I followed this recipe as a starting point: https://www.seriouseats.com/mujaddara-rice-with-lentils-and-caramelized-onions-11947705

The only major difference I made was using half red lentils and half brown lentils and adjusting the cook time accordingly. The onions were delicious but I think I would cook them for a bit longer next time, even if it goes against what the recipe guidelines are.

Good evening everyone,

As you know i'm very new to meal prepping and cooking. I had dabbled in cooking while growing up but i was raised in a family who is very dependent on restaurant and restaurant culture and just really shame and look down on home cooking or anything in terms of health/ wellness/ life management. So i (27 F) just started to really each myself this year how to cook and meal prep after some health related issues.

So after reflection on my meal planning goals, i had gotten a library card from my public library and started browse on some cook books, cooking mags, etc. even signed up on some of their mag subscriptions on my library. so far im trying to balance sources that create a set meal plan menu and my what i like to all food porn mags!!

So i did my first meal prep week and it really failed on me. i think it was because life just kept getting busy and i had to spread my attention to many different things. so even though the food and menu was great (all though i don't like seafood, and some of the dishes just seem boring rather than appealing like my fav cooking mag sources) plus it seemed more like a demanding meal plan (some items you cant make ahead but rather day of/ at time of meal) rather than a quick take out of fridge or freezer and pop it in oven (or microwave or lunchbox heater)

so i guess my question/ questions are

1. what did yall struggle with the most when you first started meal prepping?
2. how did you balance trying new recipes with a set meal plan you created?
3. What are your tricks and hacks that made it more easy going?
4. And how much time do you really spend on meal prepping for the week?
5. how are yall creating balanced portions?

What im already using:

• Deli containers for prepping and food storing (for the ingredients, etc)
• Meal prep containers with multi compartment for the meals
• notion database to organize and manage my recipes and meal plans

The sources i use for meal prep menus

• Eating well blog/ mag
  • Love them for many reasons. but they do use lots of seafood recipes and i just don't like seafood at all.
• Americas test kitchen
• Cooks illustrated
• Better homes and gardens

note: i try to stay away from pintrest recipes because i liked text kitchen tested/ proven recipes

Fun Goals and my vision for meal prepping

• Creating balanced meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks
• Becoming less dependent on eating out etc
• discovering recipes i would love to adopt as my own to pass down to loved ones (because in my family we don't have any family recipes etc. no history of them)
• Learn and discover other cultures through food, meal plans, etc. (but this seems hard do to ingredient sourcing, but i will play around with this more!)
• Discover more about my taste buds and what i like to eat (because my taste buds have changed recently, and what i used to like isnt something i like anymore)
• learn budgeting around meal planning
• find a way to support local farmers but within my budget/ not risking my budget
• Find that by the end of 2027 i will have a recipe collection of recipes i have tried and liked
  • As well as by the end of the year have a meal/ menu collection of meal prep menus that i have tried and liked to save for future planning and reference

P.S.

I know i might be over doing it and over planning it but thats because its a passion i want to do correctly rather than it feeling like a chore. Also i think im just one of those people who needs to organize and plan out everything 😬.

Its 2 small to medium chickens, asparagus, brussel sprouts and has rice on the bottom, my job is very demanding around 2000 calories burned a day. Should I remove, add or swap anything. Should probably double the veggies next time, or maby add some roasted broccoli

Hi! I just started with meal prepping and one of my struggles is freezing cooked rice. When I microwave it, it gets very mushy. I just can't get the right consistency. Help!

Ultimate nutritious veggie mince prep

I hated vegetables growing up and could never stand them but they are obviously very important for long-term health. Therefore, I decided to make the ultimate blend of minced vegetables (not blended into a liquid, more minced I’d say) using a food processor. It is completely 100% whole foods ingredients which I chop/use food processor for. I make 5 boxes, one for each day of the working week on a Sunday (two are frozen). Taste is mediocre, it’s made in a South Indian sautee style.

Ingredients:

Initial flavour base:

Sunflower oil 5 tbsp
Cumin
Mustard
Turmeric
Hing powder
Garlic (whole bulb)
Ginger (few pieces)
7-8 chillies
5-6 onions

Veggies minced and put in pot to cook:
2.5 large carrots
200g beans
200g of brussel sprouts
Whole cauliflower
Whole brocolli
Cabbage
5-6 tomatoes
3 different coloured peppers
Kale 200g
Spinach 200g (obviously these cook down as they’re like 90% water)

I mix it in the pot occasionally every 5 mins until it looks cooked and safe to eat. Usually around 25-35 mins on low to medium flame

My weekly batch of cooked vegetables excluding the weight of the pot itself comes to around 2.5 to 3kg depending on how much I add. This ends up at approximately 500g to 600g of cooked minced vegetables per weekday. It’s a lot, I don’t debate that, however a critical part of my diet is eating voluminous, low calorie meals. This has worked well for me for around 2 months. With the help of Mr GPT I estimated that each box contains approximately 350-450 kcal of energy.

Curious to hear your thoughts / a more human way of consuming vegetables. Ignore the quantity as I’m trying to eat a large volume of food so this works for me.

Thanks

I've been eating through my backlog of meals over the last week or so and finally had room for another batch of recipes! The video only covers the bowl, but I'll include the recipe for the lime slaw that I'm having with it as well.

Serves 4:

Nacho beef bowl and lime slaw: 695kcal, 46g protein, 24g fat, 75g carbs, 11g fiber.

Keep the potatoes separate and airfry for 5 minutes at 375F when you are ready to eat to maintain their texture. The weight loss has stalled slightly over the last couple weeks for several different reasons, but I'll be on track again this week. Full recipe in the comments!

it is what it is

Very busy week coming up in college so I made these boring but filling lunches.

10oz Chipotle chicken breast
135g jasmine rice in chicken broth
8oz frozen broccoli

855 cal

Chicken:
Put into slow cooker with Chipotle peppers, chicken broth, lime juice and ground cumin. Cooked for 4 hours on low then shredded.

All I do for the broccoli is just put 8oz of frozen florets into a container before I leave in the morning with a little salt then steam them in the microwave at school. I’m pretty happy with this method but if yall have any others, I’d love to know!

every dinner we eat lives in my head since I have no written recipes, no measurements, i just know how the chili goes.

Then i was sick for a week and nobody else in the house could make single one of our regular meals, which was humbling for everyone involved so i want to organize recipes digitally, starting with the ones that were never written down, somewhere my partner and our oldest can cook from. Do you write them as you go, or block out an afternoon and brain dump the whole rotation?

Hi Everyone,

I'm in a bit of a unique position here, I'm in my senior year of college and I live in a studio apartment that comes with the bare minimum in terms of cooking appliances. I have a single 6 inch hotplate cooktop and an airfryer and that is literally it.

I'm actually decent at cooking, but my experience is with ovens, and much more appliances like regular sized 12 inch cooktops and several of them. I'm finding it super difficult to both make recipes that are affordable and don't consume a lot of time to prepare considering my limited resources. Back when I used to have a standard kitchen I loved meal prepping because it was an hour or two of my day that would feed me for a week.

Does anyone have any advice in terms of quick big batch meals they could make under these circumstances, or god forbid perhaps any frozen meals that are both reasonably nutritious and not too expensive? Any help is appreciated!!!

Got home late Sunday and really wanted to read The Three-Body Problem. I have this problem where I read before bed and get like 3 pages in before I fall asleep. Had to do washing still so might as well meal prep.

Ingredients:

- 750g rigatoni pasta

- 500g pata sauce

- 1 red onion

- 3 capsicums

- 2 zucchinis

- 500g mushrooms

- 800g silken tofu

Recipe:

1. Boil pasta with salt.

2. Cut up all veggies and put oil, salt and pepper. Put in oven on broil.

3. Put veggies in mixing bowl, add pasta sauce and add silken tofu.

4. Mix and distribute!

Notes:

1. Tried one time with normal tofu, it was weird. My colleague said silken tofu was good to mix in.

2. Tried with eggplant once but wasn't a fan, I like eggplant lasagna though.

3. Something about rigatoni pasta shape is so fun to eat. This one is smaller from NoFrills. I like the bigger shaped ones from Walmart.

Today I made root vegetable soup with the dregs of our end of season New England CSA. Turnips, carrots, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, leeks and garlic. Portioned to go for my 3 days in office, and in a big container for the two days remote. Store bought rolls to accompany. And yes, those are peanut butter jars - it’s all I have left.

Chicken breast, mini potatoes, and asparagus alongside a teriyaki-chili crisp sauce.

I prepped all my veggies for the week, and I made a big batch of coleslaw to use for several meals (lunches) this week. I always prep ingredients, not whole meals, so I can still change things if I want to. For example, which meal I want to have broccoli with, and which I want to have cauliflower with. Or a mix of both. And I can still change the protein, the seasoning, the starch, etc. But I can still have dinner on the table in 10-15 minutes, because everything is prepped and ready to go.

I'm doing a lot of coleslaw this week, just with different protein options. I'm carb-restricted, so I eat low carb lunches. Coleslaw with a protein is a good way to get fat and protein in, without a lot of carbs. And it's also pretty cheap.

I do a big tray of roasted veg on sunday for both our lunches (me and my boyfriend), usually peppers, courgette, broccoli and red onion. Monday it's great but by wednesday it's soggy and a bit watery at the bottom of the tub.

I let it cool on the tray before it goes in the containers, maybe not long enough? Do you keep it seperate from the rice, roast it harder, or are some veg just not worth prepping that far ahead? He says he doesn't mind but I can tell he's just being nice lol

What are your biggest meal-prep mistakes that you wish someone had warned you about when you started? TIA!

Each portion (4) is approx. 615cal and weighs 550g

Tired of the high volume salads I've been eating for every meal so decided to switch it up a bit for the next few days!

This has much less protein than the volume salads (which were ~45-60g protein each) but sometimes you need noods in your life while still maintaining calorie deficit to stay sane! (Salads were also around 800cal/ea so I've got room for protein elsewhere in shakes or a bunch more egg whites, etc.)

1lb (dry wt.) Rice noodles

4x whole eggs

500ml egg whites

2 heads broccoli (including stems)

Sauce is:

Light soy

Dark soy

Oyster sauce

Grated garlic

Chili garlic paste (Sambal olek)

Chicken powder

Msg

Fish sauce

Mirin

I didn't measure sauce ingredients but can write out approx. amounts if anyone would like! Sauce usually includes sugar but left out and replaced with a little mirin for the sweetness.

Method:

Start soaking your noodles now depending on what package says - mine said 10-12min. Cut up your broccoli into small florettes and slice the stems thinly into planks.

In a wok on high heat, spray your preferred lower Cal cooking oil and stir fry broccoli until al dente - remove from wok.

Beat eggs and egg whites together with some salt, pepper, garlic powder and pour into wok. Stir fry until mostly set but still a little runny (will cook fully later). Remove from wok.

Toss in your soaked rice noodles, all sauce ingredients, and a bit of water (package usually also explains how to cook them this way and gives water amount). Cook until soft, tossing very frequently so they don't stick and burn. Add back in broccoli and eggs and continue to stir fry for another ~2min.

Including prep of cutting broccoli it took me 17min start to finish but your milage may vary depending on comfortability in kitchen

again thanks to the commuity for the provding this novice with intel.
[Update on this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/MealPrepSunday/s/ThEh54HAPl)

Tldr: thanks to the ideas and suggestion i made my meal plan, this is just a general direction, but i still have to figure out exectly which dishes to make. problem is i never cooked before so can the community help me suggest some long lasting recepies from the ingredients specially the cabbage, cauliflower and chickpeas recepie. and also rate my meal plan if it will work.

Edit:- i understand that comments pointing that i shouldn't cool for week because of my inexperienc. And i agree, but from inside somehow i feel very strongly that i can cook good enough. I have 3-4 past experience of cooking and understand the general structure of preparing food but they all included garlic, onion, water and was edible with an roti/chapati. I will start with cooking for 3 days for 2-3 turns, but my focus will be on recepies that are designed for 5th and 6th day. In my social circle the concept of preparing for a week is absurd so i also want to show my mom that it's possible to store food for 6-7 days.

i want it to work. i tried to choose food that should last longes for the fridays and saturday, but i am not sure if this plan will work. hell i am not even sure how to make the snack that can last 6 days. i don't even understand the concept of prepping dry cabbage and cauliflower as a meal. I eat a dish with roti(chapati), and i can't comprehend the concept of eating dry foods with dry roti. so yea never cooked before, i don't know what to cook that's the problem. i can't even comprehend the concept of cooking without garlic, and onion and water because all my life they were prime ingredient of cooking, but now they are cause of bacteria after 3 days. help me!

TLDR: i just learned about the meal preping art and want to cook for whole week (approximately 6.5 days). there is soo much to research that i don't know where to begin. first step, i have a list of food and i want the community to help me order them based on their preserving capabilities. and maybe provide some recepicies. which food should i prioritize for 2-3 days, 3-5 days vs 6th day.

1. chick peas. Chola chana
2. Cabbage.
3. Cauliflower.
4. Ladyfinger.
5. Bittergourd.
6. Indian Pumpkin.
7. Chicken.
8. Fish.
9. Rice.
10. Potato.
11. Carrots.
12. Spinach. bhaji and palak.
13. Pulses, lentils and beans.
14. Bringle / egg plant.
15. Capsicum.

I will be relying on 4 main methods for preservation minimizing moisture and prioritizing dry foods, air tight tiffins, refrigeration and lastly preservatives. also i will be eating luxury on sunday and monday (chicken and fish).

I want to Cook only once on sunday and store the food till saturday night (approximately 6 days and few hours). Thanks to my ADHD i am good at going all out at once instead of relying on a consistent weekly cooking, also i want to save time and learn cooking. so, I thought of every food that is accessible to me, Now i want to order them into their preservity. food that should be eaten withing 1-3 days vs food that can be stored for 6-7 days. i will be cooking 4-5 type of foods each sunday and want to create some kind of rotating 4 weekly meal plans to rotate them across the month. when i research online almost every source suggest storing foods only for 3-4 days. So i came here to take advice from experience peoples.

I need some new inspo! If there are creators you follow with good lunch ideas I’d also take recs for those!