Quick & Easy Meal Prep Ideas + My Top Tips!
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If meal prep is supposed to make life easier, why is learning how to meal prep SO daunting? Instead of chasing an …
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What’s your biggest challenge with meal prep!?
So good to have people like you motivating to eat healthy. Loved the quinoa idea. I made the spaghetti and veggies came out so good. I added some vegan meatballs I had in the freezer and whole olives. I am ready to work tomorrow. Thank you.
Thank you!
Would love a video of freezer meals or food prep for if you're expecting some sort of life event that will keep you from being able to easily cook (like a surgery, a new baby, house renovation etc). If you have a video like this already perfect!
Really love this recipe so much. I would definitely love to make it. It's looking certainly fabulous and tempting.| Indeed easy to follow with all simple ingredients and your presentation is fantastic and attractive. Thanks for sharing this recipe. 💖Stay connected.💖
Garlic Chicken …Quinoa? Sounds yummy 🙂 Having the grain pre-prep'd will definately help!
For me, meal prep is more about getting dinner on the table in a timely manner after work & having lunches for work days – these are my pain points. So an important component is planning – what meals can be thrown together quickly on a work day or prepared partially in advance? What can I intentionally make more of so I have leftovers to use? I agree, preparing protein components is key for time saving. I find the carb/starch less critical. Some veggies need to be partially prepared for those quick meal days, but I find veggies easy otherwise 🤷♀️ As you say, we are all different & need to find what serves us!
love your approach! It's refreshing to watch someone that really wants to help and not sell you on a quick "fix"
SOOOO happy to see you again in 2022, Alyssia! Thank you for keeping it real and consistent with your messaging. These recipes are perfect for introducing more veggies into my family's meals this year (a goal for me)!
Meal prep has made my life so much easier, but I definitely don't do the perfect little containers for every meal. Basically I just think of it as, whenever I cook I do it like I'm cooking for a family of 4 (we're only 2). Then I put the leftovers into containers similar to the way meal peppers do, but instead of doing it all in one go it just means I cook a few times a week instead of every day. Those leftovers make up our lunches and I also prep huge batches to freeze of child, curry, pasta sauce, soup, etc. Makes it so much easier than cooking for 4 hours every Sunday.
Alyssia, I was curious if you are open to a suggestion: making another college meal prep, using only a microwave? I moved in today and Lord it is so different and hard not having a normally equipped kitchen nearby! Thanks for the video!
My biggest struggle is my poor health combined with fussy kids! I don't have any idea when I'll have bad days and not be able to cook, so I keep easy cook foods around, but then the meal prepped good often goes bad over the flare up. The guilt at wasting food got to me so I stopped prepping, but we're eating less veggies etc and now I'm guilty about that too…!
Thank you. Biggest challenge is what to prep. 😊
Letting go of attachment to recipes is definitely what I struggle with. I say as I'm trying to write the ingredients for each recipe 😅
I am exhausted all lf the time. A food processor is my best friend. It does 90% of the work. I buy a bunch of onions, peppers, carrots, etc and do them all at once and freeze them. My veggies arent pretty, but they're chopped and available to use whenever I need to cook. Before I would just skip veggies entirely.
Meal prep for me is less about preparing weekly meals and more about preparing to make cooking easier/faster whenever I have the motivation and energy to do so.
Hi Alyssia,
I can never get my Quinoa to look like yours does. Not sure why. I follow the cooking instructions and it ends up either still hardish or a texture I find unpalatable. Do you use Black rice at all? I love it. Thanks for your help
I just recently found your channel and love it 😍👍been binge watching lol
The biggest challenge is actually buying, carrying and finding the products you need lol 😂
The recipes look 👀 so gorgeous and delicious. I love quinoa you can literally eat it with anything. One time I actually melted Nutella chocolate and ate it with bananas and strawberries 😌 your pasta looks like something you get at an expensive restaurant.
Something I started doing (which got at something I struggled with: finding the motivation to chop veggies) is to chop more than what I need when I'm cooking, so I can have a "day off" from prepping vegetables. So, I'll chop extra onions/zucchini/garlic/whatever that I'm using for one meal, then use those veggies in a different meal over the next few days.
Alyssia, your noodles look simply gorgeous. It reminds me of spaghetti or chow mein.
I started to meal prep. I didn’t do the hole meal. Just veggies.
ADHD makes meal prep difficult for me. Things are a little different for me that when I was in my 20s with less financial stability. Now that I have money to spend on food, I had to revamp my entire meal planning.
ADHD brains tend to get things done when the task is New, Interesting, or Urgent.
For me, meal prepping and eating balanced meals just gotta to be interesting enough to be new and not urgent enough where I am ravenous.
I go through phases where meal prep works for me and other phases where I just need quick foods to whip up. I rarely make big batches of food because my brain likes New and Interesting food most days.
For Snacky Phases, I always have on hand carrots, celery, apples, nut butters, chips, bars, single containers of cottage cheese or yogurt, string cheese, etc. This takes care of food when I find food to be Urgent (must sustain!)
For Meal Prep weeks, I have about 20 meals in my head that I like to make (which is enough variety for me (New) and individually chop up the ingredients (as I am Interested enough to do them) and stick them in the freezer. I have on hand, all the pantry items I need. That way, I have the foundation of my meals ready to throw in a pot.
If my kitchen is getting too full with food, I go on a No Spend Challenge (when the mood strikes (Interesting!) and make all sorts of crazy dishes with whatever is in the pantry.
Also, music playing always keepsy brain stimulated enough to stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure my food is cooked well.
Monday video yes I love earlier video in the week.