Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros
Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros
Prospre: Meal Planner
Meal plans based on macros, macro tracking, and more
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November 23, 2023
Everyone wants to add more vegetables to their diet, but it's not always easy to fit the prep time into a busy schedule. The key to easy vegetables for meal prepping is knowing which vegetables hold up well when prepared in advance and which tend to go off in the fridge.
Vegetables not only contain vitamins and minerals your body needs, but they also have low-calorie fiber that makes you feel more full than other types of foods. Having a variety of vegetables prepared, seasoned and ready to go makes you much more likely to actually eat them. The best vegetables for meal prep are hardy and versatile, ready to slot into meals all week.
Here are the best ways to prep quick vegetables on a weekend that will be tasty all week long.
Bell peppers are sweet, crunchy and perfect for an afternoon snack. Cut raw bell peppers stand up incredibly well in the fridge, and pairs nicely with tons of dips. You can also roast them with some unsaturated oil in a blazing-hot oven for an instant side dish. Be aware that bell peppers tend to transfer their flavor to surrounding foods, so pair them with lightly seasoned chicken or beans in their meal prep container.
Sweet potatoes have carbs to sustain energy in a delicious and vitamin-rich package. Peel and cube sweet potatoes in advance to have an easy vegetable to toss into soups and stews. You can also roast sweet potatoes for meal prep by boiling them until they're partway cooked and finishing in a hot oven.
Cut raw onions release a compound called allicin, which has a harsh and slightly spicy flavor. In small amounts, allicin is healthy and refreshing. As a cut raw onion sits in the fridge, however, it generates an unpalatable amount of allicin.
Cooking an onion stops allicin production, so cooked onions make great easy vegetables for meal prep. Completely caramelizing an entire bag of onions creates delicious flavor bombs to add to scrambled eggs or pasta dishes.
You can also cook a diced onion down with bell pepper, celery and garlic to make a sofrito soup base that keeps well in the fridge. Simply add to a pot, cover with stock, wait half an hour, and you'll have an instant homemade vegetable soup.
Prep leafy greens like spinach the right way to make them last well in the fridge. After washing, spin the leaves thoroughly in a salad spinner. Place a paper towel in the bottom of a plastic container to absorb water from the leaves, and they'll stay fresh and tasty for four to five days.
Carrots are a nutritional powerhouse with dozens of meal prep applications. Slice carrots into planks for convenient vegetables to snack on. Grate them into a vinaigrette for an elegant salad topper. Roast them with brown sugar for a delectable side dish, or boil a whole bag of them in stock and spices and purée into a carrot soup.
Cauliflower florets are great easy vegetables to prep in bulk on the weekends. Cauliflower stands up incredibly well in the fridge raw, and its mild flavor melds with a wide variety of dishes.
Toss cauliflower into boiling water with noodles when making instant ramen to add necessary nutrition with no extra cooking steps. Roasted cauliflower, with its creamy and slightly savory flavor, is a delicious addition to mac and cheese. Add caramelized onions to the mix for a restaurant-worthy vegetarian meal.
Some people may or may not consider them a vegetable, but it's always a good idea to have a bag of lentils in the pantry. Simmered with stock, vegetables and tomato paste, lentils make an easy and diet-friendly soup that only gets better as it sits in the fridge. Traditional lentil and rice dishes such as Indian dal or Lebanese mujadara are two of the most delicious meal prep choices for vegans.
Chickpeas pack carbs, protein and vitamins into a delicious small package. They're also incredibly versatile and great at soaking up flavors.
Chickpeas make an impressive meat replacement in curry dishes and add body to soups. For a vegetable-rich snack or dinner, blend raw soaked chickpeas into a paste with onion, cumin and parsley. Fry up the mix in patties for fridge- and freezer-stable falafel.
The easiest and most convenient chickpea preparation is simple roasted chickpeas, which can accommodate all of your favorite spices. Try barbecue-spiced chickpeas as a replacement for barbecue potato chips or add Italian-spiced roasted chickpeas to a lunchtime salad.
Never eat sad fridge broccoli again by broadening your vegetable meal prep horizons. With the right preparation techniques, like roasting, pickling or cooking down into a soup base, almost any easy vegetables can work for meal prep. To make meal prep even easier and level up your nutrition, try tracking your meals with our meal prep app.
