In this post, I am going to share how one can manage weekly meal planning. Healthy eating should be easier and stress-free. Meal prep is my biggest secret to consistently eating clean and feeling awesome. With meal prep, you can shop once, cook once, and eat clean all week. That’s where batch cooking comes in. With ample preparation, these make- ahead meals mean you only have to cook once to eat for the week.
I assume that you have basic ingredients for up to a month such as flours, oil, Salt, Spices, Dry Herbs, Beans, Lentils, Grains, Nuts, Seeds and so on. Your weekly ingredients would be dairy, vegetables, Fruits, fresh herbs, Bread etc.
For Indian cooking, you can make ghee(Clarified Butter) that can stay up to couple of months. Paneer can be stored in freezer.
Now, let’s begin with Indian Meal Planning. You can prepare the Roti Dough that can be used for 2-3 days. Be sure that the roti dough is not too soft. Refrigerate Roti dough for up to 3 days. When I want to refrigerate dough, I smooth out dough with Ghee (Clarified Butter) and the dough stays great without changing color. Use glassware or steel container to refrigerate the dough. You can also wrap with plastic if you have. I prefer freshly baked Roti but if you are ok with rotis baked ahead of time, prepare and bake them and then refrigerate or freeze and reheat before serving. I prefer to smear ghee on baked rotis to keep them soft.
Next, comes sabji. You can prepare some dry sabjis that stays great in refrigerator for up to a week. Sabjis like Potato, Okra, Tindora Paraval (Ivy Gourd) and more. I have shared pressure cooked dry sabjis and oven baked Okra to save lot of cooking time.
I have shared plenty of pressure cooked sabjis and curries so you can manage to make curry/sabji even during week nights.
Then comes the Dahl (Daal) or Kadhi. Kadhi doesn’t take long so you can prepare fresh. I usually keep beaten yogurt ready in fridge. During busy time, I prepare Tadka(Vaghar) in bulk as well. The only thing I keep to add last before serving is some herbs, spices. But I make Daal in bulk and freeze whether it is plain Tuvar Dal aka Mori Dal(or Dhandaal) and Gujarati Dal.
Rice is part of Thali Meal and when I was working and studying at the same time, I used to keep 70% cooked rice into the refrigerator and when ready to serve, add little water and finish cooking. The reason is that I don’t like left over rice or microwave heated rice at all. Hot steamy rice is my favorite and I never compromise with it. So by the time, I prepare/heat other food, rice also gets cooked quickly. Believe me or not your can save lot of time and you can easily control the portion this way.
Some of the curry and Wet Sabji can be frizzed as well. When I have all fresh veggies to make Undhiyu(Mix Veg Sabji), I prepare in bulk and freeze.
You can also make some Indian snacks that stays great in refrigerator for up to a week such as Handvo, Dhokla, Idli, Muthiya and so on. I always have to keep these snacks in my refrigerator for my kids.
