Meal Prep 101: Easy and Nutritious Meal Ideas to Stay Healthy

For most people who cook for their families, planning the menu is often more difficult than cooking the meal. When you cook a meal, you need to consider your food preferences, family’s health and nutrition, availability of seasonal veggies, and time taken to cook.

Not spending enough time planning meals and cooking your favourite bowls is not only challenging but can have a significant impact on your health. Also, how many people today can afford to spend hours in the kitchen when they have loads of other responsibilities? For those who are not very fond of cooking, cooking healthy nutritious meals recipes and even entering the kitchen might sound daunting.

What if we told you the solution is simple? Yes! It lies in the finest food trend of this season: meal prepping. Meal prepping focuses on planning and preparing your meal beforehand so that you have wholesome bowls packed with nutrients ready to eat.

If you are a beginner at meal prep, you have landed just at the right place. Let’s explore easy and nutritious meal prep 101 ideas and you can pick what suits your taste buds.

Exploring Meal Prep for Our Vegetarian Friends

Let’s start with meal prep ideas that you can explore if you are looking for easy nutritious meals to make for vegetarians.

Ingredients You Must Keep Handy:  

• Cooked Grains 
• Pasta
• Roasted Vegetables 
• Nuts and Seeds
• Cheese
• Sauces and Dips
• Whole Fruits
• Hearty and Fresh Vegetables go vocal for local
• Boiled Legumes

Easy and Nutritious Meal Recipes

With these easy meal ideas keep your taste buds intact:

Lentils and Rice Skillet

Skillet meals are not only healthy but also a mouth-watering meal bowl and useful in weight loss. For this meal prep 101 for weight loss, all you need is rice, lentils, and vegetables of your choice. Cook them together in a single pot/ pressure cooker, and the dish can be stored in the fridge for up to four days. Use an airtight container, warm it up when you want to eat, and top it with a sauce of your choice and roasted seeds. Boom, your meal is ready.

The often-overlooked Khichdi

A nutritional powerhouse that's incredibly easy to prepare, khichdi is rich in health benefits. This simple dish requires equal amounts of rice and your preferred split lentils which could be yellow, green, or red.  Looking for a healthier version, add loads of chopped veggies into the pressure cooker. Perfect for any meal, this comforting blend makes it both wholesome and delicious. Rediscover the goodness of khichdi today!

Classic Burrito Bowls

One thing about burrito bowls that makes them a great meal prep and best diet lunch ideas is their flexibility. You can toss up the bowl with vegetables of your choice. Loaded with healthy carbs and fibre from rice, protein from cottage cheese and nutrients from vegetables, you can never go wrong with burrito bowls.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

If you are looking for something light and healthy, you have to try your hands at roasted vegetable salad. Grab seasonal vegetables along with eggplant, asparagus, sweet potato and bell peppers for health. Roast them in a big batch and store them in the fridge. You can heat a portion and top it with a delicious dressing of your choice. To amp up, add slices of pita bread and hummus or nuts of your choice and your easy nutritious lunches for the week are sorted.

Meal Prep Ideas for Meat Lovers

Planning an easy and nutritious food prep 101 for meat lovers is fun and simple. There are ample options to ensure a meal with balanced protein, carbs, and fibre. 

Ingredients you must keep handy:  

• Eggs
• Frozen meat of your choice like chicken, pork or fish
• Pre-cooked quinoa, pasta, rice 
• Roasted vegetables 
• Roasted seeds

Chicken Stir Fry

Chicken stir fry is the fastest and easiest way for your weekly dinner rotation. Prepare the base with frozen/fresh chicken breast mixed with stir-fried vegetables and a sauce of your choice. You can white rice, coconut rice or lemon rice as they go perfectly well with a bowl of chicken stir fry. The cooking time is around 30 minutes and you can store it for up to 2-3 days.

Ranch Meat Bowl

If you love a good ranch sauce, meal prep as a meat eater becomes super easy. Prepare your ranch sauce, which can easily be stored over the week. Pick a meat of your choice, mix it with vegetables and parmesan-roasted potatoes, and Volla! Your good diet meals for lunch and dinner are ready.

Pan Sausage Meat Bowl

Pan sausage meals are super easy and healthy. Toast your vegetables and meat of choice in the oven and grill them in a single pan with sausages. Store the leftover vegetables and sausages in a container for 2-3 days and mix them with fish, pork, turkey or any meat of your choice in the coming days. Meals just do not get easier than this.

>> Also Read: Best Diet Plan Recommended for Diabetics in India

Tips to Ease Your Way through Nutritious Meal Prep 

Being new to the idea of meal prep might appear daunting and confusing. Worry not, we are all in the same boat. Take a look at these meal-prep ideas that will help you become an expert at it:

Start Small

Your first meal prep can not be a batch preparation for the whole week and large family members. Start small to understand the nature of ingredients. The ideal way is to rotate dinner and the next day's lunch with your meal prep.

Invest in Containers

Quality containers are crucial in your meal prep journey. Containers with missing lids and leakage problems can be frustrating. Get your hands on quality containers of different sizes and purposes.

Stick to Your List

Remember that as a meal-prep expert, you have to prepare a grocery list of healthy diet meal ideas and stick to it. While you want to keep your pantry stocked, you do not want to overspend in ingredients that do not tally with your meal prep ideas.

Explore Easy and Healthy Recipes

The internet is filled with amazing meal prep 101 for beginners that you must utilise to your advantage.

Batch Cooking and Repurposing Leftovers

These two ideas will be your closest friends throughout the journey. You can easily batch-cook rice, pasta, or grains and repurpose leftover veggies and meat for the next day.

Over to You

Meal prepping at home is a great way to ensure a healthy, sustainable diet. As a beginner, finding the right ingredients and understanding measurements for batch work can be tedious, but over a few weeks of meal prepping you will get handy with the concept. The post-Covid world has woken up to awareness about health and meal prepping is an amazing outcome. Choosing health over everything else is probably advice you must have received from your grandparents and rightly so.

Along with meal preparation, staying prepared to face a health crisis is a smart choice. A comprehensive insurance plan from Care Health Insurance can help you deal with medical emergencies and ease your way through regular health check-ups.

Disclaimers: All plan features, benefits, coverage, and claims underwriting are subject to policy terms and conditions. Kindly refer to the brochure, sales prospectus, and policy documents carefully.