- So I recently switched
to a new meal prep method, and it's completely changing my life. The gist of it is, rather than prepare five of the same meals to eat every day of the week, I do a limited one hour meal prep. The goal of this meal prep is
not to have fully cooked meals that I can just reheat in the
microwave during the week, because honestly, prepping five lunches and five dinners on one
day takes too much time. I don't like eating the
same dinner over and over, and I really don't like the
taste of four-day-old food. Instead, I focus on taking the most impactful meal prep steps, so that my weeknight cooking
will be easier and quicker. Typically, what that means is I will fully prepare some building blocks. Things like sauces,
dressings, and condiments that will stay fresh all week long, and only partially
prepare other components. Things like grains, veggies, and proteins. The downside of this
method for some of you is that you do have to do
some cooking during the week. But the upside for the rest of us, I think, is so much greater. The main advantages are you get to eat a bunch of
different delicious meals with lots of variety during the week, instead of eating the
same meal over and over. And every meal tastes fresh,
unlike your standard meal prep, which, let's be real, gets
pretty old after day two. Best of all, by spending
just one hour on meal prep, I get to spend the rest of
my Sunday doing fun stuff, like hanging out with
my family and friends, traveling, or just relaxing. As you'll see later in the video, this method can also save
you four to five hours of cooking during the week. But for now, let me show
you how I meal prep. For this week's meal prep,
(air whooshing) we'll begin with the
fully prepped components, all of which gonna stay good in the fridge for at least seven days, so we don't need to worry about them tasting worse later in the week. The first thing I'm gonna make is the creamy herb
sauce, dressing of sorts. I'm starting with 3/4 cup of raw cashews, and I'm just gonna soak
them in boiling water while I prep everything
else for the sauce. We want about two cups, or
30-ish grams of fresh herbs. And I'm kind of just eyeballing
the ratios of the herbs. It really doesn't matter, as long as you like the
specific herbs you're using, it's gonna be delicious. I'm also gonna add a generous
amount of lemon juice, probably four tablespoons. That's a juicy girl. A jalapeno and garlic. A little bit of water to
help everything blend. Nutritional yeast. This is gonna add that
nice savory, cheesy flavor. Season it with salt and pepper. A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Last thing is the cashews, so I will go drain them, and I'll be back. And by the way, don't feel like you need to
take notes on measurements, if you are trying to do that, 'cause there is a free PDF
guide that has the measurements for every recipe we're gonna make today. Let's blend her up. (blender whirring) Ooh! Delicious. The next condiment I'm prepping is a mix of quick pickled
onions and chili peppers. We have one medium red onion, and we're gonna slice it pretty
much as thinly as we can. I'm also gonna add some
chili peppers to my onions, because I like things spicy. Our pickling brine is super simple. You're gonna start with one cup of water. Then you're gonna grab an
industrial size vat of vinegar, or just a regular size bottle. Nice big spoonful of kosher salt to season all of those vegetables. And pickled vegetables
are a little bit sweet, just a tiny bit, and so
I'm adding maple syrup. organic cane sugar, totally fine. Just bring this to a boil, and that's it. Alright, carefully pour your hot brine over all the good stuff. Oh, okay. Party foul. Much safer. You want to make sure
you have enough brine to cover the vegetables. These will be at their best 48 hours after sitting in the fridge, but if you are in a hurry, you can eat them as soon
as within eight hours. The next thing we're gonna make is our crunchy, seedy nut mix. I am using a mix of pine nuts. Pints are very expensive, so
I'm only using a small amount. I'm going to cut them with pepitas, which are a lot cheaper
and also high in protein. - [Speaker 1] You sound
like a heroin dealer, "I'm gonna cut them with..." - I literally know nothing about heroin, like I don't even know how you consume it. So, clearly not a drug dealer. And sesame seeds. Quick little spice blend before
we start cooking everything. Teaspoon of paprika, half teaspoon onion powder, half teaspoon red pepper flakes
or any chili flake you like, and a heaping half
teaspoon of flaky sea salt. Line a plate with parchment paper. You'll see why in a minute. We're gonna add a little bit
of olive oil to a frying pan, medium heat. Once the oil is warm, go
ahead and add your seed blend. We'll toast this for three, four minutes. Once you see some of the
seeds start to turn golden, you'll want to stir more
frequently so they don't burn. It is time to add the spice blend. And that's why we added the oil earlier, because if you didn't add the oil, the spices wouldn't be able to
adhere to the nuts and seeds. And these just need 30, 40 seconds, 60 seconds at the most. Spread it out and let it cool down. Parchment paper is great,
because if there's any excess oil it's going to absorb onto the paper and it's also gonna make it really easy to transfer this mix into a jar. This is so good. Kind of reminds me of eating popcorn. I will like to eat all of it right now, so I'm going to transfer it into a jar. And the final condiment we're gonna make is a very, very simple lemon dressing. This is about three tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice. (gags and coughs) I have a sesame seed in
my throat from earlier. Tiny bit of maple syrup to cut
through some of the acidity. Some red pepper flakes. Couple tablespoons of sesame seeds. Sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil, and a fat garlic clove. We're gonna just grate it right in there for some nice flavor. All right, so we're done
with our condiment prep. As I mentioned, all of those
components are gonna stay fresh in the fridge or pantry for
a week, probably longer. Now, we're gonna move on to
the rest of the components. I don't want to fully
meal prep these today, because they won't stay
fresh for that long, but I am gonna take a few mini prep steps and that's gonna make my life a lot easier when it comes time to prepare
meals during the week. I've got some farro here. That's gonna be my whole
grain for the week. Get that on the stove. Once it comes to a boil,
we'll start cooking the farro. Today I'm gonna cook
the farro super simply. Just water salt, a bay
leaf, and black pepper. While the farro cooks, I will work on everything else. Every meal prep needs
some sort of vegetable and I have red cabbage and carrots today. Once you prep them, they're
not gonna wilt in your fridge in like, a day or two and they're both super budget friendly, which is obviously wonderful. So let's cut our cabbage in
half and then we'll grate it. These are organic carrots
that I have scrubbed, so I'm not gonna bother peeling them. Now, look at this vibrant
colorful mix we've got here. Now, for our protein I've
got two different ones. The first one is tofu. I've got two blocks of extra-firm tofu. I'll probably bake this during
the week, maybe pan fry it, get it nice and crispy, but today I'm just gonna take
a couple of mini prep steps. So we'll drain the tofu, we'll press it for 10, 15 minutes, and then we'll cut it into cubes and store that in the fridge. And these might seem like small, perhaps inconsequential prep steps, but I promise they make a difference. The next protein we're gonna prep are some canned cannellini beans. My favorite way to prepare these is to roast them in the
oven with some olive oil, salt and pepper. They get crispy and so good. The problem however, is
that if I roast them today they're just not gonna be as amazing on, let's say day three. And so I'm just gonna take a
couple of mini prep steps today and that's gonna make it a
lot easier to cook them on, let's say Tuesday or Wednesday. Oh, perfect timing. Our farro should be done. You want the farro to be al dente. It should have a little
bit of a bite to it still, and once that's ready you'll drain it. And the key to making sure
that your whole grains are nice and dry, and they
don't get soggy or clumpy, is to spread them out on a sheet pan. Let them dry out like this and then you can store them in the fridge. Alright, that is the end of our meal prep. I am going to put everything in the fridge and then go enjoy the rest of my Sunday. That's the beauty of
doing a quick meal prep. And starting tomorrow, I will show you how I combine all of
these fabulous components into even more fabulous meals. For our first meal of the week we're gonna make a delicious, easy pasta salad with crispy beans using a few of the components
we prepped earlier. If we hadn't done our meal prep yesterday this meal would take
about an hour to make. but today it's gonna
take less than 30 minutes and I'm gonna start off
by roasting the beans. I'm just going to put them on a sheet pan, toss 'em with some olive
oil, salt and pepper. You can add a couple extra seasonings, flavorings if you like. I've got some oregano and
nutritional yeast today for that subtle cheesy, savory flavor. And these are gonna get really delicious and crispy in the oven. These can bake undisturbed
in the oven for 20 minutes. So in the meantime, I'm
gonna start on our pasta. So I've got some pasta here. This is actually enough for two meals. I'm gonna have this for
lunch tomorrow as well. And it's gonna be pretty
good the next day, it's not waiting too
long to eat my leftovers. So this is a much, much
better alternative. I wanna add some veggies to this pasta and I got some lovely broccolini at the farmer's market the other day, so I'm gonna add that to the pasta when there's a few minutes left. Couple other things to prep. I'm gonna slice some cherry
tomatoes for our pasta and chop up some fresh basil and parsley that I have leftover from
that green sauce we made. The nice thing about this meal is that while the beans roast in the oven, I can do everything else. Cook the pasta, drain the
pasta, cut the broccoli, cut the herbs, so it feels
very streamlined and easy. I'm gonna add the broccoli
directly to the pasta, just kind of blanche it. The beans need just a few more minutes, so I thought I would make
a salad in the meantime, because it's good for you. Got some frisee and mustard greens and I'll just use that lemon
dressing we made yesterday. Pinch of flaky salt,
some of our seedy mix, and this is what I call a 30 second salad. You can see the beans look
really different than before. They are like, split open and crunchy. And now it's just time to
assemble our pasta salad. Let's add some of our creamy
herb sauce as our dressing. Let's scoop up some beans and our herbs and tomatoes. Let's give it a taste. That's really good, like, better than I
thought it was gonna be. It feels very gourmet, especially for how little
active cooking it required. Also got my leafy greens
to go with it on the side and this is gonna make a
great leftover lunch tomorrow. Tuesday's dinner is a loaded lavash wrap. Unlike our last meal, this one requires no cooking whatsoever so it will be ready in
less than five minutes, which is lovely. I'm gonna be using
several of the components from our meal prep. We'll start with our creamy herb sauce and add some of this
carrot and cabbage mix. And the lemon dressing from the meal prep goes great with this slaw, so we'll add a little bit in there. Third component we're gonna
add are the crispy white beans, our pickled onions, and chili peppers. These have been in the fridge
now for about 48 hours. Look how pretty it is. Look at these colors. We got green, purple, orange, pink, red. It's called rainbow
plant life for a reason. Will it fold? Did I overstuff it? She thick. All right, let's take a bite. That is a party for the taste buds. A plus. 10 out of 10. I think I'm gonna make
it for lunch tomorrow. It's day three, and usually things go
downhill by this point in a typical meal prep, but we are making a
fantastic, fresh grain bowl that you will absolutely love. And since we are using almost all of our meal prep components, we are saving a ton of time. I'm gonna start with the tofu. If you remember from the meal prep, I pressed two blocks of extra-firm tofu and I cut them into
these cute, little cubes and we're gonna bake it. It's gonna be two minutes of prep work. And I'm purposely keeping the
tofu pretty plain in flavor, because I want it to be versatile. I wanna be able to use
it in tomorrow's meal and also, with all the other
flavors in this grain bowl you're really not going to mind. Now, for the secret
crispy, crunchy coating I am using potato starch. Let's get the microphone in here so we can hear some of the sound. And the nice thing about baking tofu as opposed to say, frying it, is that it's pretty hands off. You just need to flip the tofu once. So in the meantime, we will work on everything
else for our grain bowl. Here I have some of the farro. If you remember, I cooked this
really simply on the stove with just salt and pepper and a bay leaf. And this has been sitting
at room temperature for like, 30 minutes, and I'll save the rest of the
farro for tomorrow's lunch. Let's get our carrots and cabbage out. We're going to add quite a bit of flavor with our lemon sesame dressing. And if I had dressed this on Sunday, definitely would be soggy
by now and not as fresh. So doing this now is one of
those big steps you can take to make your food taste fresher. Something I like to do
with my grain salads is add fresh herbs,
because they're delicious, they're vibrant, they add freshness. Again, if I had done this on Sunday the herbs would be wilted, they wouldn't have as much flavor. So I have some fresh basil and some mint. This already smells
great and would be like, a lovely side dish, but we are gonna turn it into a full meal. So a couple other things I want to add. I happen to have some
olives that I need to use. Green olives, the Castelvetrano olive, which I have already waxed poetic about. Best olive in my opinion. One more fun mix in, dried apricot for a
little sweet chewiness. Look at these colors. The salad has a lot of great chewiness from the farro and the apricots. I want something a little crunchy now, and look what we have. We have our crunchy seedy mix. Alright, the tofu still
has about 20 minutes so I'm gonna take that time to clean up, maybe have a glass of wine before dinner, and I'll check in with you after that. Tofu is done. It is looking really nice. While you were away, I very artfully flipped the
tofu at the halfway mark and I actually did not pour
myself a glass of wine, because I realized it's
actually 3PM right now, I'm filming early so
you can see everything. So instead I poured
myself a little Spindrift, which is maybe not as good
as wine, but still very nice. And now we're just ready
to assemble our grain bowl. One finishing touch. Pickled onions and chilies
for that tang and that heat. I honestly wish it were dinnertime, because I'm going to destroy this bowl. It looks amazing. There are so many fun flavors in here. It tastes so fresh too, like, every component tastes
as if it were made today. It took 30 minutes total with just 10 minutes of active cooking. That is the beauty of this meal prep. You get a really fresh tasting
meal without that much work. I'm ready for some new flavors today, so we are flipping the script
and making a tofu noodle bowl. We're using just a couple
of the meal prep components, but we're still saving a lot of time. This meal should take just
10 minutes to throw together. The water is heating up for my noodles and in the meantime we'll make the sauce. This is soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar. It's funky, it's savory, it's tangy, it's slightly sweet, it's delicious. Toasted sesame oil. And tahini is not perhaps
traditional in East Asian food, but I love the sesame flavor and it's gonna add this
nice body to the sauce. A little heat, got Sichuan chili flakes. And just a little bit of
maple syrup to kind of, enhance the salty, savory flavors. The water's at a boil so
I'm gonna add the noodles, and these need just four minutes. While the noodles are cooking,
we'll do the vegetables. I have some carrot-cabbage
slaw left, pinch of salt, and I have a red bell pepper in the fridge so I'm gonna slice that up
and add that to the noodles. A couple leftover scallions, I think those will be
nice in this as well. And the second component
from the meal prep that I'm using today, is the baked tofu I made yesterday. Noodles are almost done. I'm gonna rinse them under cool water just to bring them to room temperature, and we'll combine everything afterwards. Time to get saucy. Pour the sauce over the noodles. Add in our cabbage and carrots, Give everything a toss, Some roasted sesame seeds
for a nice, nutty finish. I'm honestly shocked that
just one hour of meal prep led to so many delicious
and flavorful meals with very little work. If you want more meal prep content, be sure to check out
this playlist right here or the PDF guide with all of the recipes that's linked in the
description box below. I'll see you in the next video. Bye.
