SIMPLE Meal Prep: 5 Ingredients 5 Ways
Sometimes I see the eyes glaze over. For some, the longer the ingredient, the more you think 'there's no way I can make that' or 'that's too complicated'.
If that sounds familiar, then this episode is for you!
Whether you're a mom with small kids and have very little time to cook or you don't enjoy cooking but still want something healthy to eat take a listen to this episode.
I provide reasons to keep standard ingredients available that you can prepare in different ways to come up with a variety of meal options.
Transcript of this Episode
Andrea Heyman 00:00 Hi, friends, it's Andrea here with another episode of adventures and feeding my fam. I'm super excited for today's episode, because this is really coming from requests from all of you, or many of you, I should say, who asked me for really simple recipes. It's kind of like, if you see an ingredient list that extends longer than five ingredients, it's like, your eyes start to bulge and you look super overwhelmed. And I, I know the feeling, because a lot of you come to me, like, Oh my gosh, Andrea, just make it super easy. That ingredient list cannot be too long, or else it's too overwhelming. If this is you, I think you're really gonna love this episode. And really, I'm thinking of the people who have really young kids and you just require those kids require more hands on care. And prepping food can just really be a major challenge fitting that into their day, or the working mom who comes home in a rush, only to tend to all the things that need to be done at home, the kids want their attention, and she needs to make something for dinner in a pinch. Today, I'm going to share you some reasons why it's smart to have some of these very easy five ingredient meals. And I'll also give you some specific ideas on how to accomplish this. Alright, so today's specific ideas that are going to be using plant based ingredients that are pretty popular, pretty common and also pretty shelf stable, so that makes it even more convenient.
Many of you have mentioned interest in adding more plant based meals to your diet. So this should really be helpful in giving you some more options. At the beginning of the year, I launched something that I am super excited about. And that's the 52 recipes challenge. The idea is to make one new recipe each week for a year. You don't have to start at the very beginning of January. It can be a consecutive 52 weeks starting any time. And if you're interested in signing up and joining that movement, I will include the link in the show notes so that you can be sure to join
Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman, and I've been a registered dietician for over 25 years, so I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges and humor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests will discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them.
I mentioned the 52 recipes challenge. I go live every week on Instagram and in my facebook group to cook live the recipe that I have selected for the week. So this past Sunday, I used a five ingredient recipe. I made a sweet potato qinhuai patty, and then paired it with some baby spinach and some spicy chickpeas to create a super simple meal, but one that's balanced and healthy and really yummy. So it's pretty obvious why easy meals are important. You know definitely for the evenings when you don't have a lot of time to make dinner, or for the times where you just feel really tired, too tired to cook. And you don't want to eat out or order out because of the expense or just you know, that is healthy. So there's definitely a place for having five ingredient meals. Obviously a five ingredient meal takes a lot less time to prepare typically. So this week, I am using the same five key ingredients all week long to make a variety of meals and to give you ideas of how to mix and match things and prepare them in a slightly different ways so that you can make those super easy meals. So check out my Instagram account at adventures and feeding my fam. And you'll see all of those super awesome ideas. So the ingredients that I I've been using this week, our baby spinach, coconut milk, chickpeas, , and quinoa, sweet potatoes. So as you can see most of those, four out of five of those ingredients are very shelf stable and lasts a long time. Obviously sweet potato, it can last a long time, but it's not totally non perishable, but you get the idea. So here are my five awesome ideas for the week. Or if you just have those ingredients available, you can make them a different combination or a different preparation depending on the week or the day. So idea number one I already mentioned this, this is the key was sweet potato cake, and I roasted some chickpeas and added some cayenne pepper to them to make them a little spicy, and put that all over a bed of baby spinach. Obviously, that will only use four ingredients, I didn't even use the coconut milk. So that was a really good one. And you can see the video to that in my facebook group or on Instagram TV. Idea number two is a kind of a classic green bowl so you make the quinoa separate. And then roast the chickpeas with a little soy sauce and cayenne and then slice the sweet potatoes roast them as well. And then saute the spinach. Then you'll have a bed of Qianlong and then you just add the chickpeas, the sweet potatoes and spinach to make a really nice green bowl. Okay, idea number three is a curry. You know I love me some curry. And this one you can make super easy. This is just a sweet potato spinach chickpea curry, using the coconut milk obviously, to make the curry sauce along with some curry powder and then serve the entire thing over Qianlong. Typically you'd make it over rice that would be a little more traditional, but for our purposes, the key nwacc can be used idea number for a chickpea Patty. So you basically drain your chickpeas from I can mash them up really well. And then you can cook them up and make a patty have some mashed sweet potatoes with sauteed spinach again, really balanced meal really yummy, and tasty and super good. And then the fifth idea is similar to one that we already did. But this time make your king wall with the coconut milk, it's going to make your king last super, super rich and tasty. Instead of when you make the king wall with just traditionally with water. So you can have a better spinach than your coconut milk. Qianlong sprinkle that over and then you can have your roasted chickpeas and roasted sweet potatoes over the top as well. So like I said, I'm going to be making a few of these options this week. So check it out on Instagram. I'll be posting those pictures there. But it's just kind of a fun way to help you realize that just with a few core ingredients, you can make them in a variety of different ways to make it interesting and also really palatable and yummy for you and your family.
So I hope this was practical for you all. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review, as well as share with a friend. This is how we get the word out and really help create a supportive community that I am dedicated to growing. Also remember, I'm always available for nutrition consultation and coaching. If you want more information, you can hop on a discovery call with me to see if you are a good candidate to work with me. I'll leave all of those links in the show notes. So you can catch them there and until next time, take care