Enjoy a sustainable, balanced diet with these macro friendly meal prep recipes. These high protein recipes are perfect if you’re tracking macros or if you’re looking for a well-rounded meal that includes carbs, protein, and fats to keep you full.
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What are Macros?
The term macros is short for macronutrients, which are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
Macros make up your calories and are a smart way to utilize your daily intake of energy to work for you.
Here is the caloric makeup of macros:
- 4 calories per gram of protein
- 4 calories per gram of carbs
- 9 calories per gram of fat
Does Counting Macros Work?
I have my clients focus on macros because it doesn’t label foods as good or bad. If the day gets away from you and you need to pick up something from the drive-thru, you can make it work.
Why macros?
Macros not only take the pressure off your food choices, but they also offer a vast amount of flexibility.
You will see that certain foods make you FEEL good, that they fill you better than others and by experimentation, you’ll find what works for you as an individual – which is amazing!
When you track macros, you don’t have to overhaul your lifestyle. You simply make little tweaks (reduce some sugar here, add a little protein there) and those small changes can add up to big results.
Here’s 6 Easy Ways to Start Tracking Macros
Morning Oats Example
Instead of throwing some quick oats in a bowl with berries try this:
- Add quick oats (or make rolled oats) in a bowl with a tsp of chia seeds, water or almond milk, and any sweetener you like (I prefer brown sugar Swerve).
- If you’re short on time like I always am, microwave that for about 60-90 seconds.
- Add berries, 0% Greek yogurt, and half a scoop of protein powder.
By doing this you take a meal that will leave you hungry within 45 minutes (just the oats and berries) and transformed it into a filling and fueling balanced breakfast.
The oats, chia seeds, and berries are your carbohydrates and fiber.
Adding the Greek yogurt and protein powder bulk it up and add an additional 20-30 grams of protein (depending on how much you use). The chia seeds have some fat but if you need more you can add some nuts (walnuts or pecans are amazing additions).
What a great way to start the day.
Macro Friendly Meal Prep Recipes
There are a lot of recipes below, so if you would like to skip to breakfast, lunch/dinner, or snack recipes use the table of contents above to skip to that section.
These macro friendly recipes are high protein and will help your “fit your macros” in for the rest of your day.
In reality, any recipe can be a macro friendly recipe but it helps when it’s balanced with high protein (keeps you even throughout the day).
Think of it like a teeter totter. Maybe you had a big slice of cake after lunch, which is primarily high carb and fat. You can either have a little protein snack (like string cheese, a hard boiled egg) or at your next meal have a large salad with an extra serving of chicken but less avocado and maybe half the typical amount of sweet potato you add (another option is to keep eating as normal and enjoy your treat that day – it’s up to you).
There are simple (and little) tweaks to your day you can make to make this lifestyle work for you…so you can have your cake and eat it too (I had to, I’m sorry).
I’m going to break down these macro meal prep recipes into breakfast, lunch or dinner, and snacks.
If you’re new to tracking macros, sign up for my free tracking macros for beginners guide.
GET STARTED WITH MACROS
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Macro Friendly Breakfast Meal Prep Recipes
Whether you like a sweet or savory breakfast, you can add a few of these to this month’s meal plan and have the best of both worlds.
The nutrition information varies with each recipe but you can choose one main meal for the day and work around it for flexibility.
You can also find these 26 High Protein Breakfast recipes.
Macro Friendly Lunch and Dinner Meal Prep Recipes
Quick ideas when you don’t have time to follow a recipe:
- Bagged salad, chicken, and cooked rice or sweet potato
- Stir fry using a protein of choice (tofu, chicken breast, ground turkey, steak, etc), bagged slaw/broccoli slaw/stir fry mixes, sauce of choice, rice, quinoa, or these amazing gluten free ramen noodles.
Here are some recipes that you can add to your macro meal plan:
Macro Snack Recipes
Not everything has to be a recipe that you have to cook and prep ahead of time. I’ll include a few recipes but here are some easy snacks that are either grab and go or easy to quickly whip up:
- Fruit of choice, Greek yogurt, with whatever toppings you desire: peanut butter, honey, sugar free maple syrup, nuts, etc.
- Cheese plate (even if it’s just some string cheese, fruit, maybe some nuts too).
- Cottage cheese
- Frozen skyr yogurt bars
- Jerky
- Turkey roll ups (sliced turkey, veggies, maybe some cream cheese
- Veggies (my favorites are carrots or bell pepper), crackers, and hummus (or a greek yogurt-based dip)
- Apple and nut butter
- Protein bars (I like Built Bars, you can use code RANDA for a discount). Read my full Built Bar review.
- Protein shakes/smoothies
- Edamame
- Celery and peanut butter
You can also look at these 35+ High Protein Snacks.
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