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The Best Meal Prep Snacks to Curb Your Food Cravings

The Best Meal Prep Snacks to Curb Your Food Cravings

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If you often think to yourself, “how am I still hungry when I just ate?”, you are not alone. Food cravings are normal, whether you are working or just lazing around at home. Your body uses energy even when you are sleeping, and your brain needs healthy food too.

Many of the people who experience food cravings indulge in junk food and snacks rich in processed sugar, which derails their attempts at eating healthy. Often, snacking when stressed or bored without meal prep snacks can mess with your healthy diet or weight loss regimen. It also raises your blood sugar and, subsequently, energy levels before leaving you in a slump, especially if your choice of sweet snack is foods high in simple carbs like sugar or pretzels.

One way to combat your unhealthy snacking is to opt for healthy meal-prep snacks in advance. These prevent you from snacking on candy or ordering pizza. The best meal prep snacks include some protein and fiber content to help you feel fuller until your next meal. It also keeps your blood sugar level from spiking too quickly and later dropping, causing that slump.

This article discusses healthy snacks to satisfy your cravings without sabotaging your diet while also finding ways to save money.

How to Meal Prep Healthy Snacks

It is best to prep healthy snack ideas that are easy to whip up, and that you can enjoy eating throughout the day or week. Follow the easy tips below for healthy meal-prep snacks and check out the healthy recipes for inspiration on your next great snack option.

1. Keep it Simple

The whole aim of meal prep is to make your life easier, so think about healthy snacks that you can quickly prepare whose recipes have simple ingredients. For instance, it can be as easy as combining fruits, oats, and nuts to make energy balls or chopping veggie sticks and pairing them with your left-over hummus.

2. Choose Energy Ingredients

Snacks should curb your hunger in between meals, so naturally, it’s best to select energizing and filling foods. Things like berries, Greek yogurt, and nuts are high in both protein and fiber, making you feel full for longer.

3. Avoid Processed Sugar

Avoid foods or drinks with processed sugar because they increase your blood sugar and insulin levels, and cause a host of issues ranging from a temporary surge and dip in your energy level to insulin resistance. Therefore, replace processed sugars with natural sources such as fruit.

Insulin resistance is when your muscles, liver, and fat cells do not respond well to insulin, fail to use the glucose in your blood for energy, and causes your pancreases to release more insulin. Insulin resistance is one of the key drivers to progressive and persistent weight gain.

4. Eat Fruits and Vegetables

Snacks present the perfect time to eat an extra serving of vegetables and fruits. You can make a smoothie with the frozen fruit in your freezer, munch on carrots, or prepare a frozen banana treat.

Make sweet potato chips that you can keep in a baggie and snack on when hungry. Meal prep ideas don’t have to be complicated. For example, sweet potato chips can be made with 4 simple ingredients – sweet potato; olive oil; salt, and pepper.

5. Get the Right Equipment

Having the right equipment can make things so much easier for you. Invest in a good food processor that will make your meal prep efforts easier. 

Get yourself a half-dozen or more mason jars. These serve as solid, reusable, interchangeable, and easily cleaned storage containers for all types of meal prep snacks.

Reusable silicone zip lock bags are also great to cut down on your waste and provide flexible and healthy food storage.

Meal-Prep Snacks for When You’re Craving Something Sweet

Fresh Fruit

Fruits are among the easy snacks to prepare and an excellent choice for a sugar craving. To make your sweet snack feel like a treat, dip your fruit of choice in dark chocolate, or make a mixed fruit bowl.

Frozen Banana Treat

Melt dark chocolate chips in olive oil (or any other healthy oil) and dip half a banana (or banana slices) into the melted chocolate. Pop the snack into your freezer for a delicious treat. Bananas have fiber and can promote satiety.

Snack Bars

Choose healthy snack bars that are minimally processed and contain whole foods such as oats or fruit. Also, check the label for added sugars like coconut sugar, sugar syrups, or table sugar.

Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt has about 40% less sugar than traditional yogurt and twice the protein. You can mix it with maple syrup, chopped peanuts, or sliced strawberries.

Looking for a Healthy Snack Combo

Dark Chocolate and Oat Clusters

Dark chocolate is a rich source of heart-healthy antioxidants, oats have fiber, and peanut butter is an excellent protein source.

Ingredients:

  • Two tablespoons peanut butter
  • Two Tablespoons low-fat milk
  • ¾ cup old-fashioned rolled oats
  • ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips

Place the peanut butter, semisweet chocolate chips, and milk in a saucepan. Cook for three to four minutes over low heat (or until the chips melt). Stir in the oats and remove from heat. Using a spoon, drop eight ball-shaped portions on a baking sheet lined with wax and set in your refrigerator for 10 minutes before serving.

Hummus With Vegetables

Hummus contains chickpeas (protein), olive oil (source of healthy fats), and garlic, which are all staples of a healthy Mediterranean diet. For an excellent, all plant-based combo snack, eat hummus with vegetables to increase your intake of the latter and nutrients to your diet.

Trail Mix

Trail mix is a healthy, handy snack made up of nuts and dried fruits. You can vary the exact recipe, but the healthy combo makes it an excellent choice for when you are craving a sweet and salty snack. It’s also a chance to include nuts in your diet.

Avocado and Nuts on Toast

Prepare half an avocado on toast and add a handful of chopped nuts for the perfect combination of protein, fiber, and fat. You can also add dried fruit, sliced veggies, grated parmesan, and sea salt.

Roasted Chickpeas

Chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) can get a great snack to grab on the go. They are full of protein and fiber. The right recipe can turn them into savory and delectable healthy snacks. Here is one of our favorites – crispy baked chickpeas…check it out today.

Eat a Naturally Sweet Snack

Eating a sweet snack is fine when snacking, but opt for natural sugar and don’t overdo it. Also, snack on whole fruits more than fruit juice because the latter contains more sugar content. Some healthy snack options include:

Fruit and Yogurt Smoothie

The Best Meal Prep Snacks to Curb Your Food Cravings

Young woman preparing a green smoothie at home.

A fruit and yogurt smoothie recipe has three ingredients: yogurt, frozen fruit, and fruit juice. Mix up your preferred combinations daily for a healthy snack that you can’t get bored eating. To prepare, puree yogurt with fruit juice in a blender, add fruit through the lid hole and continue to puree to your satisfaction (or until smooth).

Banana Ice Cream

To make this healthy snack, blend ripe bananas and freeze them for at least one hour. It is high in fiber and lower in calories than regular ice cream. You can also add fruit, spices, or milk for added flavor.

Overnight Oats

Overnight oats are a great choice for a healthy meal prep snack. These are so easy to make and provide you with a high quality – filling snack. Check out the first recipe we have here for pumpkin spice latte keto overnight oats.

Over to You

Food cravings are tricky to deal with, whether or not you are on a diet. Fortunately, the snack options in this article can help satisfy your cravings with healthy meal plans, good nutrition, and healthy snack recipes.

Healthy meal prep snacks help you plan ahead and stop yourself from finding solace in junk food.

Are you looking for more great diet tips and healthy snack recipes? Check out these articles.