By Sara
Easy plant-based meal prep can ensure you make healthy choices throughout the week. Setting yourself up for success makes your busy work week just a little bit easier. There is no reason to ride the struggle bus if you can easily avoid it!
I find myself leaning more on processed foods and convenience foods when I don’t meal prep ahead of time. These are lower in fiber and overall nutrients, even though they are vegan. The vegan junk food game has gotten stealthy!
Here are some tips I’ve used to ensure success in sticking to a healthy eating plan and lifestyle that I hope you will find useful as well!
“Far from being restrictive, this way of life has the power to expand the array of foods you eat.”
Whole Grains:
Each week I make a whole grain to use in my recipes through that week. I cook this in my instant pot to speed the process, and add whatever seasonings I’d like— dried spices go in prior to cooking, sometimes with a little veggie broth substituted for the water when I cook it. Once it is finished cooking, I can add more flavor with some citrus juice, and fresh herbs.
Legumes:
Another weekly must have is legumes. I choose some beans or lentils to cook for the week. If I use beans, I normally cook them from their dried state. This allows me more control over sodium content and overall what is in them. I will soak beans for 24 hours prior to cooking, changing out the soaking water about three times. This not only helps to reduce gas, but also prevents the beans from splitting during cooking. Again these are flavored with onions, garlic, cumin, epazote, or whatever other spices I’d like to taste during the upcoming week. Again my Instant pot is used to make this process much faster.
While the grains and legumes are cooking, I’ll wash and roast or steam potatoes for the upcoming week, these are great to help fill you up, and can easily be added to salads or eaten as sides. Some weeks will be a variety of sweet potatoes, some weeks will be white, red or yellow potatoes, and some weeks will feature both. Easy plant-based meal prep just has a few components to keep in mind.
Sauces:
Next, I’ll make 2-3 sauces to flavor my meals throughout the week. This will include one salad dressing, which I love making with fresh fruits and seasonings in the blender (sometimes I even throw some beans in there for the creamy quality they add). Hummus of all different flavors is a frequent part of our meals and snacks. Cheese sauces made with nuts and seeds (sometimes even substituting white beans in the recipes works well also, and has a benefit of reducing fat. All of these are easily made in a blender, most with no cooking required! The sauces can be used in combination with each other for more complex flavor profiles. They keep the variety of the foods we eat ever changing, and keeps us from getting bored.
Fruit:
We purchase enough fruit to incorporate into our smoothies and oatmeal, as well as for snacks throughout the week. Sometimes these even go into nice cream for a guilt-free evening dessert, especially when they are starting to get overripe. Costco has been a lifesaver for this, so we can get enough fruit at reasonable prices, and their organic selection is ever-expanding. They have a good variety of frozen fruits and vegetables at good prices too, so they are a weekly shopping trip for us to keep our kitchen stocked with enough fresh foods to eat.
Veggies:
Beyond this, I will have a good variety of greens and veggies that I’ll have washed, sliced, or chopped and ready to use. This makes salads, bowls, snacks, and recipes come together that much quicker during the week. This task is completed quickly with a chopper or with my food processor. Both make the meal prep much quicker and easier!
When batching, I try to make an extra couple of servings so that I can freeze some grains and legumes, making for an effortless meal later after they thaw. This way, every couple of months I can have a weekend without any prep other than cleaning and chopping fresh fruits and veggies for the week, as well as making a salad dressing (additionally, some of the sauces can be frozen).
We vary the lentils, whole grains, fruits, and veggies on a weekly basis to make our meals continue to be exciting, and pick a wide color variety to amass the benefits that the different phytonutrients offer while making our food work for us.
As you can see, a plant-based diet does not need to be overly complex or time-consuming. Easy plant-based meal prep is at your fingertips.
Are you ready to try switching to a healthy vegan lifestyle? We’d love to help you through the process so that it comes easier to you than it was for us.
Please follow us on Instagram for tricks and tips, as well as motivation for continuing this as a habit you enjoy. Far from being restrictive, this way of life has the power to expand the array of foods you eat, as you try new foods that you’ve never had previously.
