If there is one thing I hate, it is deciding what to eat. Any other time, regarding anything else, I know exactly what I want, except when it comes to food. In elementary school, my mom packed my lunch, and for middle and high school, my dad packed my lunch. I never had to think about it. College hit, and I was kind of on my own, and let me just say, my choices looked like a third-grader had free range of the pantry. I eventually got better, but my gumption to pack a well-balanced lunch for myself significantly declined as the school year progressed. This year with internships in high gear, I knew I had to step up my lunch game. My go-to of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a handful of Pringles was (a) not going be healthy by any means and (b) probably be frowned upon as I sat around a hospital cafeteria with nutritionists looming somewhere over me. Now, this may be the millennial in me, but I am wholeheartedly hopping on the meal-prep train. I had my doubts and thought people who spent the time and effort doing such a thing were nuts, but I am now a proud convert. The three goals I wanted to achieve by doing this were saving money, eating healthy, and not spending a ton of time packing my lunch every day. I think I can confidently check off each box, and it has not even begun yet. Here is how I capitalized on time and healthy eating on a college student’s budget. I was bound and determined to make sixty, yes you read that right, sixty individually packed freezer meals to last my first semester of internships. I could easily be a vegetarian, but with the demands of a full-time internship, I know that getting enough protein would be imperative for me to stay energized and not hit my usual 3 pm yawn-fest after lunch. Out of all the protein options, chicken is the one I can tolerate the most. That is where I started. I decided that I would base my meals around three flavor profiles: Tex-Mex, Greek, and BBQ. The worst part of the entire meal prep experience was figuring the math and portions. I am not quite sure how I figured it, but whatever I did worked really well. I was out for the deals and shopping local is the key when buying quantities of fresh meat. I called our favorite local meat counter and asked what the boneless/skinless chicken breasts were on sale for this past week, and the butcher told me $2.69 per pound. I knew at the chain grocery stores the same thing was “on-sale” for $4.99 per pound. I gladly ordered fifteen pounds at that price, and when I went to pick it up later that day, he brought the chicken out to me and told me because I ordered so much and called ahead, he was letting me have it for $1.99 per pound. Savings win! I figured the fifteen pounds based on putting a half cup of chicken in each portion. I also wanted a grain just to round out a meal and feel like I have eaten more than just chicken and vegetables. My grain of choice is quinoa, a plant-based protein. This paired with the chicken, I am taking care of half of the recommended daily protein intake. I was a little intimidated by having to cook quinoa for the first time, but I have a fool-proof way that will work every time. I did my research for this part of the process. I surely did not want to waste resources on a botched attempt. After reading some other blogs and recipes, I felt like I had a good grasp of the dry grain to cooked grain ratio and the grain ratio to liquid ratio. Again, the math stressed me out because it seemed like a lot. Here is how I figured things. One cup of dry quinoa triples once cooked. For every cup of dry quinoa, there needs to be two cups of liquid. I used regular chicken broth. Low sodium can be used if needed, but I did not season it otherwise, and I was controlling the salt amounts in all other areas. Here is where the fool-proof magic happens. To cook, I dumped three cups of dry quinoa in a 9x13 glass baking dish with six cups of chicken broth, covered tightly with foil, and in the oven at 375℉ for 30 minutes. Then, I uncovered the pan and let it continue in the oven for another 30 minutes. Once out, let it sit for 10-15 minutes and fluff with a fork. Because I had to make three batches of this, I transferred the cooled quinoa into a stainless-steel bowl and covered for overnight storage in the refrigerator until the final packaging the next day. I had planned for needing 72 ounces of dry quinoa for each portion to get a half cup. Getting back to my flavor profiles, I wanted to keep this simple and pick things I knew I would not get tired of halfway through the semester. Each of the chicken breasts were liberally brushed with vegetable oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder on both sides. Then, for the Tex-Mex chicken, I used Lawry’s Casero Red Fajita Seasoning, which has a good amount of spicy zing with a cool lime undertone. The Greek chicken had the addition of lemon juice mixed with the oil and dry dill weed rubbed all over. For the BBQ, I used Uncle Stevie’s Sweet-Nini Sasquatch Sauce. We stumbled on this local brand at our county fair, and I fell in love with the sweet and smoky peach BBQ sauce. The seasoning was as simple as that. These chicken breasts were huge (roughly 1.25 pounds each), and took a long time to roast, but it was worth every minute. I placed two on a foil-lined baking sheet and roasted four chicken breasts at a time. They were roasted at 450℉ for an hour, flipping them over every 15-20 minutes. Gauge your time according to the size of your chicken breasts. Okay, so you are probably wondering, “what else is she eating besides chicken and quinoa?” Well, to answer that question, vegetables! I did not want to have to buy and plan for a million different combinations, and I am okay with eating variations of the same thing. I chose six vegetables that I could tweak with different flavors, work with mixed vegetables, and most importantly, freeze well. My picks for this first attempt of meal prepping included: corn, orange bell peppers, red onions, zucchinis, brown baby bella mushrooms, and sweet potatoes. I was aiming to have a quarter cup of each vegetable in each portion, give or take. All vegetables (except sweet potatoes—only olive oil) were roasted using mild olive oil with pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Extra seasoning instructions are listed under the various flavor combinations. Remember, when roasting vegetables, never add salt prior to roasting. It will extract the water from the vegetables, and they will end up steaming and becoming mushy instead of enhancing the natural flavors you want to achieve by roasting. Tex-Mex: 20 packages
Greek: 20 packages
BBQ: 20 packages
I tried my best to chop everything up in similar sized pieces (half-inch cubes) because it would make roasting go more smoothly, and everything would look nice afterward. Look good, taste good, right? The roasting times and temperatures were a guessing game, but this is what worked for me. I will note that I did not cook the vegetables until they were completely soft because I still like a little crunch to any vegetable I eat, and I would be microwaving them for a “second cooking,” so that would finish them off.
This all may seem like a ton of work (and more math than I thought it would), but I think it is so worth it. I spent a day and a half planning and cooking and packaging, but my future self who is probably sleep-deprived and have better things to use a brain cell on will thank me for putting the time in up front. The way I look at it, any halfway decent fast food would cost roughly $8.50, and doing that 60 times would cost me $510 for only one semester!! What if I told you this endeavor cost me only $110. That equates to $1.83 per lunch, and I have banked $400 that can go towards gas money, a manicure, or a trip somewhere. And for an unpaid intern who would still like to have some wiggle room with the nicer things in life, I think this is better than winning the lottery. My days of making bad decisions at lunch are over. My freezer is stocked with 60 perfectly portioned freezer bags that are ready to be thawed overnight, transferred into a glass container, and reheated for the busy college student, or anyone who needs a quick lunch fix. It is time we start thinking outside the sandwich box and make a lunch worth looking forward to. They do not have to cost a lot, but they do have to taste good. I surprised myself by cracking the meal prep code. Stay Curious, Kayla ©Inquisitive Perspectives 2019
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