Food prep recipes are an absolute savior for busy people. If you often struggle to cook from scratch during the week, these recipe ideas are right up your street. The concept of a food prep recipe is that you cook something in advance that can be used at another date. It’s not always an entire meal, but it will make it much easier for you to cook during the week. You can also eat a portion of the recipe after cooking or just save it all for later.
With that in mind, here are some food prep recipes that will set you up for the whole week:
A simple Italian tomato sauce
Tomato sauce is one of the easiest things to make in advance as it can be refrigerated for a few days, or frozen for a few months. If you look online, you’ll find countless recipes involving a handful of ingredients. You can order raw pasta and other Organic Whole Food items online from reputable providers. In reality, genuine Italians cook a tomato sauce in the simplest way.
All you need is some passata or chopped tomatoes in a can, a couple of cloves of garlic, some basil leaves, a dash of sugar, and salt. Squash the garlic so the cloves open and fry in some oil until fragrant. Add your passata/chopped tomatoes and let everything simmer for a bit. Throw in salt and basil, then turn the heat down and simmer - covered - for around an hour. You’ll be left with delicious pasta sauce that you can split into containers and keep for another time.
Now, when you’re in a rush, you just heat up the sauce and cook some pasta for a 10-minute weekday meal! The best thing about pasta is that it can be so diverse. One day can be spaghetti with tomato sauce while another could be gnocchi.
A whole roast chicken
Cooking a whole roast chicken on the weekend can be a brilliant food prep idea for the week. You can use some of the chicken for a roast dinner with potatoes and the rest of the trimmings. Then, you’re left with cooked chicken to use in a variety of ways throughout the week.
Obviously, your first port of call is to cook the chicken. You can learn how to make a whole roasted chicken at primaverakitchen.com. Follow the steps, and then keep your chicken in the fridge for another date. After chopping it up it should be okay for at least 3 days.
From here, you can use cold chicken to make sandwiches or heat up the chicken in curries. A really quick idea is to heat your chicken up - or have it cold - and put it in wraps with some cooked peppers, onions, lettuce, and salsa. Instead of worrying about preparing and cooking raw chicken from scratch, you fry off the onions and peppers for 5 minutes in a pan before chucking the chicken in to heat through. Just like that, you have a 10-minute fajita recipe for the whole family to enjoy.
A lovely ragu-esque mixture
Ragu might not be the best way to describe this, but we’re basically talking about a thick sauce with minced beef (or vegetarian mince) and some other vegetables. Basically, you fry some celery, carrot, and onion in a pan before adding your mince. Chuck in the passata and let it all bubble away until thick and delicious.
Again, this freezes and keeps for a long time. The beauty of the sauce is that it is so diverse. Add in a bit of oregano or some basil and it goes well with spaghetti as a bolognese. Or, it can be the perfect baked potato topper. You could even heat it up in a pan with some additional spices - like smoked paprika & cumin - to turn it into more of a chili-type sauce. Throw in some red beans and a bit of chili powder and it pairs perfectly with rice.
Just like that, you have three completely different meals from your ragu mixture. You don’t have to use them all in the same week; save some for a different time if you want!
On that note, you’ve got three food prep ideas here that can all be cooked on the weekend. You may have time to prep some other recipes, or you could have days in the week when it’s easier to cook from scratch. Regardless, these three recipes can provide enough meals for the next five days.
On day one, smear some refried beans on a tortilla and top it with the cooked chicken, sweetcorn, bell pepper, and cheese. Cover with another tortilla and bake in the oven for a chicken quesadilla. On day two, have some pasta and tomato sauce, maybe with a side of garlic bread. On Wednesday, make fajitas with the rest of your leftover chicken. On Thursday, cook some gnocchi, add it to a pan with your tomato sauce and mix in some mozzarella. Finally, Friday can be baked potato and ragu topping!
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