It may be more cost effective to buy whole vegetables and prepare them yourself, but buying riced cauliflower or pre-spiralized zucchini noodles can save you tons of time during meal prep. While these types of specialty items used to be nearly impossible to find, they’re available practically everywhere now. Many major food companies offer frozen riced cauliflower and riced broccoli that you can find in your local grocery store’s freezer section, right next to the regular frozen vegetables. Trader Joe’s also offers refrigerated riced cauliflower and broccoli that you can use right away. More and more grocery stores are jumping on board and offering pre-spiralized vegetables, like zucchini and beets, in the produce section.
Keep in mind that pre-prepped vegetables usually expire faster than whole vegetables, so if you’re going this route, make sure you plan to use them up as soon as possible. If you’re shopping a week or two in advance, it might be better to buy vegetables in their whole forms and cut them closer to when you’ll be using them.