- Hey, guys, and welcome
back to my channel. You absolutely loved my
first meal prep video, so today I am back with another, and this time it's meal prep for spring. I try to eat seasonally
as much as possible, and right now there is
so much fresh produce in the markets, including
asparagus, and cucumbers, and arugula, and spring
onions, and blueberries. If you watched my first meal prep video, then you know that my
approach is to prepare ingredients over full
meals for more flexibility and nutrient variety throughout the week. It's sort of like having a
mini buffet bar in your fridge. But at the same time, when
you do whip up a meal, you want it to be fast
and easy and on your plate or table in under five minutes. So in today's video, I'll
show you how to meal prep 11 ingredients, and give you a few ideas of meals and recipes that you
can make throughout the week. But as always, feel free
to adapt the quantities or flavors to best suit
your personal preference. Alright, let's dive in, and I'll show you what I've meal prepped this week. You should always start your
meal prep by writing down what you'd like to make
to be most efficient with your time, but for this meal prep, I've actually made
something special for you. I've created a PDF guide,
so you don't have to worry about taking any notes,
and I'll tell you how to download this at the end of the video. Cashew milk is my favorite nut milk, and it was actually one
of the very first videos I created on this channel. It's super easy to make, but you do need to soak your cashews overnight. I've already gone ahead and done that, so now I'll give them a
good rinse and add them to my Vitamix. Then, I'll add four cups
of water, a tablespoon of maple syrup for a
little natural sweetness, a teaspoon of vanilla extract,
and a pinch of sea salt, and then blend it all together. The great thing about cashew
milk is that you don't have to strain it, and that
means that we can use it right away to make our
second ingredient, which is chia seed pudding. Chia pudding is such an
easy breakfast and can be jazzed up with so many different flavors. To make the chia pudding,
all we have to do is add half a cup of chia seeds
to one of our glass locked storage containers, and add
two cups of our freshly made cashew milk. Give it a stir and set
it aside, but we'll want to give it one more stir
in about 10 to 15 minutes, once the seeds have
started to gel and absorb the liquid. Then, we can pour our
remaining cashew milk into a glass jar, like my
favorite Weck juice jar, and stir that in the fridge
for cereals or lattes throughout the week. For this week's starch or
grain, I'm preparing wild rice, and if you've never had wild rice before, it's got this delicious nutty
flavor and chewy texture to it, which makes it perfect for salads. So we'll rinse the rice, and
add that to a pot with water and set our timer. The rice can take 40
to 50 minutes to cook, but we'll check on it again
after about 40 minutes. Next, we'll cook up some
asparagus and shrimp, and since both will only take
about two to three minutes, we're going to cook them at the same time. To prepare the asparagus,
give it a good wash and break off the woody stems. Then, wash your shrimp
as well and set it aside. Fill a wide saute pan with
water for the asparagus, and fil a pot of water for the shrimp, and then bring both of those to a boil. Add the asparagus and shrimp,
but do keep a close eye on them so that you don't
accidentally overcook them, because again, they'll only
take about two to three minutes. So while they're cooking,
create a quick ice water bath, and set that to the side. Once they're done, use tongs
to remove the asparagus, and a skimmer to remove the shrimp, and let them fully cool in the ice water. Then, drain them in a
colander, transfer them to your favorite storage containers, and place them in the fridge. (gentle music) At this time, I'll give my chia pudding one more quick stir to make
sure there's no chia seeds stuck to the bottom, then place
this in the fridge as well. With so many fresh blueberries
in the store right now, I wanted to take full
advantage, so I'm preparing a quick blueberry puree
to add to my chia pudding. I'll add a pint of fresh
blueberries and a tablespoon of honey or maple syrup to a pot, and cook them on medium
heat for about 10 minutes. As the blueberries cook,
they'll start to break down and turn into more of a sauce or puree. I'll also help this by
using the back of my spoon to smush and break up
the blueberries as well. Then, transfer the blueberry
puree to a storage container and place it in the fridge. At this point, our wild
rice should also be done, so give that a stir and transfer it to a storage container as well. (gentle music) One of the things you guys
asked for after the first video was more sauces and dressings,
so today we'll whip up an almond butter dipping
sauce, and it will go perfectly with one of the meals I have in mind. Now, you could use peanut butter as well, but since I had a fresh batch
of homemade almond butter in my fridge, that's what I'm using today. So we'll add half a cup of almond butter, five tablespoons of
tamari or coconut aminos, a table spoon of black strap molasses, which is always a great flavor enhancer, two teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, and two teaspoons of white
wine vinegar to a bowl. To that, we'll add the
juice of a fresh line and a few tablespoons of
water, just to thin it out. Then whisk all of that together
until it's nice and creamy, and place it in the fridge. (upbeat music) For a simple yet vibrant
and spring appropriate salad dressing, we'll
make a quick and easy lemon vinaigrette. Add one third cup of olive oil to a bowl, along with one or two
cloves of minced garlic and the juice from two large lemons. To that, we'll add a
teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a half a teaspoon of honey,
and a pinch of salt and pepper, then whisk it all together and pour it into a storage container. (upbeat music) One of the example meals
I'm going to show you here in just a minute calls for
julienned carrots and cucumbers, so that's what I'm preparing next. Just peel and slice two carrots in half, then cut each half into
slices, and stack a few of the slices to create
thin julienne cuts. We'll do the same thing with the cucumber, and it's totally up to you if
you want to keep or discard the julienne cuts that contain the seeds. To store both of these items, we'll add a damp paper towel to the
bottom of the storage container and add the veggies on top. Because we're not storing these in water, as we did in the last meal prep video, they won't last quite as long,
but they'll definitely last for the first two or
three days, which is when I plan to eat them. Last on our list is slicing
up some red cabbage, so just slice up as much
as you think you'll need, then cut it in half, break
it apart with your fingers, and place it in a storage container. You could also use a
spiralizer, as I've showed you in my spiralizer beginner's guide video, to make really easy work of this as well. Alright, so now that you have
these 11 ingredients prepped, let me give you a few ideas
of what you could make in just a few minutes by
combining them with ingredients from your fridge or pantry. For breakfast, make an easy chia pudding with a few dollops of blueberry
puree and almond butter. It tastes exactly like a PB&J sandwich, except we've turned ours into breakfast, and we'll top it with fresh
berries and a sprinkle of chopped pistachios for
a little burst of color. For a morning drink, it's easy to whip up a matcha latte with our
homemade cashew milk. Just add a teaspoon of matcha to a cup, along with collagen or
any other adaptogens you might want to add, and
a smidge of boiling water. Then whisk it together until it's frothy. At this point, I do 50/50
of water and cashew milk, but you could add all cashew milk as well. So heat up the cashew milk,
and use an electric frother to froth it up, then pour it into your cup for a delicious matcha latte. (upbeat music) For lunch or an afternoon
snack, it's easy to whip up Vietnamese spring rolls with
our prepared ingredients. Just slice a few shrimp in
half and set those aside. Then, we'll take some rice paper wrappers, and I've linked this brand below, and submerge them in a
bowl or dish of warm water. They only need a few seconds to soak, as they'll continue to soften up while you're adding ingredients. So add a layer of baby spinach or lettuce, some of our julienned
carrots and cucumbers, a few slices of red cabbage,
one or two asparagus, and some mung bean sprouts,
and then roll it up. Now I find that it's easiest
to roll away from you, as you can continue to tuck
it and roll at the same time, and you do want them as tight as possible. When you're about two
third of the way rolled up, lay down three or four shrimp halves, and then continue rolling. For this version, I'm not tucking the ends of the rice paper wrapper
in, as it's kind of fun to see the veggies poke out the sides, but if you'd like them
more fully contained, you can do so. I also like them extra long, as that means I get a few extra dips in the
almond butter dipping sauce, which is always a good thing. So let me show you this one more time. (upbeat music) Next, we'll make a
super easy and delicious wild rice and arugula salad. The full recipe for this
salad is on my website, but I'm just eyeballing
a single portion here. So add some baby arugula to a bowl, along with a few spoonfuls of wild rice. To that, we'll quickly dice up a cucumber, and if you're wondering why I prepped the julienned cucumber but not this, it's because I knew I'd
eat the julienned cucumber within the first few
days, and to be honest, dicing is much easier and
faster to do on the fly. Then, we'll slice up a
spring onion and add that to the bowl, along with
a few fresh mint leaves that we've chopped up. Add a small handful of dried
cranberries or raisins, a sprinkle of sliced almonds,
a little salt and pepper, and a drizzle of your
homemade lemon vinaigrette. Toss it all together, and
enjoy this light and healthy, yet filling and hearty salad. (upbeat music) For another spring appropriate salad, we'll make a shrimp,
asparagus, and avocado salad, and this one also comes together easy. Just slice a few asparagus
and add them to a bowl along with baby spinach and a few shrimp. Slice up a spring onion,
some fresh parsley, and half an avocado, and
add that to the bowl. Then, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with your lemon vinaigrette,
and gently toss it altogether for a salad that
looks and tastes amazing. (upbeat music) It should come as no surprise
to you that we'll finish off today with a macro
bowl, because macro bowls are always my fridge clean out salads at the end of the week. Add spinach or arugula to
a bowl along with wild rice and shrimp. Slice up a few asparagus
and half an avocado, and place those on top
of your bed of greens, then dice up some of your red cabbage, and you can also add carrots and cucumber if you have any of those
left, and a small handful of sprouts. For a little extra crunch,
add some white and black sesame seeds, then drizzle
with either your lemon vinaigrette or your almond
butter dipping sauce, as both are great on this. And there you have it, an
easy shrimp macro bowl. (upbeat music) Now, as I promised at the
beginning, I've created a PDF guide of this
spring meal prep for you. It should hopefully make
your life a little bit easier in the kitchen, because
not only does it have all of the cook times listed
and storage reminders, but it also links to the full recipe on downshiftology.com if one exists. And because you guys loved
my first meal prep video so much, I went ahead and
created one of these PDF guides for that meal prep video as well. You can find the link
to download both guides in the description box
below, and if you haven't yet watched my first meal prep
video, you can do that right here, and watch
my video on my favorite meal prep storage containers. If you liked this video and
would like to see a summer meal prep video, make sure to
give this video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button, and let me know in the comments below. Alright, that's it from me this week. I will see you guys
again in the next video.
