Meal prep is a time consuming and necessary bother. It takes a few hours that could otherwise finally be that rest you swore you were going to get on a Sunday afternoon. The benefits make it a non-negotiable for me… I save money and calories by not indulging on convenient breakfast and lunch sammis, and I save time through out the week when my meals are all ready to simply be portioned and dropped into my adorable polka dot lunch pail.
I generally carve out 3 or so hours in a week. Often Sunday afternoon or Monday evening. Things that are ‘healthy’ are a challenge because either they require extreme amounts of prep (read: peeling, chopping, sautéing, etc) OR you have the concern of it turning rather quickly (i.e.-produce for a salad). The best compromise we have found is : egg bakes full of proteins and veggies for breakfast and soups for lunch.
Well, I’m nearing our second year of those exact same meals every. Single. week. Every week it’s the same breakfast or the same soup for five days straight. Although we do our best to change the soup from week to week- it never fails – by Friday I just can’t force myself to bring the spoon to my mouth one more time. Sometimes I just skip lunch to avoid the soup for the fifth time!
I realize this is ridiculous and thought hard on a meal prep that I could tweek from day to day. It dawned on me- pulled chicken!
Easier than any soup : I threw a few herbs and aromatics in a pot with 3 full chicken breasts and poached for ten minutes! Done.
One tablespoon of butter
3 smashed garlic cloves
one quarters onion
two branches of basil leaves
a few celery hearts with leaves
one lemon
whole peppercorns
two bay leaves
four or five pieces of corriander!
After I pulled this chicken out I continued to cook down the liquid to make a vegetable flavored stock, awaiting within a mason
jar for my next crazy concoction!
Let the chicken cool- and then the fun part! Pull it with fingers or forks. That’s it!
This week I plan to have BBQ chicken, a salad topped with chicken, some brown rice and chicken tossed in teriyaki sauce, the options are endless… And all so DIFFERENT !!
It took ten minutes, it cost around $6.00 bucks, and it offers a variety of options for the week!
The moral of the story : Sometimes if you don’t make things so complicated you’ll find things then won’t be so complicated ! 😏😉
5andwhine.wordpress.com 