Preparing and cooking our meals every day can take a long time, more than we sometimes think. If we are busy people or with a busy schedule, it becomes even more difficult to dedicate the necessary time to preparing our food. This usually leads us to resort to quick and easy foods to prepare at the cost of a healthy meal, such as packaged and frozen meals, whose nutritional value is quite low.
However, we do not necessarily have to resign ourselves to a poor diet. Even if we have little time, we can reconcile that fact with a healthy diet. There are simple meals that we can prepare in advance , such as the weekend, and eat them during the week.
6 healthy meals for the whole week
1. Roasted shrimp with tomatoes
This is a dish that you can prepare very easily and quickly in the morning, before going to work, while the coffee is heating up. When you return home, you just have to place the preparation in the oven for a few minutes and we will have an excellent and healthy dish at our disposal, without wasting time or effort.
Taking into account that shrimp are a good source of protein and omega 3, we can expect a good contribution to our body.
2. Meatloaf with Vegetables
One of the great advantages of meatloaf is that you can prepare it raw and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to cook it. In this way you save time, since you can prepare it in advance and, when you need to eat it, you will only have to cook it. It can also be cooked immediately and stored, then we would only have to heat it. It works the same way.
It can be served with many types of vegetables and can be the perfect excuse to use vegetables such as zucchini, paprika and broccoli.
3. Chicken and chorizo stew
The idea of this dish is to make a light broth, not thick. The advantage of the broths is that they can be prepared and stored, then we just have to reheat them.
By its nature, just once we prepare it, we can reheat it many times depending on the amount we make. For that part we solve the problem of time. On the health side, we see that it is a broth rich in protein, the rest of vitamins and minerals can be provided through vegetables that we add to the broth, depending on our tastes.
Although it is true that the chorizo can have a considerable amount of fat, we only have to add a little chorizo to the broth to give off its particular flavor. That would be enough. You can also use chicken chorizo instead of meat or pork chorizo.
4. Salmon croquettes
Canned salmon is an inexpensive and healthy option for good fish. As is natural in fish, it contains a good dose of protein and omega 3, as well as other powerful minerals. Another advantage of canned salmon lies in its simplicity and speed of use.
In this dish we only have to prepare croquettes based on canned salmon and then season to taste. Some also prefer to scratch a little lemon peel on it.
The prepared croquettes can be stored in the freezer and cooked when necessary. In this way, this dish meets all the requirements we are looking for.
5. Lentil soup with coconut
Again, a soup. The advantage these have to be prepared in advance is not surpassed by any other dish.
In this case we have a lentil soup , that is, one of the grains with the highest concentration of protein and with the highest nutritional value. With the coconut we also obtain certain important nutrients, in addition to giving us an extra flavor.
6. Egg and bacon sandwich
Because of how incredibly easy these sandwiches are to make, we can make a lot of them ahead of time. In the morning, before going to work, we just have to heat it up and it will be ready.
We only have to measure the amount of bacon that we put in, since too much could harm our health. On the other hand, the egg is the one that gives us the most important nutritional component.
Conclution
Don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed that you don’t have time to prepare delicious and healthy meals throughout the week due to your tight schedule. Also, do not resort to frozen meals of low nutritional value. There is always a solution, and with these dishes you can start preparing your food in advance, so that you will have time for your work and also to continue eating healthy.
Reference
- Farmand, K. 10 Healthy Make-Ahead Meals. For Livestrong. [Revised January 2018]
