Meal Prep. Oh, the gloriousness that is an afternoon full of cooking!! Yes, it is time consuming. Yes, it takes planning. Yes, you are in the kitchen for the hours you set aside to take on the task. And I say it is a beautiful and delicious thing!
I don’t meal prep every week, although I try to meal plan. This ensures a healthy plan for weeknight dinners and helps me organize my shopping list. Although I do work from home, so have it much easier than most, it’s hard to think of ‘what’s for dinner’ at the end of the day, especially if you have other things going on (which we always do!). When I don’t meal plan, I often cook the same old things – which isn’t horrible, but begs for variety, or go to the dark side of frozen pizza!
So this weekend, after a Saturday of hiking and brewery visiting, Sunday came & we shopped super early, so I decided to meal prep! The first step to a successful meal prep is to organize your meals with common ingredients. You have a lot of carrots? Incorporate them into two dishes. You want to use up that spaghetti sauce? Don’t be afraid to add to leftovers to spice up your dishes. Second step is to set out all of the ingredients for each and every meal you’ll be making. This way, you can have two things cooking at once, without having to stop and search for the oregano!
I had butternut squash from last weeks grocery haul, leftover beans from yesterday’s breakfast, we bought carrots, peppers & mushrooms in bulk and have been meaning to pre-make something healthy and quick for breakfast….so, came up with the below menu.
If you plan to make all at once, follow the meal-prep instructions – or feel free to make them individually!
Meal Prep Plan – Tackling all 4 recipes at once!
Baked Oatmeal Fruit Cups
Mushroom, Carrot & Barley Soup
Roasted Butternut Squash Curry and Carrot Soup
Chili Roasted Butternut Squash & Black Bean Enchilada Bowls
- Set out all of your ingredients (including fresh, but excluding the almond milk – grab that when you need it), spices, soup pots (2), mixing bowls(1), muffin pan (1) spatulas, roasting pan (1), immersion blender (or blender/cuisine art)
- Prep your veggies. Cut carrots, mushrooms, slice Roma tomatoes, mince garlic, slice peppers. Put in piles or bowls to keep out of your work space.
- Cut butternut squash (follow the below directions for both the Soup & Enchilada recipe) and roast.
- Start your soups – adding the said oils, carrots, spices.
- Add mushrooms to the mushroom barley soup, add the broth to the curry soup.
- While the veggies for the soups are cooking, slice the strawberries and put aside in a bowl.
- Make your oatmeal mix.
- Roast tomatoes & your hot peppers for the enchilada sauce.
- At this point, the soups will be simmering, so you can finish up your baked oatmeal, pop them in the oven with the roma tomatoes to roast (make sure the oven is turned down to 350), then make the enchilada sauce and prep the rice.
- Voila! Today’s prep (with beer breaks and football watching) took about 4 hours total.
Baked Oatmeal & Fruit Cups (took the recipe from The Wholesome Dish, cut the sugar & made it vegan)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 flax seed eggs (how to make a flax seed egg)
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1 1/2 cups of almond milk
2 tablespoons of vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 cups rolled oats
Handful of sliced strawberries
1/4 cup crushed walnuts
1/4 cup of raisins
Directions
- Make your flax seed eggs and put in the fridge so it gels (5-8 minutes)
- Mix the coconut oil, sugar & egg when it’s ready
- Add the milk, vanilla, cinnamon and mix.
- Fold in the oats & baking powder.
- Add 1/4 cup to your muffin pan – use muffin liners or spray the cups.
- Top 1/2 with sliced strawberries, the other half with raisins & walnuts.
- Bake for 30 minutes at 350.
Mushroom, Carrot & Barley Soup
1 1/2 tablespoon Coconut Oil
4 small cloves of garlic, minced
Salt
3 bay leaves
Pepper
4-5 large carrots
4 1/2 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms (button mushrooms would be good too!)
32 Ounces of Veggie Broth
1 cup of water
1 cup of Barley
Directions
- Put the sliced carrots in a large soup pot with the coconut oil & garlic, salt and pepper. Cook with the lid closed for 5-8 minutes.
- Add mushrooms. Cook with the lid open for another 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. The mushrooms will let out liquid, so you want to evenly distribute it.
- Add veggie broth, water, bay leaves, and barley.
- Cook for 20-25 minutes on medium low heat, stirring 2-3 times and cover.
Roasted Butternut Squash Curry and Carrot Soup
Ingredients:
1 medium sized butternut squash sliced in half
4-5 Large carrots, sliced
2 cups of veggie broth
1 cup of water
32 Ounces of veggie broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup of almond milk
Curry powder
Cumin
Salt
Directions:
- Split the butternut squash, scoop of the seeds, then sprinkle each half with a bit of count oil, 1/2 teaspoon of cumin & 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder.
- Bake squash for 30 minutes at 375.
- Add carrots to dutch oven (or soup pot) with 2 tbls of olive oil, 1 tsp of cumin and 1 tsp of curry powder. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
- Add 2 cups of veggie stock to the carrots. Cook for another 10 minutes.
- When roasted squash is done, let cool, peel off skin and add to the soup. Add 32 ounces of veggie stock, along with 1 cup of almond milk (coconut milk or full fat coconut milk would be amazing too!)
- Add another tablespoon of cumin & 1 tablespoon of curry powder.
- Blend your soup with an immersion blender (if you don’t have one, a Cuisinart would work or a blender).
- Cook for another 10-15 minutes. Add salt to taste.
Chili Roasted Butternut Squash & Black Bean Enchilada Bowls
This recipe is a good one to prep for eating the next day or a night during the week. While I was roasting squash for the soup, I roasted another squash for this recipe, but will assemble it completely one night this week. Also, the enchilada sauce took a bit of time (roasting wise) so is good to plan ahead. Same thing goes with the rice. If you have time during the weekend to prep these items, it makes the weeknight meals non-stressful and absolutely delicious! I didn’t actually make this today, but prepped everything for the week.
Enchilada Sauce
5 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1 Jalepeno pepper
1 Red Pepper
1 dried chipotle pepper, re-hydrated (just put it in some water)
Chile powder
2 gloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
Directions:
- Put the sliced roma tomatoes & peppers on a roasting sheet. Sprinkle with chile powder to taste.
- Roast at 350 for 30 minutes.
- Pull out of the oven & let cool a bit, then put in a cuisineart and mix with chipotle pepper & garlic.
- Salt to taste.
Chili Roasted Butternut Squash & Black Bean Bowls
1 can of black beans
1 butternut squash, halved
Chili powder
1 cup of brown rice
2 red peppers, sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Directions:
- Take the halved squash, sprinkle with chile powder, spread a bit of cocunut oil on the flesh, & place on a roasting pan. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.
- Cook the rice.
- When squash is done, let cool and peel off skin.
- When I cook this, I plan to sauce the red peppers for 10 minutes, add the black beans and squash, seasoning with chili powder to taste. Will saute mixture for a good 5-8 minutes.
- I plan to eat this over rice, topped with avocado, kale, tomato and the enchilada sauce (which I’ll most likely heat up!). Will post a picture when I’m done!
Happy Sunday!
