I prep my meals and why you should too

It is time to meal prep again.

It’s been over 15 days that I am back from my 45-day vacation at home and yesterday was the first time I went to shop for groceries. It is not that I have eaten out all these days, or that I just ate ready to eat food, well, I sort of did eat ready to eat food but straight from the freezer. I did have pantry food available and the only things I had to get from the store were some fruits, onion, tomatoes, milk, bread and egg, and some fresh herbs.

I have a small freezer, the kind that comes with a regular refrigerator. And even after eating many meals from the freezer, it is no where near empty. But it is time to stock up again.

Why I freeze my meals

1.      It is convenient.

2.      I shop my pantry and freezer before planning my meals for the week.

3.      It avoids wastage of food.

4.      It saves a lot of time over the week. Since Most of my food is already prepped.

5.      I am mindful of what I eat over the week.

6.      It is cost effective.

7.      I have options for what I want to eat.

8.      Since I have to cook anyways, I make an extra potion that can go starting to the freezer.

 What I prepped for the Week.

Fried Rice – Stir fried veggies for fried rice. So, the day I want to eat fried rice, I simply make rice, add protein (chicken, egg, tofu, paneer) and the cooked veggies and my meal is ready in no time. I have a potion for the freezer and one for the week in the fridge. Well, if it doesn’t get consumed in the next couple of days, this goes straight to the freezer.

Spinach curry Base – This is so I can make Aloo Palak / Palak Paneer / Palak Tofu / Palak Capsicum. I only need to make some bread or Cumin rice.

Freeze Mushrooms and spring onion – I anyways spend time chopping the veggies for the fried rice, so it didn’t take up too much time to clean and prep all that came in the box for the freezer.

Boil Lentils – This is something I do on a monthly basis. I boil lentils and freeze them in portions for a single use. I only have to season the lentils the days I want to eat it.

Peel Garlic

Ginger Garlic Paste

Cut Watermelon and clean grapes.

 It doesn’t sound like much, but it is almost a couple of meals for the freezer.

Do I plan to continue prepping meals this entire week? No. Maybe a vegetable stew. And, I am going to double or triple my recipe so I have some for the freezer.

By doubling the recipe or tripling the recipes, over a period of time, I cook only for 15 days in a month. I think this is great motivation for me to stock up my freezer.

Thank you for reading :)