My Favourite Vegetarian Recipes to Meal Prep
Welcome back to the blog everyone! To start - does anyone else absolutely hate making their lunch? I honestly think it may be one of my least favourite things ever. The last thing I want to do when I come home from work is make dinner, do dishes, make lunch, do dishes - ugh. But alas, meal prepping is here to ease that burden, at least a little bit. Being vegetarian, it can be difficult to come up with new recipes that are both healthy and taste good. I don’t know about any other veggies out there, but I often find myself falling into eating the same kind of lunch every week, and if I’m being honest, I get bored really quickly, so eating the same things all the time isn’t ideal for me. And if we’re being honest, a lot of meat substitutes are loaded with salt and preservatives, and I’m currently on a journey of trying to eat better including reducing the amount of salt, carbs & sugar in my diet, so this just adds even more of a challenge to finding healthy-yet-yummy vegetarian meals. And I must admit, after this weekend of Thanksgiving and my cousin and I’s birthday’s meals here in Canada, I want my fruits and vegetables really, really badly. Here are three of my favourite dishes that I like to meal prep on Sunday for the coming week.
Mason Jar Salads
Okay, okay, okay - I know what you’re thinking… you’re starting this off with salad?! The stereotypical “vegetarians & vegans only eat rabbit food/salad”?! I seriously promise, you can take a regular old salad to a whole other level if you just think outside of your usual ingredients! (Plus it’s just after Thanksgiving weekend - I couldn’t even fathom the idea of eating anything but vegetables all week) Everyone thinks that salad’s just need to be filled with vegetables like carrots, tomatoes & cucumbers, and of course you are probably going to want to put in at least some of those usual ingredients but there are plenty of other awesome & healthy ingredients you may be over-looking when making your salads:
· Beans (Kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas, etc)
· Potatoes
· Sauteed Mushrooms
· Corn
· Paneer
· Green and/or Yellow Beans
· Fruit (Strawberries, blueberries & clementines are my favourites!)
· Nuts or Seeds
· Rice or Quinoa
· Cooked Broccoli
· Hard-boiled Eggs
· Avocado
· Green Onion
· Vegan Sausage
· Brussels Sprouts
· Radishes
· Asparagus
One of my favourite things that I’ve started doing is using leftover vegetables from dinner. Any time my family and I have roasted potatoes, and we have some left, I love to throw those into my salad the next day to add something different to an otherwise, boring lunch. (Never under estimate cold potatoes in a salad, they’re delicious!) Another one of my favourite things to do is get a medley of fall veggies like Brussels sprouts, heirloom carrots, green beans, potatoes, broccoli, etc & roast them with some salt, pepper and olive oil to make a heartier salad for the cooler months.
If you’ve never made a mason jar salad before, they’re super easy to put together. Depending on how much you want, you could use either a small or large mason jar, but from experience, the big one can be too much sometimes, so I’d opt for the smaller mason jar. To put together the salad, you start with your dressing at the bottom of the mason jar, and then put whatever ingredients won’t absorb too much moisture such as tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers or bell pepper. Don’t use veggies like mushrooms that are soft and will get gross and soggy after sitting in dressing for a few days. From there, I’d suggest doing another one or two vegetables that won’t absorb the moisture from the dressing until your jar is about 1/4 of the way full. From there, keep adding in whatever toppings you want but make sure to leave some room to add whatever greens you want. Last but not least, you will add the greens in at the top, so that they are the furthest away from the dressing, throw the lid on & put it in the fridge. When you’re ready to eat, just grab a bowl, pull out the greens and pour your toppings out over the greens. Everything will be well coated with the dressing, and you’ll be ready to have a delicious & filling salad. If you have extra room in the jar, you may even be able to just shake it up, and then pour it out, or even eat your salad from the jar!
Buddha Bowls
Buddha bowls can be as easy or as complicated as you want, which is why I love them so much. When I’m feeling like making a simple dinner, I can easily throw something together and call it a Buddha bowl. But I can also pack it full of veggies, protein and a little bit of carbs, and I’ve got a nice healthy lunch. Once again, the same thing with the stir-fry, you can put pretty much whatever you want in it, but here is what I personally love in my Buddha bowls when I’m making it as a meal prep for the work week:
Ingredients:
· Rice or Quinoa
· Black beans or Kidney beans
· Broccoli
· Sweet potato
· Paneer or Tofu
· Red onion
· Kale or Spinach
· Hard-boiled egg
· Pumpkin seeds
· Avocado
· Soy Sauce
· Lemon slice for garnish
The best part of Buddha bowls is that you can throw all of these things together and get a really healthy and nutritious lunch for the week, and it’s going to keep you full for the whole afternoon. I prefer to eat my Buddha bowls warmed up, but if you’re more into eating a cold lunch, as long as everything is cooked, I’m sure it would also taste super delicious!
Greek Salad
Last but not least, my absolute favourite meal to meal prep (mainly in the summer months). I’m not going to say this is my recipe, because I’m sure this recipe has to exist somewhere on the internet, but I just whipped this up one day when I wasn’t sure what to take for lunch, and figured it would make not only a super yummy lunch, but it was also healthy. And hey, I’m actually giving you a recipe with this one! But don’t hold your breath, a lot of it is me just looking at it, and adding more of something in, rather than giving measurements, so there won’t be exactly how much you should use written in the ingredients - just the actual ingredients, and you can decide exactly how much or little you want to add.
Ingredients:
· Cucumber, sliced & cut into half moons
· Black beans
· Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
· Red onion, sliced
· Feta cheese
· Black olives (sliced, in a jar)
· Avocado
· Chives, chopped for garnish
Dressing Ingredients:
· Olive Oil
· Red wine vinegar or white vinegar
· Lemon Juice
· Salt & Pepper
· Dried oregano
Directions:
1) Cut up your cucumbers, onion and tomatoes & throw them into a big mixing bowl. Add in black beans, sliced olives & feta cheese, and mix together.
2) Directly into the same bowl, pour in about 3 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar or white vinegar, and 1 tsp of lemon juice. Mix together, and taste. Add more olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice to your preference, if necessary. Add in a dash of salt & pepper, and sprinkle on approximately 1 tsp of dried oregano & mix everything together. Add more to your preference, if necessary.
3) Separate evenly into containers, and garnish with some chopped chives. Add half, or a whole avocado, diced into the meal when you are ready to eat, and mix together a bit to get everything well combined. Enjoy!
In addition to whatever I’ve made for my lunch, I love to bring a ton of healthy snacks. Not only is it proven that it’s a lot better to have five small meals a day, rather than three large ones, but it also helps you to stop from eating everything in your lunch in the matter of an hour. It’s also very helpful to keep your hunger at bay when you really just want to grab a bag of chips or chocolate bar from the vending machine. Everyday, I always bring a container filled with the following:
· Fruit (Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. Occasionally grapes, banana, mango, pineapple, kiwi or clementines)
· Vegetables (Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers. Occasionally radishes or broccoli)
· Cheese (Balderson, old cheddar or havarti)
· Yogurt & Jam (5% plain Greek yogurt with low sugar raspberry, strawberry or blueberry jam)
Sometimes I will bring crackers to go with the cheese, add an additional snack of pita chips & roasted red pepper dip, or a hard boiled egg if I’m feeling extra hungry, but generally I stick to bringing just those main four snacks, and like to divide them with two snacks before lunch, usually the yogurt & cheese, one snack with lunch, usually the fruit & one snack in the afternoon, which leaves the vegetables.
And that’s it! Those are my top three, favourite vegetarian meal prep ideas that I love to make over-and-over again. I hope you guys try, and if not, at least feel inspired to try something new and different for your lunch meal prep. Enjoy!
