Healthy Easy Meal Prep ~ My Meal Prep Process for a Week of Meal Prep

Meal Prep Containers Link: https://amzn.to/3qKiCde

On the menu this week:

BREAKFAST
+ egg & scallion corn muffins
+ baked apple oatmeal

LUNCH
+ grain bowl with roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, chickpeas & sweet potatoes with faro

DINNER
+ cauliflower leek soup with chicken

Picture this all of your meals are ready for the week ahead you don’t have to stress about what you’re eating or if you have time to make the healthy meals you want to at home you’re only cooking and cleaning one time this week you’re saving money your week is ready and so

Are you join me and I’ll walk you through the process that changed my life first up on the agenda I’m going to chop up my brussels sprouts and put them onto a sheet pan to roast in the oven I find it extremely valuable to think about the

Order I’m going to prep everything in to make this process go a lot faster so I know that my Brussel sprouts would take a long time to roast I know I’m using them fresh I’m not using them Frozen so I want to get them into the oven first

Thing while I Cho my brussels sprouts let me formally welcome you to my channel and say I’m thrilled you’re here with me today I’m Lisa and I love sharing my meal prep process I’ve been meal preing in some form for a decade and the impact it’s made in my life has

Motivated me to share the process with you all if you’re interested in my advice on meal prepping or you’re curious about my own journey and why I love meal prepping then keep watching this video and hit that subscribe button I’ll share meal inspiration and helpful tips on batch cooking AKA meal prepping

All right now that my Brussels are all chopped up they’re on my sheet pan they’re ready to go I’m going to drizzle over some olive oil I love extra virgin olive oil you could do any vegetable oil you want and we’ll give them a healthy

Drizzle here but we keep in mind too the Brussels sprouts are one of those things that really need that little bit of um they want some of that fat from the olive oil to really make them taste you know the way we all like to eat them

I’ll also add some salt and some fresh ground black pepper and once we’re peppered we’ll give them a toss and we’ll put them into the Oven All right so the other thing we’re going to get chopped up and into the oven to roast cuz I know it’ll take a long time are these rainbow carrots you can see for a second I was like how do I want to slice these so decided on some um some

Nice diagonals I just like the you know I love a match stick for a carrot but I just felt like the diagonals were kind of fun and they’d be so pretty with these um multicolor colored carrots as well okay it was right about here that I realized oh yeah I didn’t put any

Parchment paper down and I do love using parchment paper I know it’s probably I don’t need to I don’t have to it’s wasteful I’m sorry it just makes it so much faster to clean up and especially after the end of a long meal prep process and for me not only cooking but

Filming um it just makes the process so much easier for my husband and I to get you know everything the kitchen back into into its normal you know clean State um with everything put away and yeah so I do parching paper I always trim it down I had a piece get really

Really burned one time and I thought it easily could have caught on fire so I’m paranoid I guess about that from now on so I always cut it down but um I think really the biggest thing is how long it’s in the oven and um also what temperature you’re cooking it at so

There’s definitely a temperature on all parchment papers that say says it’s safe till so check your parchment paper if you’re using it if not just right onto the baking sheet it Goes All right so now that my carrots are all chopped I mean look at these rainbow carrots I definitely spent uh spent more buying rainbow carrots but they’re just so pretty and I love the idea too that you know a mix of colors also means different nutrients so um I love these

Rainbow carrots and yeah they were delicious so I did some olive oil I’m going to do some salt and pepper as Well And these carrots are joining the Brussels sprouts in the oven and I move on to the next thing so oh yeah always a little a little sip of coffee to keep this Chef uh keep this Chef going so a little coffee break I definitely forgot to film the beginning of cutting these

Sweet potatoes so sorry y’all um I’m going to dice my sweet potatoes I love sweet potatoes especially roasting them in the oven so these are getting into the oven they’re going in next I’m throwing these into one of the containers I use when I’m prepping a ton

Of veggies um I don’t know if you guys have ever used these before or seen these uh and I’ve never worked in a restaurant or kitchen or Food Service in in that way like preparing vegetables Sue Chef Vibes you know um but these are really popular in food service and

Restaurants so I have recommend them they’re super easy uh to wash to clean to store they stack within each other um within themselves um and I just love them so just wanted to tell you all that here Too I bet you can guess what’s going to happen with these now that they’re all diced they’re going onto a sheet pan with parchment paper and they’re getting olive oil salt and pepper and they’re going into the oven to roast with their other friends E All right so the OV full so I’m going to just prepare these chickpeas I already drained and rins them and I’ll do a little bit of olive oil here along with salt and pepper so these are ready to go into the oven but since the oven’s full

I’m going to set them aside for Now next up we’re going to trim we’re going to cut up some trimmed leaks I bought these from Trader Joe’s cooking with leaks is definitely a newer thing for me uh I didn’t like grow up cooking with these or I really haven’t been exposed to them a ton but I really

Really love them and I’m learning different ways to clean them so you’ll watch and see I definitely had an adventure uh figuring out what’s the best way to clean these so um I’ll trim the ends off and yeah so the ones that I bought were already trimmed down a lot

Um but they’re still not cleaned so a lot of leaks have all these different layers right so a lot of the uh a lot of the from the way that they’re grown and you know whatever a lot of the dirt can end up in between these little layers

And obviously you know we’re trying to not eat dirt um so I like slicing them like this and then I just kind of popped them all out so um you know that they’ll uh they’ll separate and I’ll you’ll see I kind of like toss them together and

Then rinse them and yeah this was quite the adventure of a learning for me so maybe the most ironic part is I ended up you know I’m going to completely like pulverize these I’m going to blend them uh so the irony that it really didn’t matter how I cut them they just needed

To be cleaned was not lost on me oh yeah see there’s some dirt right there pointing that out um so I ended up cutting up four total leaks so you’ll see me go through that next All right so my leaks are all cut I put them in the bowl and then I put some water in there too and this is where you know I started to learn I was starting to separate them and thinking about how am I going to rinse them in this bowl

And um yeah I got a little smarter maybe um I put them into my salad spinner um that’s definitely a bigger bowl just anyway so that made it easier so I’m going to go take the salad spinner uh to the sink and add some more water in

There too so yes now that I’ve got more water in there I’m just going to you know kind of separate each of them and look for any you know dirt or anything um any you know anything that’s in there so oh yeah and the Brussels had to come

Out of the oven so now they’re out of the oven the I dumped most of the water out and now I’m going to spin them uh just to really get the rest of it and get the water get them nice and dry at this point I was really proud of

Myself because this worked so much better than what I had plan been planning initially um so yes as I mentioned I took those brussel sprouts out of the oven they’re not completely done um but I’m going to throw I’m going to toss those chickpeas on with them because

Really they I need the brussel sprouts to cook a lot longer than the chickpeas so I don’t want to add the chickpeas on at the same time um so the Brussels sprouts got ahead start I’ll toss them in uh in with the Brussels sprouts and then they’ll go back into the oven and

Really this is one of the skills that you can learn too is being able to multitask so that can be really overwhelming at the beginning of trying to think about you know all the ingredients things in the oven things on the counter things you know being washed

And all that stuff so that can be really really overwhelming at the beginning so don’t worry you’re not alone it’s overwhelming for me too sometimes so I’m here for you um I’m going to take my wash leaks and they’re going into that bowl that the um chickpeas were in so

There’s a little bit of olive oil salt and pepper already in there too and that’s totally fine for what’s going to happen to these leaks next St in the order of operations I’m going to cut up my chicken as a reminder I highly recommend uh using a specific cutting board for for different

Things especially for meat highly recommend meat always having meat Seafood you know anything raw like that having its own cutting board yes you can clean these of course you know soap water sanitize um but it doesn’t really there’s just you’re making tiny little micro cuts into a cutting board so have

A separate cutting board for meat and I also do this for um garlic onions as well so I would never cut like fruit on my garli like onion cutting board but I might cut Tomatoes does that make sense um yeah if you have any thoughts on this

Too leave them in the comments please I’m interested to hear everyone’s Thoughts E Chickens all diced and ready to go to onto the stove um I’ll spray my countertop you guys know I’m OCD about cleaning all this thing so I let it sit um and then I’ll wipe it Down and I’ll get started on this part so I’m going to do olive oil into the pan and that chicken that I just cut up is going in here so I’m uh moving that quickly so it gets all gets coated with some olive oil everyone’s looking beautiful in the

Oven yay everybody’s done so I’m going to just put them all into onto one cheap pan mostly just for space to save a little bit space so yeah watch me carefully try to not spill any of these oh she did it I think I was pretty

Successful to my memory um so yeah I’m just going to do that really just to save some space so my chicken’s cooking my oven is now free but I need to get my containers set out so I’m going to set out all my containers now um yep definitely setting

Them out with some you know OCD fussiness oh I brought too many so I’m only doing 5 days so I’ll put one back um and I’ll get all the rest of them set up so I just find that this helps so much with you know planning or really

Just portioning everything out and of course it’s beautiful for you all at the end um so you can see everything that I made so if I weren’t filming this I maybe I think that I would still do this um but maybe I wouldn’t be so like you know OCD about them being absolutely

Perfect so now that I now that they’re all out on the out and sitting sitting out excuse me um I’m going to stack uh my my containers on here for uh the next step Tanner’s ready we’ll hit pause on that because we’re going to check our chicken yes it’s done um so we’re going to take it out of this bowl um and set it aside but then we’re going to add some olive oil nice amount of olive oil there we’re

Going to add in the miror POA next I love this it’s uh so easy it’s already cut up thank C Trader Joe’s um celery carrots onions and you can see here that it’s deing the pan a bit oh and here’s a chef having fun um oh yeah all smiles that’s right

Having a good time um so you can see too since it’s de glazed um you know I’m we’re also adding in some salt but this this kind of Acts because these veggies have moisture in them it kind of it will deglaze the pan for you too so uh I

Didn’t have any fresh garlic this week um but I did have roasted garlic so I used that I definitely didn’t have to you know use my roasted garlic here but um when I buy a lot of garlic I always roast it and uh I like to throw some in

The freezer just to have it on hand so this was frozen and now it’s th so it’s going into I know you guys can see what I’m doing but I really wish you could smell this it just the fragrance oh it’s so Incredible next in that’s all got a head start uh and cook down a bit so putting in my leaks in next um these will I only put half my Pan’s not big enough for the whole bount so I’m going to give these a nice stir in here too and they’ll soften

Um and start to Brown and caramelize as well all right now that everybody’s cooked down a bit I mean how beautiful is this um everybody’s cooked down a bit I’m going to taste one of the leaks oh does she approve oh yeah she approves delish um deglazing with a little bit of

Water here of course you could use uh stock or wine or whatever you want but I just like to keep it a little bit lighter so I use water um and just kind of getting those little brown bits off the bottom all right now that we’re de

Glazed off the not only the bottoms and the sides um I’m going to remove from the Heat and we’re getting that immersion blender in here if you don’t have one of these I cannot recommend it enough I if you guys have watched any of my other videos you know that I love it

Um previously I had the week before cauliflower was on sale so I had bought cauliflower then and I roasted it I knew I wanted to use it in soup and poor planning on my part I thought that I had a lot more uh pone broth at home I did

Not so all I had with this was this beef broth um looking back I definitely would have uh loved to use vegetable broth or chicken chicken instead of beef but it turned out fine and really didn’t uh impact the flavor that much so yeah adding in some more until it really

Becomes soup texture and you know hindsight’s 2020 I definitely wanted some texture to this but I think if I were doing it again I would have blended it for longer and also added um more water in so you can kind of see me go through that process here but you know

We live and we learn so um all the vegetables are Blended and then I’m adding that chicken back in um yeah see I like it tastes really good it was just really thick so you know we live we learn what can we do um I’m getting uh

My boiling water from my Kettle onto the stove into my um into my pan here highly recommend doing that it really helps the process move along um so fast I think it boils so much quicker than from being on the stove on high um and I’m getting the

Farro in into uh My Pan here I’m obsessed with far too so okay so now we’re going to get started on our other thing um I’m I’m obsessed also with this container for my oats I have the same one for Rice it’s so nice to buy these

Things in bulk and save some money but it’s really hard to store them I don’t like keeping them in the bags that they come in and um this also is like an airtight seal it’s a really a great way to keep everything fresh too so yeah and

It Al came with this little scoop so that is that was a nice little added benefit so I’m going to add my oats in Here Now that my oats are portioned out I’ll grab a bowl and guess what fruit I’m going to add this week I am cutting up apples so I’m going to make apples I’ll add some warm spices too um so I’m going to get these all cut up uh into

You know maybe a smaller dice um and or like a cube I guess um so yeah so I’ll get these apples cut up I’ll cut around the core this is one of those moments when I definitely wish I had one of those fancy Apple Cutters to make this

Go you know just that little bit faster but alas here we are so I’ll cut my apples up next All right apples are all cut up I’m going to add some of those warm spices matting cinnamon nutmeg um Ginger and um oh yes some cloves as well definitely had to these need a these need a little bit larger of one of the opening I guess

Um so I’m going to give those a Stir once I’m happy with how uh distributed the spices are on the apples I’m going to portion these into each container and again another thing I wish you could smell because this just smelled so warm and cozy and baked apples are just something else Really all right next thing now that all my apples and oats are in there I’m going to add in my liquid I’m using dairy milk you can absolutely use whatever milk you like uh it’s really up to you um you can also use just water if you um don’t want

You don’t want to use milk you don’t want the calories or milk whatever you don’t like the taste of you know any kind of milk at all um up to you of course it’s always up to you it’s got to work for you so if you look to um we

Want everything to really be swimming so we don’t want them to be super dry I honestly probably could have added a bit more and it would have been fine too um but I I want my I want everything in here to be kind of swimming in there um

It was also in this moment that I realized I forgot to spray um the Apple side so you know oh well it’s okay so I’m spraying this side um for the other part part of my breakfast which is really my Savory part time for the next

Thing which is corn muffins I’m going to use I’m going to not I’m not going to follow the package directions exactly here I’m going to follow um you know them inspirationally maybe um but I’m going to use this this mix probably could just use cornmeal if you want but

I had this box of uh corn muffin mix so we’re using it so I’m going to add my mix into my bowl first and I’m going to grab from the fridge a eggs so the package directions don’t call for this many eggs but I really want this to be

An egg forward dish uh if you follow me for any amount of time you probably have seen that I eat something Savory I always make something Savory and I always make something sweet for breakfast almost every single week I really don’t like to just have one or

The other um you know the I guess the traveler in me knows that Americans love eggs for breakfast and other countries that’s not as common um but I love eggs for breakfast it’s just it’s my favorite thing um to have for breakfast so I could I could skip the oatmeal like the

Sweet part of breakfast but I cannot skip the Savory part so I wanted to you know make these just uh you know take them up a little bit of kick them up a notch so I sliced some scallions and I put those in here as well um and you

Know just added some extra you know some extra flavor and as I was mixing these up I thought you know what else might be really nice in here some Italian cheeses so I’m adding some of the quatro fagi uh from Trader Joe’s I forget which cheeses are

In here but just adding some cheese so kind of like a you know if I had cheddar actually that would have been really really good like unexpected cheddar from tjs um with scallions but these were delicious too so um I added some cheese in here so

I’ll give them a final whisk and then I’ll get them into their containers and then we’ll get into the Oven So while those cook this girl knows she’s almost done we’re almost to the end maybe this is a part where I get a little delier ious um I’ve got these lentils I could not recommend these more these are one of my most favorite things a friend introduced me shout shout out

To my friend Sasha for introducing me to these lentils from tjs they have the best flavor I love eating them hot or cold soup salad you freaking name it they are everything they’re so good and they’re French lentils too so you know say magnific um next I’m adding in some

Ground turkey and some kale oh yeah got to get all the every little bit we don’t leave anything we don’t leave anything in there we want it all um okay so next we’ll mix that up and I also will break down the lentils a little bit too they’re all separate they’re not like

One big mushy thing but they are you know they were in this package so we’ll break them down a little bit my cooked Farrow going in yum I also could not recommend farro more as well um it’s essentially kind of like the the shape I guess of rice but the texture is so

Delicious it’s um so hearty it’s chewy it’s um it just has really it takes on the flavor of whatever you make with it but I just love that it’s just that little bit more chewier than even brown rice um it’s seriously a fave um so now

That that’s all mixed up we’re going to add in all of those veggies that we had cooked and roasted early earlier so again we’ve got our brussel sprouts our chickpeas that were in there too our sweet potatoes and our rainbow carrot so look at that yeah I got excited because

It just looked so delicious and so hearty and warm it just looked amazing and it tasted amazing too so beautiful she’s so happy and really the best part about something like this is you could easily change the flavors this I will add like a my own dressing to Everyday

Um I’m just going to do really simple vinegar up but you could add really whatever dressing or flavor or sauce you wanted to to this mix because it’s so versatile and it’s just chef’s kiss delicious it’s basically like one of those fancy um salad places um but it’s

At home so you know we love a little save some save some Mo laa and um and you know exactly what’s in this you know you saw it you made it you already knew what’s uh what’s in each and every bite that you’re Having Now that those all portioned out now that those are all portioned out we’ll move on to the next Meal which is our cauliflower leak soup um with some chicken in there as well so I’ll give it a a stir it was um being kept warm on

The stove and it smells amazing again so many good flavors and smells here um so I’ll portion that out next side note here if you want to add any kind of side with this for like dipping or something whether that’s like a toast um or crackers or something I wouldn’t add

That into these containers now the moisture content between the soup and the crackers even if they’re separated is not going to it’s not really going to work um you know for for everything to stay fresh so just add those in um fresh as you go every day or maybe you could

Do the night before too uh but don’t put them I really don’t recommend putting them in with the soup um right away even though they they have dividers it won’t uh those are some some lessons learned along the way so hot tip There E You know I had to give this a taste there was only a tiny bit left so this Chef took a took a little bite and yum so good all right so now we’re prepping for our breakfast is getting ready to come out of the oven so because I know

It’s going to be piping hot I’m going to put down um some towels uh onto my counter so I’ll get that out of the oven I mean look at this oh she’s so cute delish sweet Savory yum really bringing these containers out of the oven and both you know sides of

The meal are done I love that I can put these into the oven for a long time I had containers that I couldn’t put into the oven directly and I had to make everything and transfer it and you guys can see sometimes I still do that with

Other meals but with things that can go in the oven um easily I it just makes such a difference um for me truly uh and now that I’m think about honestly I probably could have roasted some of those veggies in each container separately um but you know hindsight’s

2020 we’re living we’re learning and having a good time Too Oh Chef Lisa is so happy she’s got all three meals done they’re just cooling off and I’ll also add some honey on top of these two I had thought I had actually forgot to put it in before so I’m glad I remembered or else that probably would have just tasted very

Very Bland so adding a little bit of Honey on the top of my baked oatmeal too And that is a wrap on meal prep this week thank you guys so much for watching thank you for your support thank you for your comments thank you for subscribing I sincerely appreciate it I love sharing this process with you and I am so happy you’re here have a wonderful week ahead