Today I’m linking up with Blog Hoppin’ to share some quick and easy make ahead meal ideas. For me I know that when I’m hungry I need to eat…and I mean RIGHT AWAY! So I can’t mess around with a lot of prep at meal time. I would rather put the time in on a different day, when I’m not so hungry, and basically have a grab-and-go type meal during meal times.
I love quick, easy, healthy meals like this quinoa spread. Here’s the recipe!
Quick and easy food doesn’t have to compromise delicious flavor and nutrition (unless we’re talking fast food and then..well all bets are off).
One of our favorite quick weekly lunch ideas is salad jars. I love that you can make them any type of salad you want and then store them in the fridge and grab out during the week when you’re ready to eat. Good-To-Go!
My favorite salad to make is taco salad. I put all of the wet ingredients at the bottom of the jar (beans, tomatoes, etc) and then put the lettuce at the top so it doesn’t get too soggy. Then I grab a baggy of chips to bring along and during lunchtime just mix them all together on a plate and VIOLA insta-delicious and nutritious lunch. Our salad jars usually keep in the refrigerator about 4 or 5 days.
Specifics to remember when making salad jar meals:
1. Put your dressing on the bottom. (This will keep your salad from getting too soggy)
2. Layer in your heartier veggies or toppings next; beans, cucumbers, carrots etc.
3. Then, place your lighter ingredients like quinoa, tomatoes, strawberries, mandarin oranges, onions etc.
4. On the very top stack your favorite greens. My personal favorite is a mixed salad greens that includes spinach. Yum-O-Me!
For Dinners we like to follow a general “theme nights” schedule like this one:
We also love and use Plan-to-Eat weekly to make our menu. It automatically generates your shopping list for you and you can store your recipes on the site too. I love that I can set it up to cook and meal prep right from my iPad or phone. If you become friends with us on the site you can see all of our recipes and menus too. It’s pretty cool!
If you want a free trial check it out HERE.
I would love to hear what you do for easy meal prepping during the week. Comment below with your favorite quick and healthy meal idea.
That quinoa (<– I still have a hard time spelling that) spread looks delicious. Thanks for sharing these simple ideas.
Ha Alysa! I still have to say it in my head the way it’s spelled before I write it. 🙂 It is soooo good. We try to make a batch weekly and then use it in wraps, with the spread above or in our salad jars etc. It’s so versatile and I love that it’s a complete protein all by itself (crazy).