Meal Preparation Methods

When it comes to healthy eating, there’s one strategy that rules them all – it’s meal planning! But instead of doing meal preparation methods for five days of the week, what you’re going to learn is how you can prepare individual ingredients. This will save you lots of time and also provide you with variety on the kinds of meals you can create for the rest of your week. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do meal preparation methods using a couple of ingredients that you can easily prepare in just less than 2 hours. Using all the meal preparation methods and your ingredients, all it takes is a bit of creativity to combine them with fresh produce or any items that you have in your fridge or pantry. If you do the meal preparation methods you’ll certainly have a meal variety and also save time!

Meal Preparation Methods

Roasted Veggies

Step #1:

Roasting vegetables is one of the best meal prep ingredients because it’s simple and easy. You just tossed a bunch of veggies into a baking sheet and cook them. We will deal with roasting broccolis, brussel sprouts and red onion with fresh garlic; but you can easily change this set of veggies based on what’s in season or what you prefer.

Step #2:

When it comes to roasting veggies, one thing you can do is to choose veggies that take about the same time of amount to cook, so you can do it simultaneously. Veggies like broccolis, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower and mushrooms all takes about 20 – 25 minutes in a 425 degree F oven. Carrots, beets, potatoes and butternut squash take around 45 minutes. So what you can do is keep these groups of veggies on different trays.

Step #3:

Once everything is sliced and diced into even – sized pieces, you can drizzle them with olive/ avocado oil, season it with salt and pepper before tossing it. Place the veggies on the baking tray and make sure to flat each piece of veggie into a single layer, and try not to make them overlap one another so that they can all be properly baked later on.

Sweet Potato Toast

Step #1:

Sweet potato toast is not just a gluten – free toast alternative, it’s also a great veggie to add into your diet. To make the sweet potato toast slices, you can use a chef’s knife to cut it into even – sizes.

Step #2:

Place the sweet potato slices on the baking sheet in a single layer. Once you have all the sweet potato slices, you can cook it dry or put in a bit of olive oil. Get all the sides coated and set them aside.

Herb Baked Chicken

Step #1:

Get two chicken breasts (add more if necessary) and cover it with olive oil. Season it with salt and pepper.

Step #2:

Sprinkle it with herbs and spices like basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary and garlic powder; you can also add any seasoning you like. Place the chicken breasts in the oven along with your sweet potato.

Putting It All Together

Step #1:

Boil about 1 cup of rice and leave it for a few minutes. Make sure to give it a quick stir before putting the lid on.

Step #2:

By this point, you should flip the sides of the sweet potato in your oven. Check also if your chicken breasts are already cooked. If it is then remove it from the oven and replace it with the veggie tray you made earlier. Heat it up along with the sweet potato.

Step #3:

While your rice is cooking, and your trays are in the oven, you can then start boiling your eggs. Boil the water first before placing the eggs in the pot. Set a timer quickly as they enter the water. This will yield in a more consistent result instead of bringing cold water to a boil with the eggs already in the water.

Step #4:

When it comes to preparing eggs, you need to also have a bowl of ice water so that once you boil the eggs from the pot, you can submerged them into ice water to instantly stop them from cooking.

Step #5:

Check your rice and turn off the heat if it’s done. Let it cool down. Once the eggs are done, make sure to transfer them to the icy cold bowl you’ve prepared.

Step #6:

For the chicken, you can leave it whole or cut it into slices. Once you’re done slicing, you can place the chicken in a glass container as well as the cooked white rice. You can peel the eggs and store them in a glass – lock container as well.

Step #7:

The next step is to remove your veggies from the oven and store it another glass container. Transfer your sweet potatoes as well but make sure that they are all cooled before transferring it to a storage container because it will have quite a bit of moisture and you don’t want it to get too soggy. You can also add a paper towel to absorb any moisture.

Spreads, Snacks and Dressings

Almond Butter

Step #1:

For the almond butter, you just need to roast 4 cups of almond butter for 10 minutes. Let it cool then blend it on high for 1 minute.

Step #2:

Place the creamy almond butter on a jar so you can use it as a spread.

Hummus

Step #1:

For the hummus, you just need to roast 4 cups of hummus for 10 minutes. Let it cool then blend it on high for 1 minute.

Step #2:

Place the creamy almond butter on a jar so you can use it as a spread.

Veggie Sticks

You can use celery and carrot sticks as snacks with your hummus or almond butter as a spread or dip. Just chop up slices of celery and carrots. Once you do that, place the carrots and celery sticks in a jar and fill it with cold water so that it can stay crisp for about 5 to 7 days.