Meal Prep 101: the Ultimate Meal Prep Guide for Beginners and How Planning Meals Ahead Can Change Your Life! Recipes Included (2020)

• Saves time and money:
  The most obvious and prominent goals of meal prepping is the fact that it saves you a ton of time, literally! Now, you can squeeze in time for workouts, socialising or simply relaxing after work. Eating out affects your pocket and health for obvious reasons. Weekly meal prep is one of the most economical ways to save money by making homemade food.


• Saves you from stress and helps you to eat healthy:
  Life is so much easier when you know that you are prepared with the food for the rest of the week, isn’t it? Needless to say, meal prepping is a life saver in your tight schedule and busy routine. If you have meal prepped for the week, then it literally frees up mental space and energy for you. By meal prepping you are always ready to serve healthy, nutritious and tasty meals with minimal ingredients and much less time.


• Reduces food waste:
  Cooking if not properly planned, leads to a lot of food wastage. This is especially true in the case of cooking by beginners. Most of the time, the 10 different veggies in the fridge go bad, while you are busy fixing up a recipe with one single vegetable for a meal. By having an overlap of prepped ingredients over the week, you can easily create delicious and healthy dishes!

Tips:

• Always keep it simple - there is no point in stressing yourself to getting it all done by choosing a very complex and hard to do dish!


• Stick to familiar recipes - This applies especially to people who are newbies at meal prepping. It is best to initially stick to familiar dishes than to take the tension to explore new and innovative recipes.


• Start with meal plan for a day - Its natural that you may feel overwhelmed at this point, especially if the whole idea of meal planning is totally new to you. We suggest that you start off with meal planning for a single day, and then gradually move to doing it for a whole week later on.

Tips:

• Always choose to have glass containers rather than plastic. They are more durable, safe for the environment, are stain free and are safe for use in the freezer and the oven!


• If you wish to use plastic containers, then make sure they are BPA free and suitable for food storage and consumption.


• Make sure they have air tight lids and are clear or see through.


• 2 or 3 compartment containers are great for meal prepping, as you can store more than one food item in a single container. This helps in reducing the space required for storing the ingredients.

Tips:

• Decide to do grocery shopping on the weekend, or on any day that you have some extra time.


• Raid your fridge, freezer and pantry before writing down the grocery list. This saves you a lot of money and prevents wastage from buying the same ingredients twice.


• Gradually stock up your kitchen with staples for Indian cooking like spices and pulses, so that grocery shopping in a week mostly includes only fresh produce.

• Peel and chop onions:
  Almost all recipes in any Indian dish call for the use of onions. Peel, clean and chop onions to store them in clean meal prep containers. Store them in the fridge.


• Make ginger garlic paste:
  Again, a necessity in almost all dishes, pre-prepared ginger garlic paste will make things easy for you in the kitchen.


• Puree tomatoes:
  You can puree tomatoes with or without blanching them. This will provide for a perfect puree of tomatoes that can be used in the recipes for the week.


• Clean and store herbs:
  If you clean and store herbs like coriander, mint and curry leaves, you can save the time required every time for cleaning them while cooking. Make sure to dry them up well after washing to make them remain fresh for long.


• Cut and store veggies and fruits:
  You can clean, cut and store vegetables and fruits properly for the recipes according to your meal plan. Always make sure to wipe clean the veggies and fruits before cutting them. It is important to take out any moisture left in them after washing.


• Boil eggs and cook meat:
  If you are a non-vegetarian, then your dishes call out for eggs or meat in the recipes. You can boil eggs or marinate your meat as part of meal prepping. Alternatively, you can also batch cook meat like chicken. This will be really helpful for quickly making sandwiches.


• Soak and batch cook pulses and dal:
  Indian cooking involves quite a lot of pulses, grains and lentils like dal, green gram, chana, etc. So, you can soak, batch cook them and store them in the freezer for later use. Also, it is a good idea to simply soak the pulses and freeze them.


• Prepare the chapati dough and the dosa/idli batter:
  Kneading the roti or chapati dough is a tiresome process, especially if you are already late for dinner or lunch! So, plan ahead and prepare the dough well in advance. Make sure to cover it in a cling film and then place it in an airtight container while storing in the fridge. Also, you can make the fermented dosa and idli batter once, and use it throughout the week.

Ingredients:

• Eggs - 2
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Chopped green chilli and coriander - 1 tbsp
• Chopped chicken sausage - 2 tbsp
• Chopped spring onion - 1 tbsp

Instructions:

• Place all the ingredients in a mason jar and store in the fridge. When you are ready to cook, shake the ingredients well. Cook in the microwave first for one minute, give a stir and then cook again till the eggs are done.

Ingredients:

• Boiled and grated potato - 3-4 tbsp
• Chopped onions - 2 tbsp
• Chopped coriander - 1 tbsp
• Turmeric, garam masala powder - ¼ tsp each

Instructions:

• Saute the onions, coriander leaves and spices in a pan. Add the potatoes. Place them between bread slices and toast the sandwich for a light crunch.

Ingredients:

• Sweet potato - 1 cup
• Boneless cubed chicken pieces - 2 cups
• Capsicum - 1 ¾ cups
• Green beans - 1 ½ cups
• Broccoli - 3 cups
For seasoning:
• Olive oil - 5 tbsp
• Chilli powder - 2 tsp
• Onion powder, garlic powder (you can use grounded onion and garlic), ground cumin - ½ tsp each Shredded cheese - 3/4 cup (optional)

Instructions:

• Place all ingredients in a baking tray. Season it. Cook in a preheated oven for 20-30 minutes at around 200 degrees.

Ingredients:

• Cooked chana - 1 cup
• Chopped onion - 1 cup
• Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
• Whole spices - Bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cardamom, cloves, cumin, ajwain (1/2 tsp each)
• Tomato (chopped or pureed) – 2 medium size
• Green chillies - 2-3
• Spices - turmeric, red chilli powder, garam masala powder - ½ tsp each

Instructions:

• In a heated pan, add oil and whole spices. Saute the onions, ginger garlic paste for a while. Add the tomatoes and green chillies, followed by the spice powders. Finally add the cooked chana and cook for a while. Garnish with coriander leaves.