My freshman year of college was a blur of dining hall cookies, colossal 2 am calzones, boxes of gluten-free cereal, and burritos. Lots of burritos.
Let’s admit: As a college student, meal prep usually meant browsing a selection of all the food everyone told us we weren’t supposed to be eating all the time.
It was a big change, and the unlimited food available in college can easily overwhelm. Putting my dietary preferences into practice in a dining hall was a real challenge.
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Eating satisfying meals in college can be a logistical nightmare when you’re also juggling homework, studying, a social life, getting enough sleep, and classes.
Everything in this post comes from what I wish I’d known back in college, when I had full autonomy over my food choices for the first time. I hope that if you’re in college now, or going to college soon, this post helps!
Before we get into it, I want to let you know that you can get access to the full Workweek Lunch College Meal Prep Guide by signing up for the WWL Meal Prep Program for $7.99/month. The full college guide is complete with equipment recs, 83 college-friendly recipes/meal ideas, budget hacks, dining hall tips and so much more. Of course, the membership comes with weekly meal plans, grocery lists, a community and access to all WWL meal prep recipes. Learn more in the link above.
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So when it came to food, I often found myself making unfulfilling choices in the dining hall, getting takeout, and making meals from vending machine snacks. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those food decisions (although at the time I thought there was, so I was constantly trying to “balance” by going to the gym), but food made me feel really stressed out; I was always either guilty or unsatisfied, never just enjoying a meal.
I felt completely out of control around food and I think I spent way more energy than I needed to on food decisions.
In my junior year of college, I had a small kitchen and learned how to cook some really basic foods using a workout plan that I dropped $160 on (I’m still mad about it — biggest waste of my money). I lived on flavorless egg white omelets, crappy tofu stir fries, and grapefruit. I didn’t know how to make food taste good back then.
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The worst part? I wasn’t eating enough. And then I’d binge on pizza, calzones, Nutella, cereal, peanut butter right out of the jar and any snacks my friends would let me scarf down.
In college, food took up so much of my brain space and energy. I had a negative relationship with food and exercise, and I struggled with body image issues. I regularly got upset about my body or what I was eating.
Now, I practice intuitive eating, and I’m healing my relationships with food and exercise. Whether I’m munching on cookies, carrot sticks, or chips (all great snacks!), I don’t get stressed about what I’m eating. Meal prepping is a big part of that, and if I’d been doing it in college, it would have helped me calm down around food a lot, think less about it, and avoid extra stress on top of all the other college stuff.
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I lived in a dorm the first two years of school, so I get what that’s like — many dorms are ill-equipped for cooking, because you’re meant to be using the school’s meal plan. Not having a good kitchen, or in some cases not having one at all, kind of sucks! At Ithaca College, where I went to school, we were lucky to have communal dorm kitchens on every floor with a fridge, oven, stove, and storage. Plus, some of my friends had a microwave, so even though there wasn’t one in the communal kitchen, I still had microwave access.
I didn’t use the communal kitchen to cook meals. Mostly, I used it to bake cupcakes — lots and lots of cupcakes. So if I’d known about meal prep back then, it would have been doable.
There are so many ways to meal prep; it’s definitely not an all-or-nothing situation. Even just having my morning breakfasts taken care of would have made my life way easier in college. Experiment and see what works for you! One of the most intuitive and obvious ways to meal-prep is the dinner-to-leftovers method: If you’re already cooking yourself a meal, chances are the ingredient quantities are too large for just one serving. So why not make two or three servings, and save the rest for the next few days? If you’re completely new to meal prep check out my Meal Prep for Beginners 101 Guide.
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If you don’t like leftovers, you can also prep ingredients to be cooked later. Chopping and portioning is often the most time-consuming part of cooking a meal, so If you have chopped up onions, garlic, and veggies and exactly 3 teaspoons of garam masala ready and waiting, that curry is going to be a breeze on the day you actually cook it.
You can ease your way into meal prep by just meal-prepping ONE meal — breakfast is often the easiest and quickest, but if your schedule is wide open in the mornings and crammed with classes in the afternoon or evening, maybe having a prepped lunch or dinner will make the biggest difference for you. Whatever meal you choose, try prepping enough for three days and see how it feels, then adjust based on what works for your routine and amount of free time. It may change from week to week — be flexible and gentle with yourself.
Have access to a kitchen. Chances are, it’s a pretty small one or you’re sharing it with way too many people. Possibly both. While you have access to plenty of equipment with with to do the actual cooking, there are challenges unique to college student that you may be facing. A big part of meal prepping is storing food, so if you don’t have anywhere to store it, having the equipment to cook it with becomes a moot point.
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For example, one thing I remember running into in college was that my roommates would keep old, moldy food in the fridge, so that it was just sitting there taking up space. In that situation, I mandated an occasional fridge cleanout to purge all of that. You could also try agreeing on a takeout rule. For example: “If the same box of takeout has been sitting in the fridge for 5 or more days, whoever put it there should toss it out. If they don’t do so after 7 days, then other roommates have the right to throw it out to make room.” Make sure it’s specific, and make sure that everyone knows about it and agrees to it. Another way to ensure that you have space is to divide up fridge and pantry space. For example, assigning each person one shelf or one half of a shelf.
In tiny kitchens, it can be really hard to cook when someone else is trying to cook at the same time. Plan ahead and let your roommates know you’d like to use the kitchen for a few hours at whatever time you set for meal-prepping, and make sure none of them will need it at the same time. If your roommates are into the idea, you could even try making a kitchen schedule so that you don’t have to deal with too much overlap.
And if your kitchen is tiny, you’re probably dealing with storage shortages regardless of how many roommates, or lack thereof, you’re sharing space with. That’s where kitchen organization comes in. I have lots of advice and tips on storage solutions and kitchen organization on my Instagram and in other blog posts, but you can start by following four basic principles:
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Another thing I want to point out: you can easily meal prep snacks and even some meals without a kitchen. Even having snacks on hand can make a huge difference in the way you feel and your energy levels!
When I asked my audience on Instagram what their biggest struggles were around college and meal prepping, being able to carry meals around all day was a BIG one.
I get it. You want to be able to carry meals around without lugging a gigantic lunchbox and you don’t want them to go bad without being refrigerated AND they have to taste good without being reheated.
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The things that college students never have are: time, money, and a decent kitchen area to actually prep with. So, meal prep is always going to be a challenge. But this doesn’t mean you should neglect your meals—you can’t think or study appropriately on an empty stomach!
Instead, when you’re looking for recipes, find ones aimed explicitlyat college students. The recipes are basically easier versions for college meal prep, with more accessible ingredients, and you don’t need complicated kitchen tools to make them.
Yes, planning your snacks also needs to be part of your meal prep ideas. For college students, it’s
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