April Meal Prep
My #1 obstacle to healthy eating is not being prepared. When I prep my lunches for the week, I can usually make myself stick to them. But I’ve gotten so far off track over the last year. Skipping breakfast, hurried mid morning snacks, unhealthy (and expensive) lunch purchases, crazy snack eating between getting home and dinner… you get the idea.
So, it’s time to meal prep. I decided to devote some serious time and energy to prep not just one week’s worth of meals but several. Here’s what I made:
Breakfast Burrito Bowls
I am really excited about these. I love breakfast burritos, but I didn’t want to be eating the carb heavy tortillas every single time I reached for a quick breakfast from the freezer. So I made hearty bowl versions in 12oz mason jars. Each jar has:
- Scrambled eggs
- Chorizo (yum!!)
- Green, red, and orange bell peppers
- Spinach
- Black beans
- Sweet potato chunks
- Gruyere cheese
I made 12 total breakfast burrito bowls and put them in the freezer. Breakfast for 2+ work weeks, done!
Breakfast Burritos
I also made some of the ‘regular’ breakfast burritos (with a tortilla, without some of the other ingredients from the bowls just to make them different). Each burrito has:
- Taco sized tortilla (not burrito size, way too giant)
- Scrambled eggs
- Spinach
- Chorizo
- Green, red, and orange bell peppers
- Goat cheese
I made 10 total breakfast burritos and put them in the freezer. 2 more work weeks of breakfasts, bringing the grand total to 22 breakfasts – that’s pretty much a month’s worth! If you take out the cost of the fancy cheeses, these would be roughly $1.60 per serving. I splurged on the cheese, but justified it because it is making me excited to have delicious breakfasts on hand whenever I want them!
Sausage & shrimp skillet
This has been a go-to recipe for me recently. It is basically slices of kielbasa-style sausage and small tail-off salad sized shrimp sauteed up with lots of veggies. The not-so-secret ingredient: old bay seasoning. Each serving has:
- Thinly sliced kielbasa sausage
- Pre-cooked, tail-off, de-veined shrimp
- Red onion
- Green, red, and orange bell peppers
- Plus – roasted fingerling potatoes w/ olive oil, mesquite seasoning, and sea salt
6 servings made, but I have to admit I don’t think I cut up enough peppers as I would want. More next time for sure. One week of lunches complete!
Rainbow chicken
The beauty of this dish isn’t in the dish itself – but the easy cooking. Basically chop everything, put it all on some giant cookie sheets, roast, done. For this batch I used:
- Chicken breasts coated in a bit of olive oil and dry seasonings
- Green, red, and orange bell peppers
- Red onion
- Cherry tomatoes
- Zucchini
6 servings made, but it will need something else to make it a complete meal – quinoa, brown rice, sweet potato, something. I also am curious on how the zuchini (which I overcooked) and the cherry tomatoes hold up in the freezer/thawing. But it’s okay – I’m not a picky eater and am still excited for the convenience! Another week of lunches done.
And the added bonus of doing 2 weeks worth of lunches at once is that I can have some variety during the week, alternating back and forth between chicken and shrimp/sausage. I don’t mind eating the same thing 5 days in a row if it’s good, but having choices is great too.
Grand results for the weekend
This project probably took me longer than it should have because if my inexperience and my general dislike of cooking. The breakfasts actually seemed quicker than the lunches even though there were more of them. But all in all, two grocery store trips and several hours of chopping and cooking was worth it for 22 breakfasts and 12 lunches. Hopefully I can get back to healthier eating this week having put all this prep work in!
More pictures:
