I was really curious how much cheaper it would be to prep this week with fresh protein. I have done this in the past but never tracked the cost and time like I did this week. This prep was made exclusively with ingredients bought at Costco.

It took me 3.5 hours over two days. I prepped and marinated using avocado oil, garlic and herb season, buttery steakhouse for the Sirloin and Pork Barrel BBQ seasoning for the chicken.

Cutting, marinating and vacuum sealing for the Sous vide took me about 30 mins. I let them all marinate overnight. I have two Sous vide machine so setting the chicken and sirloin at different temperatures and cooking at the same time saved me an extra hour for the chicken.

I cooked my the veggies at 400. About ten minutes for the asparagus and twenty for the green beans.

While everything was cooking I cooked the rice ramen. This only takes four minutes after you get boiling water. I give these an ice bath after cooking so they don’t over cooked and stick together.

After the protein was done I threw them all on the grill to get a nice sear. This process took me about 15 minutes.

I prepped 24 meals, 14 for myself and 10 for my gf. On average each meal had about 4-5 ozs of protein.

The total cost was $67.00 so about $2.80 a meal.

This is versus last weeks prep which was $85 for 21 meals at $4.04 a meal.

My ingredients are listed below, I did not add the cost of the avocado oil or seasoning because I already had them in stock.

-Steak $39 half $19.90 (I only used half of what I bought) -Organic Chicken $28.89 -Brown Rice Ramen $8.99 1/4 $2.25 -Organic Asparagus $7.49 -Organic Green Beans $6.99

Seasonings: -Avocado Oil -Buttery Steakhouse Seasoning -Pork Barrel BBQ rub -Garlic & Seasoning -Salt/Pepper

Overall I know this prep is going to taste better and is cheaper but this very very time consuming vs buying the precooked protein. The difference between 45 mins and 3.5 hours is why I lean towards the pre cooked protein when I don’t want to spend 1/4 of my day in the kitchen.

For anyone curious we also eat 2-3 eggs in the morning with gluten free pita and almond butter from Costco.

I’ll have a protein shake a couple of times a week as well. Other that than we do a good job of not eating outside of what we prepped for the week.