meal prep Sunday
/miːl prɛp ˈsʌndeɪ/
Very CommonThe ritual of spending Sunday cooking and portioning meals for the week ahead, widely celebrated and documented on social media.
Can be genuine or aspirational. Some people do it weekly; others post about it once and never again.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | meal prep sunday complete. 5 lunches, 5 dinners, snacks sorted. i am a different person | Finished the weekly cooking ritual and feeling accomplished and organized. | instagram, 2023 |
| 02 | skipped meal prep sunday and now it is wednesday and i have eaten cereal for two meals today | Skipping the Sunday ritual has consequences for the rest of the week. | x, 2024 |
| 03 | watching meal prep sunday videos for motivation while eating chips in bed | Consuming aspirational content without taking action. | tiktok, 2024 |
| 04 | she does meal prep sunday every week. marrying her | Someone's organizational discipline is presented as extremely attractive. | reddit, 2023 |
Use it when
- Describing or showing the act of batch cooking on Sundays.
- Using it as a symbol of having your life together.
- Joking about the aspirational gap between planning and doing it.
Do not use it when
- You cooked on a different day.Use “meal prep” instead.
Origin and context
Grew out of fitness and bodybuilding communities where batch cooking was a practical strategy. Spread to mainstream social media around 2015 to 2018 as health and wellness content took off on Instagram.
- First seen
- mid-2010s
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/meal-prep-sundayUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0