Preparing an entire week's worth of meals in one sitting is a daunting challenge. To do it when you're vegan... well, it might seem like a steeper mountain to scale, but actually it can produce affordable, delicious options. The boys behind Bosh! give you their beginners guide.
“What’s for dinner?” Probably the three most annoying words for anyone who hasn’t got anything in the fridge, is lacking serious inspo and doesn’t fancy spending the evening walking aimlessly around the local shop at the end of the road in search of some satisfying grub.
The struggle is real. Even more so if you’re trying out a new diet. We’ve been vegan for four years now and when we first made the change it was a minefield. Everything we knew about food changed and we had to relearn how to cook. In the first month, we probably spent a good chunk of our time walking around the supermarket in circles studying labels. That was until we figured out the magic art of meal prepping, saving us a whole load of time and meaning we’d always have good food waiting for us at the end of a long day.
We prefer our food fresh, so we usually prep for two to three days at a time. Although you can totally prep for the entire week if that works for you.
Here are our top meal prepping tips:
1. Think about your week.
2. Set aside a bit of time to think about the week ahead, what you’ve got going on socially and think about what sort of grub you want to eat. Trust us, it’s better doing it on a Sunday afternoon then spending every night for the rest of the week pondering the same dilemma – “what’s for dinner?”
3. Have a flick through some cookbooks for inspiration or have a look online. There are so many brilliant plant-based recipes online and all the recipes on our socials and website are totally free and guaranteed to satisfy everyone, whether they’re vegan or not.
4. So, you’ve done your research. Note down what you like the look of, grab a piece of paper or start a spreadsheet. Draw up five or seven columns, depending on how many days you’re prepping for. Then add in four rows for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.
5. Choose your recipes and fill in your grid. Figure out what you can prep in advance, how many people you’re cooking for each day and then make your shopping list. We prefer to do an online order and have everything delivered at once.
6. Think about storage: it’s all very well and good cooking seven days worth of food, but you’re going to need something to store your meals in and some fridge space. Invest in some airtight containers – we prefer glass ones over plastic – label them up so you know what’s what and then you’re good to go.
7. Get cooking!
You’ve got your ingredients, you’ve got your storage boxes, now it’s time to get cooking. Once cooked, let the food cool before storing in the fridge. We prefer to keep our food fresh and tend to prepare a couple of days in advance but it’s totally cool to prep enough food for the entire week.
Whether it’s batch cooking a curry to feed you for dinner and a couple of lunches or going the whole hog for the week, meal planning is a great way to get through the week and reduces any thinking time about what you are going to eat and when. Your future self will be so thankful. It’s also a great crash course in plant-based cooking – you’ll be a master in no time! If the above seems like too much hard work, but you like the idea of following a meal plan, then you can find ready-created meal plans online. We have loads at bosh.tv. - we've got you covered!
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