Five Things to Meal Prep to Make Your Week Easier.

Do you ever wonder what you could do to make meals a bit easier to handle during your busy weeks?

I’m here to tell you there is! You can meal prep a few foods on the weekend to ease up your time.

Recently I made red lentil dahl and with it, I made a batch of quinoa. One cup of dry quinoa results in about three cups of cooked quinoa.

We didn’t eat all of it, in fact, there was quite a bit leftover so I packed it in a container and stored it in the fridge.

The next morning I wanted to eggs for breakfast so I heated up the quinoa and threw a couple of fried eggs on top.

For lunch a couple of days later, I had the leftover red lentil dahl with more quinoa.

What’s my point? If you cook something like quinoa once, you can get a lot of mileage out of it during the week and you have to think less about what you want to eat.

This is great if you don’t really like to meal plan.

Just cook a bunch of food and eat it together in different forms during the week.

Here are five foods to meal prep on Sunday in larger batches to eat all week.

1. Oats and other grains

My daughter likes oatmeal so I’ll either make her a bigger batch of plain oatmeal (I try to hide cinnamon and chia in it!) or baked oatmeal that she can eat all week.

Oatmeal will keep for longer than you think so make a big batch and if you don’t think you’ll eat it, freeze it.

Eat it with:

berries
nuts
seeds like hemp, sunflower, and pumpkin
real maple syrup

In terms of other grains, it’s super easy to make a big batch and store it all week. Do this with quinoa as I mentioned, rice, buckwheat, and millet.

Once it’s done, you just have to heat and serve.

2. Greens

When you get home from the grocery store, wash your greens and store them in a container with a paper towel or tea towel. Store herbs like cilantro and parsley in the fridge in mason jars filled with water and covered with plastic bags.

When greens are washed you’re more likely to eat them before they get brown and slimy and the paper towel helps them stay fresh for longer.

It’s easy to take handfuls of greens at a time to use as you need them.

Eat them with:

smoothies
salads
on top of grains
as a side dish to your meals
eggs
soups

3. Roasted veggies

Roast a bunch of veggies like sweet potatoes, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and butternut squash and eat them in different ways all week. Once they’re cooked, they’ll last for at least 4 days in the fridge and they’re easy to heat up.

Eat them with:

eggs
salads
tacos
fish
chicken

4. Granola

Making your own granola isn’t as hard as you might think! The benefit is that it’s cheaper and you can control the ingredients and the sugar content. Make a big batch on the weekend to enjoy all week!

Eat it with:

yogurt
milk
fruit
as a snack on the go

5. Cut veggies and prepped fruit

Prepping produce all at once is the best use of your time. Cut carrots and celery and store them in water.

You don’t have to make pretty and even sticks! I just make sure they are washed, trim the ends and store them in water. Easy peasy.

Change out the water once a week and they’ll last a couple of weeks in the fridge!

In terms of fruit, wash strawberries and blueberries and store them in a lined container. I’ve been storing strawberries uncovered in the fridge and they last perfectly fine for the week.

Blueberries last the week if not longer when they’re washed and covered with a lid.

This has been a game-changer for me. We eat them more often and they never go bad anymore.

Eat them with: