5 Delicious Recipe Ideas for Meal Prep: Convenience and Flavor Combined!
Meal prepping has become a popular trend for those looking to save time and maintain a healthy lifestyle. By dedicating a few hours to cooking and portioning meals in advance, you can enjoy homemade, nutritious food throughout the week.
I can tell you this, meal prepping has been a game changer. At first, the idea didn’t appeal to us. However, after trying it and proving that it wasn’t complicated at all, plus seeing how much it changed our eating habits, we were hooked.
To help you on your meal prep journey, here are five delicious ideas that are not only practical but also bursting with flavor. Dive in and discover these 5 dishes that will make meal prep a breeze.
1. Smoked pork chop with mashed potatoes
Smoked pork chop can be found in any supermarket and is easy to prepare. We prepare them with barbecue sauce before putting them in the pan and that is enough. The most elaborate part of this recipe is making the mashed potatoes. However, if you know tips such as cutting the potatoes into smaller pieces so that they are ready in less time, you may find that it is really very practical.
2. Beef or chicken fajitas with vegetables
After cutting the beef or chicken into strips you can marinate them as you like. Add onion and sweet chile strips to the pan while cooking the fajitas, this will give them a unique flavor. You can accompany it with vegetables such as zucchini or broccoli that you can cook in the pan after making the fajitas. Or with a tortilla of your choice.
3. Tuna Burritos
This is the quickest recipe for us. The first thing we do is prepare the canned tuna with some mayonnaise, red onion, and lime. In any supermarket you can find large tortillas, you can leave the tuna prepared in the refrigerator and when it is time to eat you put the tuna inside the tortillas and close them like a burrito. If you want to add something to it, you can accompany it with chips at serving time.
4. Bowl of chicken strips with rice and beans
In Costa Rica, we eat a lot of this and its variations.
For this recipe, we make rice while we are cooking other dishes. We bought the chicken strips previously breaded. However, you can add any protein you want. As for the beans, nowadays there are good options for canned beans, just be sure to read the labels well and if you have to add more flavor, don’t hesitate to do it.
In a bowl put first the rice, the beans, and the chicken strips on top. We add tomato with lime and salt or “Pico de gallo” to give it a more typical flavor.
5. Trout with mashed potatoes
For this dish, you can use the mashed potatoes you previously made for other recipes. Take the opportunity to cook everything together, that way you save a lot of time and you can make several dishes.
We bought at PriceSmart a bag of about 6-8 individually packaged pieces of trout, it costs about $20, and we have found that it really works out well in price and quality. Look for options like this in your local supermarkets.
For this dish, we marinate the trout with garlic, lemon, rosemary, and butter (add salt and pepper). To this, you add the mashed potatoes and that’s it.
These were some ideas that you can use and that we found quick to make. I encourage you to try to prepare meals and adapt them to the type of diet your family is used to. You will be surprised at the amount of benefits it brings both in time and nutrition.
Soon I will continue sharing more ideas with you.
