Hello, fellow eco-warriors! 🌿 This week, I'm diving into our Sunday meal prep routine, a cornerstone of our 2024 eco-goals. Our mission? To whip up four days' worth of meals that are not just mouthwatering but also minimise waste, champion seasonal produce (plant-based🌱), and keep us all humming on a busy schedule.
My tips and tricks -
4 days at a time. I prep 4 full days of meals at a time - it's manageable and not overwhelming.
Start with what you have. I always start by playing freezer, fridge and cupboard detective.
Find an ingredient - hit repeat. Thinking of what to cook every week can suck! Find an ingredient, use it more than one way to reduce waste, bulk buy and just make life easier!
Prep the fridge. Got any little (or big) people who like to stare blankly into your fridge - prep fruit, veg and other snack / meals to grab & go.
4 days at a time. I meal prep 4 full days at a time - it's manageable and not overwhelming.
Why four days? It gets us through to late in the week (Friday can be a buy lunch day and throw together dinner) and means everything is still fresh for consumption. I normally plan on saturday and cook on the sunday arvo.
My meal planning includes - dinners, kids lunch boxes🤔, my breakfasts (need to be grab & go) and my grown-up lunches (I prefer a cold salad lunch this time of year - but hearty with loads of protein to keep me going). Kids breakfasts are a bit more whatever goes in the morning - so long as there is one or more of the following options, I don't bother with this in my prep: cereal in the cupboard, yogurt or milk and fruit in the fridge, eggs for scrambling or toast in the freezer.
Start with what you have. I always start by playing freezer, fridge and cupboard detective.
Check the freezer first - the best meal is one you don't have to cook (future you, thanking past you for the convenience). When I freeze it's one-family-meal-size, not too large. Now you're already winning with one meal ticked off the list. My baked cauliflower mac-n-cheese was last week's addition to freezer meals.
Family-friendly mac-n-cheese pasta bake - an absolute winner with my kids. I substitute bechamel sauce with cauliflower puree (you can cook it in the pasta to save time, but I prefer to cook cut-up cauliflower in a touch of stock with some bay leaves), add some nutritional yeast to use less cheese🧀 and get in a few seasonal (not too brightly coloured - you want it to still look 'right'!) veg in there - like leeks, or grated zucchini.
Fridge time. Now it's time for creativity. What's left from last week? Start with any protein, then move to leftover veg. This week we had yogurt and eggs left after I used my yogurt-maker for the first-time last week👏👏. I've seen some of those yogurt dough recipes hit my insta of late so I was keen to try something along these lines.
Enter yogurt-based pizza dough - delish! I also added a yogurt & orange cake (kid lunchboxes), and a yogurt, tahini and lemon dressing (mum lunch) to my mental planning.
Find an ingredient - hit repeat. Find an ingredient, use it more than one way as an eco-friendly approach to reduce waste, bulk buy and just make life easier!
The core of our meal prep philosophy is building around central ingredients we can reuse. For leftover eggs, I immediately thought okonomiyaki for the meal plan list, and boiled eggs for a protein hit to my lunches. Zucchini slice (or my fast and kid-friendly zucchini & grated broccoli omelets) are my other common egg go-to dinners.
Cupboard scan revealed potatoes, so I added baked potato to the mental list. Now I was already buying cheese for pizza, and baked potatoes with leftover cheese for topping had me thinking stuffed spuds with a veg-mex filling.
Now I'm staring at the dry goods looking for red kidney beans and spice mix, and also thinking "What can we whip up with these chickpeas? Have we had rice (curry? stirfry? / noodles (ramen?) lately?"
Prep the fridge. Got any little (or big) people who like to stare blankly into your fridge - prep fruit, veg and other snack / meals to grab & go.
The kids' karate lessons are at dinnertime - meaning I need a go-to reheat for weeknights that can double as lunchbox fillers. A standard go-to here is to grab a kilo or so of chicken thighs, marinade and cook ahead. If you brine the chicken first (rub with salt and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes) I promise it will stay moist in your salads or for reheated meals. This can then get served with veg or salad for a quick weeknight meal, and the rest gets chopped and added to my salads.
Involving the kids is key. They're more likely to eat what they've had a hand in making. Plus, it's a chance to teach them about the joys of cooking and the importance of eating with the seasons.
My prep routine
After our Sunday morning trip to the local farmers' market, I'll wash and chop my salad ingredients, and leave some pre-prepped veg and fruit (separate containers) ready to grab and eat, and also to speed up kid lunchbox prep each morning.
To prevent my made ahead salads going soggy (I'll do all 4 at once);
I'll carefully pour the dressing into a corner of the lunchbox,
add 1-2 proteins - chicken / tuna / boiled eggs / roast chickpeas / kidney beans,
add veg - carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes etc,
finally any greens on top.
For breakfasts - I'm currently into yogurt jars: 160g of yogurt, 30g berries, 20g muesli and 1tbsp pumpkin seeds hit my protein goals and make for an easy take-to-work breakfast.
My overall basic meal prep method
Brine chicken - cut off excess fat, rub with salad, whack back into fridge.
If cooking a cake for lunchboxes - do this now and add to oven first.
Pull out scales and make Mum's yogurt jars.
Wash and chop Mum's salad veg, dinner veg, lunchbox veg sticks.
Wash and chop some fruit.
Prepare half the chicken for the oven (to cook, then leave in fridge or add to Mum salads).
Prepare other half for a dinner (can also add to oven in a bake, or to electric cooker for a curry).
(after cake) Get the chicken or other dinners in the oven and usually add to bottom of the oven a tray of chickpeas or kidney beans to roast for mum salads - keep an eye on these as they probably need to be pulled out before chicken is done.
If doing a no-bake slice for kids lunchboxes - get dinners in the oven then do the slice and whack in the fridge to set.
See if there is anything else you can prep ahead for remaining dinners - okonomiyaki I wouldn't make ahead, but I would finely slice the cabbage and grate in some carrot to it ready to go (check the recipe but we also add any other grated veg lying around and place bacon on top before we flip it).
Pizzas - I'll cook sunday night for dinner then use leftovers for kid lunchboxes.
Join us next week as we tackle another eco-goal. Until then, happy cooking, and may your meals be as nourishing to the planet as they are to your family! 🌍💚
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