Episode 75Jun 10, 2026· 10:54

Meal Prep for the Win: How to Stay Out of the Drive-Thru Without Spending Hours in the Kitchen

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About this episode

This episode covers practical meal prep and bulk cooking strategies for avoiding fast food and drive-thru meals on a busy schedule. Topics include the velveting technique for chicken breast (baking soda soak to prevent dry texture), bulk-cooking 10 pounds of chicken plain and adding sauces per meal, par-cooking as a restaurant-style method for home kitchens, freezing waffles and breakfast sausage for quick morning…

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Who this episode is for

This episode may resonate with you if:

You run your own business and keep defaulting to the drive-thru or takeout on busy days because there's nothing ready at home when you finally stop working.

You want to eat at home more but the actual cooking time after a full day feels impossible, so you're looking for ways to shrink how much active time you spend in the kitchen.

You're spending more on groceries and takeout than you want to and suspect a meal planning system would fix it, but you haven't built one yet.

You cook chicken regularly but find it always comes out dry and rubbery, so you've been avoiding it even though you know it's a practical bulk protein.

You've tried meal prepping before but it felt like a whole-day project, so you gave up. You want a system that doesn't require dedicating an entire Sunday to it.

You want a backup plan for nights when something runs long and you have zero energy to cook — a freezer strategy so you're not starting from scratch on your worst days.

What you’ll learn

Velvet chicken in bulk so it's not dry and rubbery — then season per meal

Make double batches of freezer-friendly foods so busy days are already covered

Shop with a 14-day meal list built around seven recipes that have leftovers

Build a spreadsheet of every meal you know how to cook, each linked to its recipe

Questions this episode helps answer

How do I stop going to the drive-thru when I'm too tired to cook?

answered

Ashley keeps a cycle of leftovers going so there's always something already in the fridge — if a busy day hits and she has no time to cook, she says it's okay because she's already got leftovers.

"to worry about, OK, if I got really busy today, I don't have time to cook. What do I do? Well, it's OK. I've already got leftovers. And I do"

How do I always have something ready to eat at home without cooking every day?

answered

Ashley's approach is to cook once and eat twice — for example, she always makes two lasagnas at once, eats one that night, and freezes the second so on a busy day she can just pull it from the freezer and throw it in the oven.

"like every time I'm making a lasagna I always make two I will have one for that night and then I have the next one frozen so that whenever I get busy or if something happens and I don't have time to cook I can just quickly take it out of the freezer and throw it in the oven and"

How do I meal prep without it taking all day?

answered

Ashley par-cooks chicken in bulk and adds sauces and seasonings later, so her active cooking time for a full dinner is only about 15 minutes even if the total time is 45.

"And so my active cooking time was only about 15 minutes. Yeah, sure, it took about 45 minutes for the meal to be made and be ready. But my active time was only about 15 minutes. And so"

How do I plan meals for two weeks without it feeling rigid?

answered

Ashley picks seven recipes for a two-week period but doesn't assign them to specific days — the list tells her what ingredients she has and what she can make, so the choice is flexible but the decision is already mostly made.

"us in to, oh, we have to have, you know, chicken on Monday and beef on Tuesday and fish on Wednesday. We don't do that. But we do pick like seven recipes that have leftovers that we can have for a two"

Setting expectations: This episode is not about diet plans, calorie counting frameworks, or nutrition science. It's Ashley sharing the specific personal systems she actually uses — bulk chicken velveting, two lasagnas at once, a spreadsheet linked to recipes — to avoid hitting the drive-thru on busy days.

Tone & style

Personal experience and home cooking habits shared as practical suggestions. Not nutrition or dietary advice.

toneCasual & practical

focusHow Ashley personally stays out of the drive-thru by bulk prepping, freezing, and planning 14 days of meals at a time — without spending hours cooking every day.

stylesolo_monologue

energymedium

complexitybeginner

pressure Levellow

emotional Textureconversational, enthusiastic, unpretentious

Notable quotes

"But now that I have those systems in place. Meal"

— Famous Ashley Grant

"do not subscribe to diet culture. However, I do know that if I don't keep myself out of the drive -thru that I'm basically just opening up myself to taking in additional calories that I don't want to take in. And so I kind of just"

— Famous Ashley Grant

"And so my active cooking time was only about 15 minutes. Yeah, sure, it took about 45 minutes for the meal to be made and be ready. But my active time was only about 15 minutes. And so"

— Famous Ashley Grant

"every time you go out to eat, what is it that makes the food taste so good? A lot of extra butter, a lot of extra fat, a lot of extra salt, and it's usually fried crap, right? So that's"

— Famous Ashley Grant

Episode transcript

Organized into 8 chapters — open any part to read the full text.

0:001. Why Ashley Meal Preps (Not Diet Culture)Ashley introduces the episode, explaining she doesn't subscribe to diet culture but meal preps specifically to stay out of the drive-thru and avoid unwanted extra calories.0:392. Par-Cooking Chicken in BulkAshley describes buying 10 pounds of chicken from Sam's Club, velveting it with baking soda to avoid dry rubbery texture, baking it all plain, and then adding sauces and seasonings per meal — like the chicken tikka she made the night before with only 15 minutes of active cooking time.2:363. Bulk Prepping Breakfast and Freezing ProteinsAshley explains making extra waffles and freezing them for later toaster use, bulk-baking breakfast sausage to microwave on demand, and marinating pork and lamb chops in advance — keeping most prep time to 15-20 minutes.4:594. Moving During Cook Time and Ditching Prepackaged FoodAshley mentions doing Zumba, YouTube workouts, or walking the dogs while food cooks, and shares how she replaced Hamburger Helper with a homemade version that's cheaper, healthier, and takes the same amount of time.6:595. Prepping and Freezing VegetablesAshley describes cutting and freezing peppers, onions, peas, and carrots in advance so meals come together faster, noting she loves cooking but runs a business and has to be efficient.8:106. 14-Day Meal Planning with a Grocery ListAshley explains how she and her husband pick seven recipes with leftovers every two weeks, shop with a 14-day list, and avoid locking into specific days — reducing food waste, spending, and the 'what's for dinner' question.10:207. Cook Once, Eat Twice — Lasagna and Meatloaf StrategyAshley describes always cooking with leftovers in mind — making two lasagnas at once (one for now, one frozen) and cutting a large meatloaf in half to freeze, so busy days are covered without needing to cook.12:218. The Spreadsheet System and Closing ThoughtsAshley describes building a spreadsheet of every meal she knows how to cook, each linked to a recipe, as a front-loaded system that now means mealtime doesn't stress her out — and invites listeners to share their own meal prep approaches at famousashleygrant.com/fitness.

Open full transcript

Mentioned in this episode

companySam's Club

Where Ashley buys 10 pounds of chicken breast at a time for bulk par-cooking.

websitefamousashleygrant.com/fitness

Ashley's site where she invites listeners to share their meal prep and fitness journeys with her.

productHamburger Helper

A prepackaged meal Ashley and her husband used to eat early in their marriage, which she replaced with a homemade version she says is cheaper, healthier, and takes the same amount of time.

websiteYouTube

Where Ashley finds exercise routines to do while her food is cooking.

Key themes

Staying out of the drive-thru

Ashley frames the entire episode around one personal goal: keeping herself away from fast food and restaurants, not as a diet rule but because she doesn't want the extra calories and cost that come with eating out.

Par-cooking and velveting chicken

Ashley describes buying 10 pounds of chicken from Sam's Club, coating it in baking soda to tenderize it, baking it all plain, and adding sauces per meal later — like the chicken tikka she made with only 15 minutes of active time.

Freezer as the backbone of the kitchen

Ashley repeatedly returns to freezing things — waffles, breakfast sausage, marinated meats, cut vegetables, lasagna, meatloaf — as the core mechanism that makes fast home cooking possible on busy days.

Active cooking time vs. total cook time

Ashley distinguishes between how long she has to stand in the kitchen versus how long food takes to cook, arguing that 15-20 minutes of active effort is manageable even when the full meal takes 45 minutes.

Moving while food cooks

Ashley mentions using passive cook time to do Zumba, YouTube workouts, or walk the dogs — tying meal prep directly back to the podcast's movement theme.

Homemade over prepackaged

Ashley shares how she replaced Hamburger Helper with a homemade version that costs less, tastes better, and takes the same amount of time — and applies this logic broadly to avoid prepackaged food.

14-day flexible meal planning

Ashley and her husband pick seven recipes with leftovers every two weeks and shop with a 14-day list, deliberately not locking into specific days so they reduce food waste and always know what ingredients they have.

Cook once, eat twice

Ashley always makes more than one meal's worth — two lasagnas at a time, a meatloaf cut in half and frozen — so there's always a backup for busy days without needing to cook from scratch.

Front-loading systems to reduce mealtime stress

Ashley describes building a spreadsheet of every meal she knows how to cook, each linked to a recipe, as a one-time investment that now means she never stresses about what to eat.

Not diet culture

Ashley explicitly frames her approach as not about restriction or diet rules, but about making sure she gets the food she wants without the extra cost, calories, and butter that come with restaurant meals.

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