How to make BUDGET MEAL PREPARATION for fitness< HEALTHY EATING HACKS | 9 ingredients for flexible and healthy life, healthy recipes and tips,

hi guys and welcome back to my article or if you're new I'm  Javariasadaf and today we are talking about meal prep now I'm a big fan of meal prep because when it comes to healthy eating there's one strategy that works time and again and that's planning ahead but I probably do meal prep a little bit different than most because instead of prepping the same meal for five days of the week I prep individual ingredients. This still saves me heaps of time in the kitchen but gives me far more variety in my meals throughout the week and I don't know about you but I'd get a little bored eating the same thing for five days in a row so today I'm going to show you nine ingredients that you can meal prep in under two hours on a Sunday with plenty of ingredients prepped in  your fridge all it takes is a little creativity to combine them with fresh produce or items that you have in your pantry for healthy meals that take less than five minutes to make and if you do meal prep this way you'll have greater nutrient variety your tummy will be happy and you'll still save time in the kitchen and I think that's a winning combination so let's dive in and 

I'll show you what I've meal prepped this week to make meal prep as 

efficient as possible I always recommend a little planning before you get started this includes getting all of your ingredients out and ready and writing down a few notes like what you plan to make any appliances you'll need and how long it will take to prepare or cook.

once you've written your notes you'll be able to see which items take the longest or which you can work on simultaneously.

Roasted vegetables

because it's so easy to toss a bunch of veggies
onto a baking tray and cook them.
Today I'm roasting broccoli, brussels, sprouts and red onion with a little bit
of fresh garlic but it's so easy to change up the veggies based on what's in
season.

My tip when it comes to roasting
vegetables is to choose those that take
about the same amount of time to cook
broccoli cauliflower brussels sprouts
and mushrooms all take about 25 minutes
in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven and carrots beets potatoes and butternut
squash all take about 45 minutes so you'd want to keep those vegetables on
different trays.
once everything is sliced into evenly sized pieces drizzle with a little olive
oil or avocado oil and season with salt and pepper and give it a good toss
you could do this in a bowl or directly on the baking tray.

just make sure that once the veggies are on the tray they're in a flat single
layer with no overlap and then set them aside.
By the time all that's done our roasted veggies  are done.
so transfer those items to storage
containers as well.

sweet potato toast:

Next we're going to make some sweet potato toast and while sweet potato
toast got a bunch of buzz a few years ago I still haven't stopped making it,
not only is it a great gluten-free toast alternative but it's a great way to
sneak more veggies into your diet which I'm always a fan of.
To make the toast slices you can use either a mandolin or a chef's knife a
mandolin will keep the slices even at about a quarter of an inch while if you
use the chef's knife you can make them a little bit thicker. it's just personal
preference. 

once you've got all of your sweet potato slices add them to a parchment-lined baking tray.
you can cook these dry or with a little bit of olive oil or avocado oil and I
personally like them with a little bit of oil so that's what I'm doing today
and once you've got both sides coated just set this tray aside as well.

By the time all that's done our sweet potato are also done.
so transfer those items to storage
containers as well. 

you do want to let the sweet potato
fully cool before transferring to the container as it will have quite a bit of
moisture and you don't want it to get too soggy I add a paper towel to absorb any excess moisture but the simple fact of the
matter is that these toasts will be soft when you reheat them and I'm okay with
that.

Baked chicken:

I always have some type of protein every
week and this week I'm making my baked chicken with herbs.
I'd say this is one of my go-top's. when it comes to an easy chicken recipe and I make it a few times a month.
Now I'm just baking two chicken breasts

as I'm one person but you can of course
double or triple this for a family. so you'll coat both sides of the chicken
with avocado oil and season with salt and pepper sprinkle on your favorite herbs and spices and I'm using a mix of basil
parsley thyme rosemary and garlic powder but feel free to get creative and if you need a little spice then go for it.
For the chicken you can leave it whole or cut it up into slices or cubes
Since I have an idea of what meals I want to make this week I'll slice it up
right now, again saving me time later in the week

then I'll place the chicken into a glass lock storage container and these are my
favorite meal prep containers as they're glass and spill proof.

stovetop ingredients

While those items are cooking I'll begin the stovetop ingredients and that
includes the white rice and hard boiled eggs or in my case slightly soft boiled
eggs.

white rice 

In terms of a starch or grain I'm making white rice today because that always
does better with my digestion but you could also make brown rice quinoa
lentils or really any other pulses or grains and the great thing is that you
can switch it up every single week at the same time. My rice is cooking. then I'll transfer the white rice to a container as well

 Boil some eggs

I'll heat up another pot of water to boil some eggs but before i do that I'll check on the items in the oven and give my sweet
potato toast a flip.
The chicken should be done by now and I'll use an instant read thermometer to double check if it is, I'll remove it and let it rest and add the tray of broccoli and
brussels sprouts.

so the way I cook eggs is to boil the water first then place the eggs in and
set a timer immediately when they've entered the water. I find this method
always produces the most consistently perfect eggs rather than bringing a cold pot of water to a boil with the eggs
already in the water.
My favorite eggs are six and a half minute eggs or what you might call jimmy
eggs but if you like them harder or softer feel free to adjust the time.

The key with meal prepping eggs though is to have a bowl of ice water nearby that once you remove the eggs from the
pot, you can submerge them in the ice water to instantly stop them from
cooking.
you can peel the eggs now or leave them for later but I'd recommend peeling them now so all you have to do is grab one
for a quick snack or slice it up into a recipe and I'm storing these in a round
glass lot container.
I should also note that my paper towels are unbleached and don't contain any
dyes inks or fragrances which i think is important when using them with food.

snacks and dressings

we've prepped veggies protein and a grain but i think it's also important to
meal prep some spreads snacks and dressings.
so today I'm going to make two items in
my Vitamix Homemade almond butter and homemade
hummus  I've shown you both of these. For the almond butter it's as easy as
roasting four cups of almonds for 10 minutes letting them cool then blending
on high for one minute if you do that you'll have ultra creamy and smooth homemade almond butter.

Homemade hummus is just as easy as homemade almond butter and I'm obsessed with this hummus recipe
it tastes so much better than anything you can buy in the store and it has a
fresh garlic flavor.

 Both this recipe and the almond butter
recipe have their own videos so if you'd like to see the process in more detail
make sure to comment those and I'll link them in the blog post below.

celery and carrot sticks

one of my favorite things to scoop up hummus with is celery and carrot sticks
and it's so much more efficient to chop a bunch of celery and carrots in one
sitting rather than to cut and clean them as needed throughout the week.

The good news is that if you store them in a jar with fresh cold water they'll
also stay crisp for at least seven days
if not longer and because you can easily see them in the fridge you'll be more
likely to grab them when you need a quick healthy snack rather than that
cookie you might be craving.

zucchini noodles

 Last on our list is an ingredient you probably know by now is one of my
favorites and that's zucchini noodles.

zucchini noodles are so versatile and can be used as a main dish with a
Bolognese sauce or as a salad with a light cucumber sauce.

They'll also stay fresh for up to five days in a sealed container
and because they are 95 water I line the bottom of this glass lock container with a paper towel just to absorb any extra
moisture.

Ideas of what you can make

Alright so now that you have these nine ingredients prepped, let me give you a

few ideas of what you can make in less than five minutes by combining them with items you likely already have in your
fridge or pantry.

 

Breakfast or a snack

For breakfast or a snack peel one banana and cut it in half
then slather on some of your homemade almond butter and top that with any type of dried fruit nuts or seeds

Today I'm adding cranberries slivered almonds and a sprinkle of chia seeds for
a snack that totally hits the spot.

lunch

Next up is sweet potato toast and this can be breakfast or lunch for me.
just pop the sweet potato slices in your toaster to warm them up and while that's happening, 

you can slice an avocado and a

radish and grab some baby spinach and
micro greens from your fridge
then just layer it up and top it with a
soft boiled egg.

simple and quick breakfast salad

Next up I have a simple and quick breakfast salad.
just add baby spinach to a bowl and top
that with slices of tomato and avocado
one of your soft boiled eggs and a few
slices of prosciutto.
you can keep it simple like this or spruce it up with some nuts hemp seeds
or a variety of other ingredients and I usually just drizzle it with a
little olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Food munchies strike
when the food munchies strike throughout
the day your jar of fresh carrots and
celery will be staring back at you so
grab those and enjoy your healthy hummus
snack.

 

lunch or dinner

1: For lunch or dinner you can make a chicken macro bowl.
just add several of the ingredients you've already prepped into a bowl
together like the white rice and roasted vegetables along with some fresh baby
spinach.

2: I'll also take two slices of my sweet potato toast and quickly dice those up
to add on top of the salad.
3:  Because the chicken is already sliced you can easily add as much as you'd like
then finish the bowl off with a big
dollop of homemade hummus.

4: For a simple dinner idea you could add
the chicken roasted veggies and white
rice to a plate before heating it up
this is your traditional protein veggie
starch meal it is about as easy and no
fuss as it gets but still packed with
flavor.

5:For another dinner idea that takes less
than five minutes heat up a little olive
oil in a pan with minced garlic
add a few handfuls of baby spinach and
let that wilt down for a minute or two
then add some zucchini noodles and toss
it all together to warm the noodles up

6: you can keep it vegetarian like this or if you'd like more protein just dice up some of your chicken and add it to the sauté pan before serving I like to add a little sprinkle of fresh parmesan cheese and cracked black pepper and just look at how gorgeous this turns out.

so that's my step-by-step meal prep process and what I usually do on Sundays,
the items I prep do change with the seasons. 
All right that's it for me this week.
Roasted vegetables are one of my favorite meal prep ingredients