For a couple months, I kept seeing posts on my feed about meals from a cookbook, Cook Once, Eat All Week (affiliate links used).

Although I have tried my hand at meal prepping in the past, I didn’t love it because I got tired of eating the same meals over and over again throughout the week. Even when I tried things like cooking several meals worth of chicken and seasoning it differently for each meal, it was still just….chicken with different seasoning. The intriguing thing to me about this cookbook was that although you had just one day of prep and you use the same 3 main ingredients, the recipes have a totally different take on how to use the ingredients so you get 3 really different meals!

I finally ordered the book a couple months ago and haven’t looked back since! The book is divided into 26 weeks of menus, with weeks focusing on either chicken, turkey, beef, or pork as the protein of each week. Each week provides a list of ingredients needed that will make up 3 dinners along with 2 optional bonus dinners (that may include seafood options) for each week.

Each week is set up around three main ingredients and starts with a shopping list for week as well as substitution options for each week. So for example, one of my favorite weeks is Week 10: Brisket, Bell Peppers, and Russet Potatoes. There are substitution options to make the week paleo, grain-free, or dairy-free.

So, here’s an overview of how each week works for me:

• I pick the week I’m going with and add the ingredients I need to my Walmart Grocery order for the week (most of our meat comes from Butcherbox, so I choose meals based on what we have on hand from that).
• After picking up the grocery order, I get started on the Prep Day tasks in the kitchen! For Week 10, this started with cooking the brisket. One of my FAVORITE things about a lot of the weeks is that at least one component can be cooked in the Instant Pot. This means hands-off time to complete other tasks, which I love!) Instructions are included for cooking the brisket in the oven, Instant Pot, or slow cooker and it is great to have choices! This week’s prep day also included baking potato wedges, cooking rice, making stir-fry sauce and dressing, chopping a few vegetables, and sauteing peppers and onions. Instructions are included for each of these tasks and tips for how to store and label each component are provided. Prepping all three recipes took under two hours!
• At the end of prep day, you have three meals in the fridge pretty much ready to go!

The recipes for Week 10 are Philly Cheesesteak Loaded Fries, Pepper Steak Stir-Fry, and a Gyro Salad with Garlic Potato Wedges. Each recipe for this week yielded 4-5 servings, which meant that in my house, there were always leftovers for lunches. For each night, there was only a few minutes of prep and cook time to assemble the meals, since most ingredients were already prepped and cooked. For example, on the stir-fry night, I just had to crisp up the brisket and then combine with the veggies and sauce. In about 10 minutes, dinner was ready!

All in all, I’ve tried about 4 of the different weeks and we have enjoyed everything! There are a couple of recipes that weren’t my favorite (like the Cottage Pie from Week 5) but that is mostly because it was something that I just am not a fan of in the first place. There are a couple of weeks that I’ve already repeated just because they’ve been so good! Using these recipes has not only helped me prep and eat more “real” food but has also helped me branch out and eat foods that I normally wouldn’t, such as acorn squash or picadillo tacos. I can definitely say that in just the short time I’ve had Cook Once, Eat All Week, this has become the most used cookbook I’ve ever had!

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So, if you’re looking for a way to make meal prep easier or want to try new recipes, check it out! If you have tried the book, which week is your favorite?