15 Healthy Meal Prep Recipes on a Budget

Healthy meal prep recipes don’t need to be expensive or too complicated for your weekly meal preps. It’s easy to find simple recipes for breakfast, lunch, or dinner that can be both healthy and fit into your budget. Whether you’re counting calories to lose weight or gain muscle then you need to have well-balanced meals that don’t take up all your free time that day to cook. Here are 15 healthy meal prep recipes to try if you’re on a budget.

1. Lemon Berry Yogurt Breakfast Bowls

Breakfast bowls make great healthy meal prep recipes you can whip up in just a few minutes. This lemon berry yogurt breakfast bowl recipe is easy, cheap and full of vitamins and nutrients. For meal prep, put the oats and chia seeds in the bottom of your jar or other sealable containers for overnight oats. Then top that with the yogurt, lemon curb, and strawberries then keep it in the refrigerator for a few days worth of quick and healthy breakfasts!

2. Veggie Packed Freezer Breakfast Sandwiches

Another great idea for healthy meal prep recipes for breakfast is making breakfast sandwiches. They freeze well and can give you a filling and well-balanced meal in just a few minutes. This recipe uses English muffins filled with cheese and the spinach, pepper, and egg mixture that you bake in the oven. Wrap the sandwiches in some plastic wrap and put them into a gallon-sized freezer bag and store them for up to two months of delicious and hearty breakfasts.

3. Blueberry Almond Overnight Oats

Healthy meal prep recipes such as this are great at being a filling and healthy meal at little cost. This recipe is a blueberry almond overnight oats that have no sugar added and makes for a great, quick breakfast. You could put chia seeds in for additional fiber, antioxidants, and more but if you want to keep the overall price down you can leave them out and just use more oats.

4. Tropical Yogurt Parfaits

Parfaits make great healthy meal prep recipes because they’re delicious, easy to make, and cheap. You can also change them up easily with different fruits and yogurt flavors and such. This recipe for tropical yogurt parfaits uses bananas, pineapple chunks, mango, and shredded coconut to make a tasty tropical breakfast. You can easily meal prep a lot of these at the beginning of the week and save yourself lots of time and money on breakfast.

5. Smoothie Packs

If you’re a smoothie lover then these healthy meal prep recipes are perfect for you. Smoothies can make quick and filling breakfasts or snacks that you can make in no time. This recipe shows how to prepare some smoothie packs at the beginning of the week that will make it even faster to blend up your breakfast. You can store them for a couple of months because for the most part you’re gonna be using already frozen fruit besides the bananas. If you want to make your smoothie even healthier then blend some spinach or kale in with your smoothies in the morning for a great boost of energy, vitamins, and nutrients.

6. Chicken Fajitas

This really easy meal prep recipe is delicious and takes only about 20 minutes to make. You can meal prep it for the week and take it to work for lunch or enjoy it whenever you want. It’s got a combination of veggies like bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and zucchini that make it a well-balanced meal. These healthy meal prep recipes that are quick to make but make a lot of food really save you money and overall cook time.

7. Sesame Noodle Bowls

Here’s a quick recipe that gives you a tasty noodle bowl that’s well-balanced and cheap to make. It even gives you a recipe for your own sesame sauce you could reuse for other healthy meal prep recipes. These sesame noodle bowls are great for meal prep because they’re super well-balanced with the combination of noodles, chicken, and vegetables. You should be able to make this recipe in just about 15 minutes and then have almost a week’s worth of lunches prepped and ready to eat when you need it.

8. Burrito Bowl

Burrito bowls can make an easy and delicious staple to your meal prep routine. This recipe gives one of many variations you can try with burrito bowls to get a well-balanced meal that’s cheap to make. This bowl uses rice, turkey/beef, corn, black beans, cheese, salsa, and green onions. But you can substitute in some sweet potatoes cubes, shredded lettuce, olives, shredded chicken and more! Burrito bowls make great healthy meal prep recipes for their versatility and cheap basic ingredients. Of course, they’re also delicious so that helps too.

9. Rainbow Ground Turkey Skillet

This delicious recipe gives you a hearty lunch you can meal prep for later in the week, granted you don’t eat it all in one sitting. This cheap meal uses ground turkey, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, green chilies, corn, and black beans. Sweet potatoes are a great food to use in your meal preps because they’re cheap, tasty, and provides tons of great health benefits. They’re loaded with fibers, nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants! This rainbow ground turkey skilled should only take about 30 minutes prep and cook and should definitely make your list for great healthy meal prep recipes.

10. Garden Vegetable Turkey Loaf

Here’s a recipe that uses some tasty mini vegetable turkey loaves that are healthy and easy to make. You pair the turkey loaves with some green beans and some homemade mac and cheese. Although, if you’d rather use something a little healthier you can easily substitute in some veggies or maybe the spinach and feta mashed potatoes also mentioned in the recipe. This meal makes a great meal prep option for lunch or dinner with a well-balanced, healthy meal that’s easy to make and probably within your budget.

11. Curry Chicken Salad

This curry chicken salad recipe makes a great meal prep option because it’s quick to make and has some great flavors! You can use some crackers to dip into the chicken salad or even bring a tortilla to turn it into a wrap. There are some green apples on the side which compliment the chicken salad well. The chicken salad should only take about 30 minutes to prep and cook and you’ll end up with about four servings for some tasty lunches to make your coworkers jealous.

12. Skillet Meatballs and Marinara

Although this seems to be a simple meal prep recipe it hits all the right notes. The metaballs and marinara combined with the steamed broccoli and a banana are a very well-balanced meal that leaves you feeling full and energized for the rest of the day. It’s a cheap and easy recipe to follow that satisfies your Italian-food craving and leaves you wanting more. Don’t miss out on healthy meal prep recipes such as this one that tastes great and fits right into your budget.

13. Pineapple BBQ Tofu Bowl (Vegan)

You can grill up these vegan pineapple BBQ tofu bowls and keep the extras for some healthy and delicious meal prep for later in the week. The recipe has four main parts: the tofu, pineapple, veggies, and quinoa. Throw that tofu on the grill with some barbeque sauce for a delicious protein that’s pretty cheap overall. The pineapple gives the bowl some vitamin C, antioxidants, and other nutrients. The recipe uses red onion, zucchini, and bell peppers for the veggies but you can easily substitute in different ones of your choosing. Quinoa is a great addition to most meal prep bowls because it’s full of protein and fiber.

14. Quinoa Taco Salad (Vegan)

As previously stated, quinoa is a fantastic addition to your healthy meal prep recipes because of it’s great vitamins and nutrients that it provides. This vegan quinoa taco salad is super healthy and should only take about 20 minutes to make. The recipe takes quinoa to the next level by cooking it with fire-roasted tomatoes, vegetable broth, and taco seasoning for extra flavors! You can use this quinoa taco salad in a variety of ways to keep things interesting during your week of meal prepped lunch or dinners. You can roll the quinoa salad into a burrito or take some tortilla chips/sweet potato chips and enjoy some healthy nachos!

15. Salsa Chicken Bowl

Meal prep doesn’t need to be this daunting task every week. Take a protein, a carb, and a veggie and maybe a sauce if you want to make a well-balanced meal. This salsa chicken bowl recipe uses shredded chicken cooked in salsa with roasted bell peppers, brown rice, and some sour cream. Brown rice is good for healthy meal prep recipes because it’s a whole grain and full of good fiber. This salsa chicken bowl is easy to make, inexpensive, and tastes great so it should definitely appear in your list of healthy meal prep recipes.