Why you should start meal prepping!

Meal prepping is essential for me when It comes to my weekday lunches, dinners and sometimes even breakfast. As a student I don't always have time to mix lunch or dinner, and to avoid lazy ordering home meals I try to prepare meals for the whole week.

When I started studying I often ended up ordering in from restaurants because I was studying and I knew that cooking up dinner would at least cost me and hour of shopping, preparing, cooking and cleaning up. This caused me to spend insane amounts of money on food and throwing away what I had at home (because every week i promised myself that I would cook at home but never did). So when i finally discovered meal prepping I realised that even though i might have to spend 2-3 hours (Including cleaning up, and me being incredible slow when it comes to chores, you could probably spend less time on this) on a sunday, I would always have food in my fridge.

So why should you meal prep?

- Save yourself time during the weekdays. Enjoy those 45 minutes you would have spent cooking watching your favorite netflix show

- Save money! Spend that money you would use on ordering food or wasteful food shopping on a new bag, shoes or whatever you love. Or If you simply just have to be more economical, meal prepping will save you a bunch of money. Trust me.

- Healthier meals! Because you get to control what you eat, you know how much salt you are adding, you know how many veggies you are using, how much oil you add etc etc. Restaurant food is almost always (especially if you go for cheaper options) packed with a bunch of hidden stuff that you wouldn't add to your food at home.

- You save the environment! By avoiding take out, you use less plastic. By using up what's in your fridge, You waste less food. You are basically one step closer to becoming Greta Thunberg.

At the beginning of my meal prep journey I did what most people told me was meal prepping, to cook big batches of one or two dishes and portion it out for the week. This didn't work for me, as after day 2 I would get sick of eating the same thing and make something else (or eat out). So again, food waste!

Now I just prepare different components and think about how I can combine them throughout the week. Each item should be combined to make at least 2 meals, and some can be matched with something that can be quickly fixed that day for example pasta that doesn't require much energy to boil.

This week I prepared:

Chili and Italian seasoning marinated chicken

Roasted sweet potato, green beans and broocoli

Mixed salad with apple cider vinegar dressing with Sumac

Chia jam

Chia pudding

Boiled eggs

Yoghurt garlic dressing

This entire meal prep cost me approx 18€, that is about under 2€ per serving.

This is supposed to last me until Thursday, and will be combined with something that i can cook up during the weekday. Greens are added throughout the week as I avoid to wash them before hand, to prevent wilting.

Possible combinations with these ingredients:

- Mixed salad with eggs and added arugula, microgreens and beans. Combine with any of the dressings

- Roasted veggies with chicken

- Chicken salad by mixing some salad ingredients and combining with any of the dressings.

- Grilled salmon (takes less than 30 minutes to prepare) with roasted veggies.

- Oats topped with chia jam

- Cream cheese sandwich topped with chia jam (my favorite combo!)

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Recipes:

Italian seasoning and chilli marinated chicken

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tsp chili powder

-1 tsp basil

-1 tsp oregano

- 1 garlic clove

salt and pepper.

Mix and marinate chicken. Put in the oven until cooked through.

Roasted veggies:

- 3 tsp rosemary

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 4 cloves of garlic

salt and pepper

Roast on a tray in the oven for approx 20 minutes at 220 degrees.

Garlic yoghurt dressing:

- 1 tbsp greek yoghurt

- 1 tsp mayonaise

- 1 tsp garlic powder (I use powder as regular garlic gets stronger in flavor if left for some time.)

- salt and a pinch of sumac

Sumac dressing:

- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

- 1 tsp sumac

- 1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Chia jam:

- 1 dl mashed rasperries

- 2 tbsp chia seeds

- 1 tsp agave syrup