Easy and Healthy Meal Prep Ideas

Why meal prep? Because no one wants to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day… especially if you’re studying – who has time for that? When you’re rushed for time, Uber Eats or takeaway meals can be very tempting (and heaven knows we’ve caved many times), but won’t usually align with your health and fitness goals. 

For those who don’t love to cook, sometimes even reading a recipe requires too much effort (we feel you), so we’ve made things a whole lot simpler for you. Check out the three meal prep recipes below. We list the ingredients and the method, and then you just decide how much of each ingredient you want to put in, based on your goals and how many meals you intend to prep. 

Ever tried to meal prep multiple serves of a dish and had to sit there with a calculator in one hand and the recipe in the other trying to work out what ⅓ of a cup x 5 is? We have, and it’s not fun, so hear us out…

Bulking up? Add more pasta/rice/noodles and more turkey/beef/chicken to each serve. Cutting? Increase the volume of your veggies (more lettuce/carrot/zucchini etc.) Don’t like your spaghetti being too ‘saucy’? Add less of the diced tomato. As these meals are so basic, you can be very experimental, and adding a little too much shredded lettuce or not enough nutritional yeast for example, really won’t make too much of a difference.

_{Note: Images used are stock images and do not directly reflect what is in the recipe.}

Mexican Burrito Bowl

Ingredients: 

• Extra lean beef mince or diced chicken breast
• Mexican seasoning packet
• Basmati rice
• Diced tomato
• Can of corn
• Diced red onion
• Light tasty cheese
• Roughly chopped Jalapenos (if you like a bit of spice!)
• Shredded lettuce
• Coriander

Cook the basmati rice in a rice cooker, or in the microwave if using packet rice (good option if you’re feeling lazy!) Cook the beef mince or chicken in a pan with the packet of Mexican seasoning. Lay out your meal prep containers and add the mince, rice, corn, onion, jalapenos, tomato and a sprinkle of cheese and coriander. Keep the shredded lettuce separate (we like to put this in a sandwich bag) so that you can add this fresh after reheating your burrito bowl mix when it’s time to eat! It’s as easy as that.

Veggie-packed Spaghetti Bolognaise

Ingredients: 

• Turkey mince
• Spaghetti
• Oregano
• Fresh basil 
• Tinned tomato
• Nutritional yeast 
• Salt & pepper
• Grated zucchini
• Grated carrot
• Head of brocolli (cut into florets)

Boil the pasta. Cook the turkey mince in a pan, then add the tinned tomatoes, broccoli, oregano, fresh basil and nutritional yeast (a tablespoon or two to taste!). Let simmer for 5-10 minutes whilst the pasta cooks. Add the grated zucchini and carrot and let cook for 2-3 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve in meal prep containers with the pasta. Bon appetit!

Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients: 

• Diced chicken breast
• Hokkien noodles
• Diced capsicum
• Baby corn spears
• Broccoli cut into florets
• Diced mushrooms 
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce
• Hoisin sauce
• Fish sauce
• Lime juice

Cook Hokkien noodles as per packet instructions. In a pan, cook the chicken with a drizzle of sesame oil (olive oil is fine if you don’t have this). Once the chicken starts to brown, add the vegetables. Add the soy sauce, hoisin and lime juice (a generous dash of each) and a small dash of fish sauce (it is very salty, so less is more!). Serve in meal prep containers with the Hokkien noodles. Enjoy!

• Bio

Molly Fabri

Communications and Partnerships Coordinator