To aim for a healthier lifestyle and sharpen up my cooking skills, I began a meal prepping journey earlier this semester. I first discovered meal prepping online, a system of preparing portioned meals for a period of time to allow for an easy method of eating throughout the day. For me, I prepped only lunch and dinners. I cooked all the food at the beginning of the week and stored the food in glass containers in the fridge.
This adventure concluded on Oct. 15, but I learned lifetime recipes and built up my discipline to stay persistent with this venture.
Week One (Sept. 25-Oct. 2)
I started my journey with a mass grocery haul, taking up a large portion of my first day. The meals I prepped for this week included a combination of vegetables, rice and meat.
At the local Safeway, I purchased green beans, spinach, broccoli, scallions, red onion, chicken breast, low-sodium chicken stock and rotisserie chicken — many ingredients like white rice, eggs and seasonings were already available to me at home.
One key purchase for the next month consisted of eight glass Tupperware containers. This allowed for safe plastic-free microwaving, as well as neat fridge storage for a few days’ worth of meals.
On cooking day, I made my meals from scratch with my own recipes, mostly based on intuition, with some inspiration from meals my mother and grandmother would make. For lunch, I prepped one pan-fried chicken breast with garlic powder, salt and pepper; red onions, sauteed in chicken stock; steamed white rice; and green beans that were also pan-fried in oil, salt and the leftover fond from the chicken. This meal was light yet flavorful with the perfect balance of health and taste.
For dinner, my meals followed a similar recipe, except I replaced the chicken breast with portioned out sections of rotisserie chicken breast and thighs. Then, for a serving of vegetables, I prepped spinach with minced garlic and seasoned broccoli instead of green beans. The switch of vegetables and chicken was a good variety to have.
Week Two (Oct. 3-Oct. 9)
The second week also started with a grocery haul — I took home vegetables like spinach, green beans, broccoli and a variety of bell peppers. I also decided to listen to my cravings and substitute chicken with steak.
For lunches, I prepared a portion of ribeye steak, seared in a pan to medium rare, alongside broccoli and white rice cooked in chicken stock.
This time, I cooked the rice with chicken stock instead of water. It was a game-changer, as the rice absorbed the rich, savory broth.
For dinner, it was mostly the same as week one, but instead, I added some bell peppers and red onions pan-fried in taco seasoning, which created a pretty yummy version of fajita veggies. I also chose to cook the spinach cooked in garlic and chicken stock, with pan-fried green beans.
This week, my cooking actually improved quite a bit, as I found myself not struggling with the pots and pans as much as I did the first week. One lesson I learned was to cook the steak on the rarer side, so when I microwaved each meal, the steak wouldn’t be overcooked. Overall, the meals tasted great and were a good switch from chicken.
Week Three (Oct. 10-Oct. 15)
My final week began with another grocery haul, as usual. For the final week, I decided I would make it a little special. Therefore, I decided to buy ingredients for lunch, a midday snack and dinner while shopping.
I bought a selection of lean ground beef, ground chicken, non-fat vanilla Greek yogurt, frozen berries, red onion, green beans and bell peppers.
For lunch, I cooked seasoned ground beef along with green beans and pepper, white rice cooked in chicken stock and the same homemade fajita veggies.
This meal was much easier to manage as I didn’t have to worry about overcooking the beef when microwaving. The combination of ground beef and rice with fajita veggies was like a Chipotle bowl, with supple meat — I really enjoyed it.
For my midday snack, I prepped Greek yogurt with frozen berries. The sweetness solved my flavor fatigue. Not only was it healthy, the snack was also full of antioxidants and had a good amount of protein.
Finally, for dinner, I substituted ground beef with ground chicken, and used leftover rice instead of freshly-cooked rice to make egg-fried rice with green onion. Overall, the final week was the least boring and easiest to cook. There were a variety of flavors.
The journey helped me lose noticeable body fat. I dropped around 5 pounds and maintained muscle. All and all, I would recommend meal-prepping for everyone, at least for a given amount of time, as it helped me build discipline to stick to the diet and made me a healthier individual.
