Where my meal preppers at?

2

Replies

  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    Looks tasty! "Grain + veg + meat" is a staple format. Next time I swing by Publix I think I'll grab some barley, or maybe some farro. I wish Aldi carried more variety in grains, but it's all rice and quinoa at my local.
  • As we three are now home all the time, I do a lot more partial prep than full prep.

    Right now I have a large bowl of chicken stock chilling to separate the schmaltz overnight. (I keep the schmaltz in the freezer and use it for chicken pie crusts). Tomorrow I'll make enchiladas for next week, because I'll be out of town most of the day and not feel like cooking that night. So "toss it in the oven and eat it when it's done" is right up my alley. I premake the fillings for tacos and burritoes, premake rice and there's always a quichecake in the fridge for breakfasts and one in the freezer for when the one in the fridge is done. It's a kind of a hybrid mashup of a savory cheesecake and a quiche. The one in the fridge right now is turkey breakfast sausage and chopped spinach and onions. The one in the freezer is leftover gyro loaf with onions and chopped tomatoes and feta cheese and a hefty spoonful of tzatziki sauce stirred into the batter. It works out about 350 calories a slice, and that's enough to keep my boyfriend coding for five hours happily without a snack, so it works for us.
  • weatherking2019
    weatherking2019 Posts: 943 Member
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    Bento style: Brown rice topped with asparagus, scrambled eggs, turkey ground. I cook the meat with soy sauce, sake, sugar and ginger.
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,613 Member
    I bake chicken breasts to use for lunch meat or in dinner casseroles, prep casseroles or meat, roast veggies. We like burger patties, taco meat, chicken nóodle casseroles with veggies, enchilada casserole, spaghetti, pot of beans or soup...all of these can be prepped ahead. I'll chop different veggies and put in a glass dish to heat in a few minutes.
  • LenGray
    LenGray Posts: 841 Member
    I made up some meals to support my second week of being vegan! Enchiladas, kale-chickpea sandwich spread, lentil soup, and kale salad with pomegranate.
  • MsCzar
    MsCzar Posts: 1,039 Member
    acpgee wrote: »
    Another useful partial prep I do is caramelized onions....

    Freeze in silicon ice cube trays or muffin tins and transfer to a ziplock bag once frozen. You can also freeze a thin slab in a ziplock bag to break off as much as you need when cooking.

    Useful for adding flavour to soups, sauces, braised dishes. Defrost a little in the microwave to use as a onion marmalade type spread that goes well with cheese sandwiches.

    I tried this today! I was a little surprised at how much 6 onions reduced down - almost like a smooth onion spread. Not really sure what I'll use it for, but I've now got a flat Ziploc bag ready for the freezer.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,551 Member
    MsCzar wrote: »
    acpgee wrote: »
    Another useful partial prep I do is caramelized onions....

    Freeze in silicon ice cube trays or muffin tins and transfer to a ziplock bag once frozen. You can also freeze a thin slab in a ziplock bag to break off as much as you need when cooking.

    Useful for adding flavour to soups, sauces, braised dishes. Defrost a little in the microwave to use as a onion marmalade type spread that goes well with cheese sandwiches.

    I tried this today! I was a little surprised at how much 6 onions reduced down - almost like a smooth onion spread. Not really sure what I'll use it for, but I've now got a flat Ziploc bag ready for the freezer.

    The last couple of times I used my frozen caramelized onions

    1. A quick onion gravy to go with a roast. Make a roux, stir in some of the caramelized onion and milk and crumble in part of a stock cube to taste. If there are lots of pan juices use that instead of the stock cube. Freeze leftovers.

    2. Homemade ketchup. Boil down some tinned tomato with quite a lot of the caramelized onion. Flavour with cider vinegar, sugar and salt to taste and any other seasonings you fancy. Freeze leftovers.

    3. Tonight I am making Vietnamese canh soup as a veggie side for asian dish and will be adding some caramelized onion to that. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/how-to-make-vietnamese-canh
  • weatherking2019
    weatherking2019 Posts: 943 Member
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    Zoodles with cream sauce and chicken sausage over sautéed cabbage
  • NurseTaco_RN
    NurseTaco_RN Posts: 7 Member
    I like to prep breakfasts for the whole family because I know they're one area where my family struggles. This week I made a taco style egg bake, tortillas, and homemade granola.
  • firephoenix8
    firephoenix8 Posts: 102 Member
    I cook for one and I don't love cooking, so meal prep is the only way for me. I do it like the OP says; I prepare a meal that has a defined number of servings and portion it out into containers so it can be my meals for the week. Usually I make two things and I alternate them, one for lunch and one for dinner. I try to be constantly trying new things so I don't get bored. For me it's important to have things portioned out into containers even if I'm eating at home because otherwise it's just leftovers and it's more complicated to figure out how much to eat and it's a different head space to eat leftovers than to eat "the meal I prepared in advance".

    This week, I'm doing a pot roast in the crock pot with carrots, little heirloom potatoes, and onions as one meal. I may end up freezing half of it because it was a big roast, idk, it's not done yet. The second meal is "Skillet Gnocchi with White Beans and Chard", which is an eating well recipe. I follow the recipe pretty exactly: to make it meal prep, I separate the gnocchi out into 4 small containers, prepare the sauce part which is onions, garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of white beans and a diced bunch of red or rainbow chard (put in last and wilted) and separate that into 4 medium sized containers. When I'm ready to serve it, I put the sauce and gnocchi together with shredded mozzarella and parmesan and warm it up.

    Other favorites include:
    Beef and bean chili (kidney beans, mushrooms, barley, calls for beer but I usually use red wine, makes 6 servings)
    Mashed potatoes (3 lb bag of russet potatoes with 1/2 cup of milk and 2 T butter makes 6 servings) - if you have the calories you can add some melted cheese on top
    Kale, sausage and lentils - not a soup as the liquid reduces down
    Lentils, carrots, diced tomatoes as a soup with spinach added at the end (for meal prep, you keep the spinach in separate containers)
    Quinoa and garbanzo beans as the base for a cold salad or whatever vegetables you love: I like bell peppers, tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers (I don't like salad dressing but YMMV)

  • 2furryfriendz
    2furryfriendz Posts: 283 Member
    edited January 2021
    I can't have the same thing every day so I make a couple of different recipes then I make something else during those off days.
    This is my egg roll in a bowl and Greek Turkey meatballs plus homemade tzatziki sauce ( not pictured) zdq4syuec1rv.jpg
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,551 Member
    I do a lot of partial meal prepping. I make shellfish bisque on the weekends when I have a large bag of prawn shells saved up in the freezer and freeze in small portions. I make herb oils to rescue soft herbs like coriander, parsley, basil or mint when they are starting to look sad and wilted. The herb oils keep in the fridge for a few weeks. Makes a dinner like this very quick to pull together on a weeknight. Pan fried fish (cod tonight) served on a bed of tinned beans warmed up in bisque with any chopped leftover veg thrown in. Garnish of gremolata (best made fresh) and coriander oil.
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  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,646 Member
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    Made a batch of lentil, sweet potato and spinach soup. That will be lunch for today for hubby and I.
  • erosemiller314
    erosemiller314 Posts: 48 Member
    Hello Meal Preppers! I am very new to meal prepping. I am trying to meal prep for both my husband and myself and so I need things where I can easily make different size portions. Also I am finding that when I Google search for meal prepping ideas, it is a lot of what my husband would call "fancy" food. hahaha! Could anyone recommend some blogs or YouTube channels that include recipes and/or meal prepping that would work for couples that are not super outside my husband's comfort zone? Or what key words should I be using when searching?
  • erosemiller314
    erosemiller314 Posts: 48 Member
    I can't have the same thing every day so I make a couple of different recipes then I make something else during those off days.
    This is my egg roll in a bowl and Greek Turkey meatballs plus homemade tzatziki sauce ( not pictured)


    I would love recipes or just the ingredients for both of these! They look delicious!
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    edited January 2021
    Hello @erosemiller314! I don't know what your husband considers "fancy," so I'm not sure I can be much help on that front. Is he one of those guys that thinks it's somehow un-manly to eat vegetables?

    I'm not the one that posted the egg roll in a bowl but I'm planning to make the same thing next week for our lunches, and here's the recipe I'm going to follow.

    For 10 servings:
    2 lbs ground pork
    8 cups shredded cabbage and/or coleslaw mix (depends on how big the cabbages I can find are)
    3 tablespoons minced ginger
    3 tablespoons minced garlic
    4 tablespoons soy sauce
    Scallions to taste

    Method: Just put it all in a big ol' pot. Brown the pork, add the cabbage and saute until soft, add the ginger and garlic and finish with soy sauce. You might want to work in batches depending on how much you're making/how big your pots are.

    Serve with duck sauce and sriracha. I may get some kind of crunchy vehicle to serve this egg roll filling upon, like baked pita chips or something. I haven't decided yet.

    I prepped Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, and roasted broccoli with parmesan cheese for lunch this week - 8 servings, under 600 cals apiece, and just using a standard recipe for everything, no weird ingredient tricks or substitutions. I used 2 lbs of beef to make 16 patties, 2 per meal, and 2 heads' worth of broccoli florets (I didn't include the stems, although they are perfectly edible). I put the broccoli on top of the steak and potatoes in our little prep containers, so you gotta eat your way down through the green stuff to those delicious beef nugs and buttery potatoes, bwahaha. Though the shredded parm does help those little trees go down easier - and just 10g of cheese per serving is plenty.
  • 2furryfriendz
    2furryfriendz Posts: 283 Member
    I can't have the same thing every day so I make a couple of different recipes then I make something else during those off days.
    This is my egg roll in a bowl and Greek Turkey meatballs plus homemade tzatziki sauce ( not pictured)


    I would love recipes or just the ingredients for both of these! They look delicious!

    @erosemiller314 .. sorry for the late reply.

    Greek Turkey Meatballs
    https://www.skinnytaste.com/greek-turkey-meatballs/

    Egg roll in a bowl
    https://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/keto-egg-roll-in-a-bowl/

    I get a lot of my recipes on Skinnytaste.com.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,551 Member
    I just made pho broth from 1.5 kg beef soup bones ordered from the butcher. Too much work for the amount of stock I got. Next time will triple the order from the butcher.
  • erosemiller314
    erosemiller314 Posts: 48 Member
    I can't have the same thing every day so I make a couple of different recipes then I make something else during those off days.
    This is my egg roll in a bowl and Greek Turkey meatballs plus homemade tzatziki sauce ( not pictured)


    I would love recipes or just the ingredients for both of these! They look delicious!

    @erosemiller314 .. sorry for the late reply.

    Greek Turkey Meatballs
    https://www.skinnytaste.com/greek-turkey-meatballs/

    Egg roll in a bowl
    https://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/keto-egg-roll-in-a-bowl/

    I get a lot of my recipes on Skinnytaste.com.

    Thank you!! I'm excited to try both!