infuse all that flavor into the chicken. Your chicken breast will wind up being so much more flavorful, tender, and juicy. All good things.

In this meal prep chicken recipe, I use my Cilantro Lime Chicken. You can grab the recipe here. If you’re looking for other great marinades for easy chicken recipes, I’ve got tons of them in this post right here for ya.

The next big tip for how to meal prep chicken breast is how to cook it. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of chewy, dry chicken in my meals. Just because it’s prepped ahead doesn’t mean it has to taste bad.

High Protein Chicken Meal Preps

So, instead of dicing the chicken ahead of time and then cooking it, I cook it whole. This helps keep so much of the juices inside the chicken and keeps it from overcooking.

Once it’s cooked, I dice it into bite sized cubes. I do this because it will make it so much easier and quicker to reheat when it’s time to eat later. The worst is overcooking all the other food in the meal prep container just to get the chicken to heat through. Trust me on this one.

The whole point of meal prep is to take a little bit of time AHEAD of time to make it easier on you LATER.

Bang Bang Chicken (low Carb Meal Prep Recipe)

Most people have one or two days each week where there is no work and the day is set aside to relax and catch up on errands.  These are perfect days to add in your meal prep for the week ahead.  The idea behind meal prep is to spend an hour or so, whatever you have, prepping out your meals so you have all your food prepped for the week ahead.  Depending on your goals and schedule, you can meal prep your breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners — all of them or just a few, whatever helps you reach your goals.

Meal prep is only going to last for you if it feels manageable. If Sunday doesn’t work, split meal prep into two days. This will cut down on the session length and definitely preserve the quality of your food. Sunday and Wednesday are usually a good pair, but find any two days that work best for you.  Many people find meal prep Sunday to be helpful and that’s what we do in our house as well.  We mostly prep out our lunches and dinners for the week, but also add in prepped snacks as we need them. 

If you’re going to be starting to meal prep consistently, then cutting out unnecessary hassles is essential! Make it easy, make it yours, and make it last.  I use these awesome glass meal storage containers that you can buy on Amazon, or you could use tupperware – as long as it keeps food fresh, you can use it.  I prefer the glass because it reheats well and, for whatever reason, makes me feel good when I’m eating my meal.  

Easy Chicken Meal Prep Bowls: 5 Ways

If you are using meal prep containers and have stored your chicken meal prep well, these babies will last in the fridge for up to 7 days.  Awesome, right?  So you’ll have one of these amazingly healthy and delicious meals waiting for you al week!

If you have freezer-safe meal prep containers, you can also freeze these meals to have them store even longer.  Frozen, they’ll save for about 3 months.

When you’re ready to eat them, you can either let them thaw overnight in the fridge and then reheat in the microwave for 2 minutes or reheat them while frozen for 4-5 minutes.

Easy Chicken Meal Prep Recipes

I also like to leave a wedge of lime for just a bit of extra juice on the chicken, just in case it dries out too much from reheating.  Just remove the lime before reheating because eww.

Yes!  Dustin and I often will pack our meal prepped chicken into our cooler and bring it with us.  You may not always have access to a microwave, but that doesn’t mean you have to forgo your healthy lifestyle.  As long as the chicken has been fully cooked and refrigerated appropriately, you can absolutely eat your cooked chicken cold.

FYI if you’re looking for a great on-the-go cooler that holds your meal prep containers, this one is what we use and it’s awesome!

Meal Prep Chicken Breast With Thai Style Mango Slaw

Okay, I hope you’ve now become convinced about how awesome meal prepped chicken can be and you can’t wait to get started figuring out how to meal prep chicken and incorporate it into your own healthy lifestyle.  To get you started, here are some of my absolute favorite easy chicken breast recipes that are perfect for meal prep.

How to meal prep chicken for the entire week, including an easy chicken breast recipe, all for under $5 per meal! Cook once and eat all week!

This chicken meal prep will keep in the fridge all week and can be reheated in the microwave in just 2 minutes. Plus it freezes well and tastes delicious!

Green Veggie & Chicken Meal Prep Bowls

Hey there! I’m Lacey Baier and I’d like to welcome you! I’m a healthy lifestyle influencer and the creator of this clean-eating blog and YouTube channel, as well as cleanish, my clean-eating supplement brand. My recipes have been published on Food Network, Good Morning America, FoxNews, Tastemade, Fitness Magazine, and much more. I live in Austin, Texas with my husband and four kiddos. Let’s get started!

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Since reaching my weight loss goals, I have made a point to provide others with the guidance they need to achieve their health and fitness goals. Everyone’s journey is unique, and I hope that by...

Ways To Meal Prep Chicken

Hey there! I’m Lacey Baier and I’d like to welcome you! I’m a mom of 4, cleanish lifestyle influencer, personal trainer, nutritionist, and the creator of this clean-eating blog and YouTube channel, and cleanish, my clean-eating supplement brand. My recipes have been published on Food Network, Good Morning America, FoxNews, Tastemade, Fitness Magazine, and much more. I live in Austin, Texas with my husband and four kiddos. Let’s get started!

This site is owned and operated by Sweet Pea Chef LLC. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This site also participates in other affiliate programs and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.These popular Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls have chicken breast, rice and veggies tossed in a delicious sticky sauce. Perfect for healthy meal prep lunches.

Stir fries are such a great choice for meal prep because they store and reheat well. Some of my faves include this Cashew Chicken Stir Fry, this Vegan Ginger Teriyaki Stir Fry, and today's honey sesame stir fry bowls!

Quick And Tasty Chicken Meal Prep Recipes For The Week

This is one of the most popular recipes on the site (it was my first meal prep recipe to go viral!), and I'm pretty sure I know why.

Watch the video below to see exactly how I prepped these meal prep bowls. It’s so easy! You can find more of my recipe videos on my YouTube channel.

(if you care about flavor, that is). This honey sesame sauce takes 5 minutes to shake up and uses simple pantry staples:

Minute Chicken And Rice Meal Prep With Broccoli

To make cooking go as easily as possible, I recommend having all your veggies and chicken chopped up ahead of time, and your sauce pre-mixed. That way, you can just work through the recipe without distraction.

Just like any stir fry, you can swap out the sauce, the protein, the veggies, the carbs and end up with totally different meals.

These Honey Sesame Chicken Lunch Bowls have chicken

Garlic Herb Chicken And Asparagus