Whole-30 and Paleo- Family Meal Prep for the week - Nesting With Grace (2024)

I wanted to do a follow up from my last post “How I Survive Whole-30 and Paleo” with my weekly family meal prep. I do not make separate meals for myself from what I make for my family. I DO make a few tweaks to what I eat from the meal, but the basis of the meal stays the same. The BIG key to surviving Whole-30 and a Paleo lifestyle is a little preparation. And actually how to survive the “hangry” part of the day for the entire family. For two weeks in a row I carved out some time at the start of the week to prep some meals to feed us for the entire week. Dinner time can be the most frustrating time of the day. So I decided to make it the best part of the day.

Seriously I took maybe two hours to prep and actually make 5 HEALTHY6 Healthy meals (including the waffles). We ate these over a week and a half, because we had so much leftover. And I split one of the meals in half and took it to a family who was sick and feed the missionaries and my family with one of the other meals too.

Almost all of these meals I send with my girls for their lunch in THESE food thermoses and I eat leftovers for lunch everyday too.

Now I am not a chef or specialize in food prep…BUT these meals were pretty awesome. Chopping all your veggies for all your meals at once is so much more efficient than pulling out your cutting board and chopping the same veggies every day.

I really am so excited about this that I wanted to share all the meals I made. And these are really our go-to meals. They are simple, healthy and family favorites. And a lot of these meals use a lot of the same ingredients so they are easy to prep and shop for.

Paleo Turkey Chili

• 1 lb Ground Turkey
• 2 14 oz cans peeled whole tomatoes, drained
• 1 12 oz can tomato sauce
• 1 cup diced yellow onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 cups chopped and peeled sweet potatoes *if you are not making this Whole-30 or Paleo you can use 2 cans of red kidney beans (rinsed and drained) and 1 can of black beans (rinsed and drained) instead of the sweet potatoes
• 1 tablespoon chili powder (or more depending how spicy you like it)
• 4 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground red pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

Freezer Tip- I cooked my ground turkey and froze it. When I was ready to make this meal I defrosted the turkey in the fridge the day before. The morning we were going to eat it I put all the ingredients and the turkey in THIS Instant Pot on the crock pot setting for 8 hours. Easy as that. We ate this meal for several meals including in THIS food thermos for my daughters lunch.

• Family Ate– Paleo Ground Turkey with a side of homemade bread (our favorite 24 cent bread recipe HERE)
• I Ate– Paleo Ground Turkey

Dill Chicken Noodle/Sweet Potato Soup

• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken (I like to use a store bought Rotisserie Chicken for this and use the leftover for lunches and snacks)
• 2 cups diced carrots
• 1 large diced onion
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup peeled and chopped sweet potatoes
• 2 tablespoons dill weed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 quarts chicken broth
• 2 cups egg noodles

Saute all the veggies and spices until just soft. Add in the chicken.

Freezer Tip- Freeze the cooked veggies and chicken. The day before defrost in the fridge. I added my chicken and veggies along with the chicken broth toTHIS Instant Poton the crock pot setting for 8 hours. Then about an hour before we ate I took out my serving of the soup then added the egg noodles to the mixture.

• Family Ate– Dill Chicken Soup with the noodles
• I Ate– Dill Chicken Soup without the noodles (I made sure to scoop out extra sweet potatoes for my meal)

Paleo Chicken Stir Fry

• 2 cups of cubed chicken
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/4 cup coconut aminos
• 1 tablespoon coconut sugar or honey
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 red pepper thinly sliced
• 1 yellow pepper thinly sliced
• 1 onion thinly sliced
• 1 cup carrots thinly sliced
• 1 cup broccoli thinly sliced

Cook the chicken in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Then add in the veggies. Mix the coconut aminos, garlic, coconut sugar and pepper then pour over the top of the chicken and veggies.

Freezer Tip– If you are going to freeze this meal, don’t cook your veggies too long just long, just enough to soften them a little. Defrost in the fridge the night before you want to eat it. The day of saute it all together in some olive oil. You can mix up more of the coconut aminos mixture if it seems dry.

• Family Ate– Paleo Stir Fry over the top of brown rice. We also have done it over spaghetti squash. Garnished with the below Nut Butter Sauce (or you can buy a peanut sauce already made).
• I Ate– Paleo Stir Fry over shredded cabbage and carrots (it was a pre mixed cole slaw bag of salad). I topped mine with Sriracha and the below Nut Butter Sauce and a few chopped nuts.

Nut Butter Sauce

• ½ cup canned full fat coconut milk
• ¼ cup smooth almond butter or peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon coconut aminos or soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 minced garlic clove
• pinch of salt

Cook all of the above ingredients in a medium sauce pan until smooth and heated through.

Paleo Turkey Meat Balls

• 1 lb ground turkey meat
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 diced yellow onion
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon almond flour

Mix all of the above ingredients together. Using your hands shape into balls.

Freezer Tip– I was able to lay these flat in a tupperware container or a larger freezer bag would work as well and store them in the freezer until ready to use. I defrosted mine in the fridge the night before we ate them. I put them in inTHIS Instant Poton the crock pot setting for 8 hours and poured a large jar of marinara sauce over the top (make sure to read the ingredients in the store bought marinara sauce that sugar is not an added ingredient). The meatballs held their shape perfectly. I was careful to not stir them to break them up.

• Family Ate- Meatballs and marinara over gluten-free spaghetti noodles with broccoli mixed in that steamed right before we ate dinner.
• I ate- Meatballs and marinara over a lot of broccoli.

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

• 1 large spaghetti squash cooked (I cook mine in my Instant pot)
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 diced yellow onion
• 1 diced red pepper
• 1 cup diced broccoli
• 1 cup pizza sauce (no sugar added)
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 eggs, whisked

Saute the onion, red pepper and broccoli in olive oil, just to soften slightly if you are freezing this meal. Set aside. Brown your ground turkey season with Italian seasonings in the same pan as you did the veggies. Mix all the ingredients together.

Bake at 350 degrees for 0ne hour.

Freezer Tip– If you have room in your freezer you can freeze it in the 9×11 pan. Defrost the day before you are going to eat in the fridge.

(recipe adapted from THIS recipe).

• Family Ate– Spaghetti Squash Casserole and a side of extra veggies.
• I Ate– exactly what the family ate.

I also made THIS pumpkin bread recipe into muffins and used apple sauce instead of the coconut oil. I cooked them for about 18 minutes. My girls eat these everyday for their school snack with a green apple. I love having these ready in the fridge (I freeze about half for their snack and pull out daily and stick in the snack containers for school).

While I was making the muffins I had leftover pumpkin and made up a double batch of our Favorite Paleo Pumpkin Waffles. I freeze these as well. These make a great dinner too that is ready to go!

FREEZER TIP– when you reheat these from the freezer just reheat them in the waffle maker. It will heat them faster then individually toasting smaller pieces.

And this is what the baby did while I did a lot of this freezer meal prep-

Simply look at all the veggies that are required for each meal and get to chopping! Turn on your favorite Netflix show and before you know it you will have 5 meals for the week and snacks too.

You can read how I survive on a Whole-30 diet and Paleo lifestyleHERE. I shared my secret to curbing my sweet tooth on that post too!