Vegan Meal Prep – How to Prepare your Plant-Based Meals For The Week

Interested in vegan meal prep and want to save time cooking? Maybe you recognize yourself in the following behaviors and want to change your diet healthier, more efficient and delicious design. I used to either dawdle in the mornings or get up too late, then quickly go to the bakery and take something in my hand and eat it on the way. Of course, that was neither healthy nor particularly good for the wallet.

In the meantime, I thankfully do without sugary white flour products from the bakery. Instead I enjoy a wholefood diet and save valuable time - simply by planning cleverly. If you are now in the mood for quick, delicious and healthy food, then this post is just right for you!

For orientation, here is another brief overview of the contribution:

1. Definition
2. Advantages
3. Tips
4. Containers
5. Weekly schedule
6. More recipes
7. Closing words

What is vegan meal prep?

The term Meal Prep comes from the English language, "meal" means meal and Prep is short for "preparation". Vegan Meal Prep therefore means, That you prepare your vegan meal as (time) efficiently as possible.

How much and how long you prepare is an individual matter. Some people want to cook ahead for the whole week and then store the food in the refrigerator or freezer. Others, on the other hand, simply prepare breakfast for the following day at the same time as they cook their dinner in the evening.

Task: Ask yourself what best suits your needs and goals and plan accordingly. It also depends on how often you normally eat during the day. For example, if you intermittent fasting and only eat lunch and dinner, you need to prepare differently than if you eat morning, noon and night and like a few snacks in between.

4 Advantages of Meal Prep for Vegans

Vegan Meal Prep helps you whip up healthy and delicious meals in a manageable amount of time. This is just the beginning of a long list of benefits, which I would like to present to you here in more detail:

• Healthy
• No slips
• Save time
• Save money

1. healthy

As you plan your diet and cook mostly for yourself, you can simply Omit additives and preservatives And only eat sugar if that's what you want. The Meal Prep also makes it easier for you to vegan slimmingsince you are eating according to the plan. So you can simply Control quantitiesfood cravings are less likely to occur and you will soon have a better attitude to life.

2. no slips

With vegan meal prep, fewer slip-ups happen to you in your diet. Because by preparing your meals you reduce the risk of deviating from your plan and eat unhealthy or animal products. Especially when you get hungry or are on the go, you reach more quickly for foods that you actually wanted to do without, because often cause of nutritional diseases are.

3. save time

Whether you're just quickly prepping breakfast for tomorrow while you cook or you're pre-cooking Sunday night for the whole week, either way you're saving time. With vegan meal prep, you combine the prep, don't have to Fewer handles make less rinse and thus have more time for other, important things in your life. Especially if you also eat vegan in everyday work want, the Meal Prep is really a great relief.

4. save money

Eating out is expensive. Especially for vegan food or dishes you quickly pay a few euros more than for the animal version. If you take care of yourself during your lunch break instead of ordering something or going out to eat, you can easily and quickly Save money sustainably.

8 Tips for Vegan Meal Prep

You want to implement your Meal Prep vegan? Then we come now to my best tips! Here is already a small overview, before I explain them to you afterwards:

• Make Meal Prep Day
• Prepare breakfast glasses
• Cook double quantity
• Use dips and soups to make use of leftovers
• Use filler
• Conjure up bowls to use leftovers
• Include healthy snacks
• Consciously take time

For info: Many of the empirical values, ideas and advice can of course also be implemented if you do not eat a purely plant-based diet.

1. make Meal Prep Day

Use one day a week as a Meal Prep Day where you can Pre-cook legumes & whole grainsprepare salad dressings, dips, sauces or pestos. You can freeze sauces and dips in ice cube molds and thaw them as needed. The Legumes and whole grain products you should not finish seasoning, so you can use them for different dishes.

For example, you can use red lentils for a bolognese, a dhal and kitchari. You can do the same with couscous, bulgur, wild rice, green spelt, lentil noodles, chickpeas and many other foods. Millet, for example, is also great for breakfast and as a side dish for a main meal.

Tip: On Meal Prep Day, start by getting an idea of cooking times and make a quick plan of what you like to start with. Start with the things that take the longest and then prepare other things in the meantime and use the time your food is cooking or baking to clear your kitchen already.

2. prepare breakfast glasses

Especially in the morning many people want to save time and for this so-called breakfast jars are perfect. Therefore, this is also one of my favorite tips for vegan meal prep. I use for this Preserving jarsin which I prepare my breakfast in portions.

On Meal Prep Day, I fill five canning jars with oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, nuts, cocoa, cinnamon and possibly dried fruit. During the week, I take one of the jars each morning and cook the contents with Plant milk and fresh fruit to make a porridge. Alternatively, you can leave some plant milk and fruit at your work, take the jars with you and add fruit and plant milk during your breakfast break.

Tip: I bring variety mainly with different spices and the fruit in my breakfast and on the weekend I also treat myself to something completely different. More inspiration you can find in our post on vegan breakfast ideas.

3. cook double quantity

There are few easier ways to save time in the kitchen than to cook a double portion and use it up the next day. You can for example Prepare two times as much oven vegetables (as actually needed) and use the leftovers the following day as stir-fried vegetables. Or cook a large portion of unseasoned millet for dinner and use the leftovers for breakfast the next morning with an apple, cinnamon and almond paste.

4. use dips and soups to use leftovers

Leftover vegetables, such as oven vegetables, steamed broccoli, or carrot pieces, can be used with a few chickpeas, some nut puree or olive oil, and a few spices to make very quickly mix a delicious dip. If you also fry an onion and some garlic and boil everything together with some water and puree, you have a delicious soup very quickly.

5. use filler

Fillers are what I call foods that you can use to spice up your meal and make it bigger when you don't have enough left over for a meal from the day before. Especially good for this are Nuts, seeds, cooked chickpeas, tofu, frozen peas, olives, or raw vegetables.. It's best to always have a few fillers on hand, as you can add variety to your prepared foods.

6. bowls to conjure up leftovers

Nothing works better for using up your leftovers than a big bowl. You can use up many Various food scraps with a delicious dip and a few fillers like olives or chickpeas combine into a delicious bowl. Bowls are also great for lunches because you don't have to heat them up.

Notice: In Western countries, far too many Food thrown awaywhich unnecessarily pollutes the environment. Using bowls to recycle food scraps instead of throwing them away is a good step towards a really sustainable nutrition.

7. include healthy snacks in between meals

If you like to snack on a regular basis, it makes sense to eat a larger amount on your Meal Prep Day of Energy Balls, Oat Bars, Peanut Protein Balls. or any other snack of your choice. This way, you guarantee that you won't reach for unhealthy products when you get cravings.

8. consciously take time

Go ahead and take some intentional time and dawdle while cooking, so that cooking doesn't get relegated to a mere task on your To Do list. Cooking can, may and should be fun! Especially at the weekend it is nice to swing the wooden spoon and have fun. Of course, the fun can be enjoyed especially in company. Why not invite friends over for an evening of cooking together and cook something that would normally be too elaborate?

Good Meal Prep Containers

There are many different containers that are suitable for your vegan Meal Prep. I mostly use depending on the purpose....

• Glass lunch boxes (is available here in a set*)
• Stainless steel cans (you get here*)
• Oilcloths (you can find here*) or
• Preserving jars (is available here*).

It's important that your Meal Prep containers are leak proof, food safe and BPA free are. It's best to have containers in different sizes. It is especially convenient if you have a few cans with a Partition wall have to store different components separately from each other.

Tip: Glass boxes are a bit heavier than stainless steel cans, but they are suitable for the oven. If light weight is important to you, however, it is more worthwhile to use stainless steel cans as meal prep containers.

Vegan Meal Prep Weekly Plan

The vegan Meal Prep weekly plan is created for three meals a day. Sunday is a more elaborate Meal Prep Day, where you prepare a lot of things for during the week. While you're making dinner, you should also start making lunch for the following day.

Important: The dishes and Meal Prep ideas are just a rough guideline for you and can be supplemented and refined as desired.

The Destination of the vegan Meal Prep weekly plan is a varied, healthy nutrition with minimal time expenditure. You can achieve this by combining foods that have already been cooked into new dishes and cleverly utilizing leftovers.

Sunday

Breakfast: Buckwheat pancakes

Noon: Vegan sandwiches with tofu, fresh vegetables and vegetable spread

Dinner: Oven vegetables and Hummus

Sunday is your vegan meal prep day. At the latest in the morning, better the day before, soak enough chickpeas. Throughout the day, cook chickpeas and wild rice separately, bake a protein banana bread, and make oven vegetables for your dinner.

Also, prepare hummus from some of the cooked chickpeas and store the remaining chickpeas in the refrigerator. For your weekday breakfast, prepare the portioned breakfast jars. You can prepare the breakfast jars as muesli, overnight oats or porridge.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Buckwheat pancakes
• Tofu sandwich
• Oven vegetables with hummus

Monday

Breakfast: Muesli from the breakfast jar

Noon: Vegan sandwiches with hummus, chickpeas, vegetables and olives, protein banana bread

Dinner: Pan-fried vegetables with chickpeas and wild rice

For dinner, heat the remaining oven vegetables with chickpeas, wild rice and a little coconut oil in a wok. In the meantime, prepare the salad for Tuesday lunch and fill a breakfast glass with plant milk to swell the flakes.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Vegan hummus sandwich
• Pan fried vegetables with chickpeas

Tuesday

Breakfast: Overnight Oats from the breakfast jar

Noon: Salad with wild rice and fresh vegetables, protein banana bread

Dinner: Chickpea coconut curry with green curry paste, wild rice, broccoli and coconut milk

For dinner, sauté green curry paste, chickpeas and broccoli with coconut oil in a large pan. Add wild rice, coconut milk and a little water and simmer. Season to taste with spices of your choice, salt and pepper.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Vegan Overnight Oats
• Chickpeas coconut curry

Wednesday

Breakfast: Muesli from the breakfast jar

Noon: Leftovers from chickpea coconut curry, protein banana bread

Dinner: Pasta with lentils bolognese

Cook a double portion each of pasta, millet and red lentils. With the pre-cooked red lentils, as well as onion, garlic, tomato paste, tomatoes and dried herbs cook a bolognese for dinner. In the meantime, prepare the cashew cream in the blender and the pasta salad for Wednesday.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Pasta with lentils bolognese

Thursday

Breakfast: Porridge from the breakfast jar

Noon: Pasta salad with cashew cream, pickled cucumber, tomato and peas, protein banana bread

Dinner: Millet patties with steamed vegetables and peanut sauce

In the morning, boil the contents of the breakfast jar with some vegetable milk and fruit to make a porridge. In the evening, mix the cooked millet from the previous day with some buckwheat flour, onions and spices to a solid mass, form it into fritters and fry them in oil. At the same time, steam a double portion of side vegetables and mix a quick peanut sauce with peanut butter, hot water, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Vegan Carrot Porridge
• Vegan pasta salad
• Millet fritters

Friday

Breakfast: Muesli from the breakfast jar

Noon: Salad with fresh vegetables and millet patties

Dinner: Dhal from red lentils, served with potatoes

For dinner, cut a double portion of potatoes into bite-sized pieces, boil in salted water and in the meantime heat some coconut oil with cumin, fenugreek seeds and a chili pepper in a pot. Add garlic, pureed tomatoes and the lentils. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and garam masala and mix in some of the cooked potatoes.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Millet fritters
• Dal with red lentils

Saturday

Breakfast: Golden millet with turmeric, cinnamon & apples

Noon: Soup from steamed vegetables

Dinner: Potato gratin with cashew yeast flakes melting

For breakfast, sauté an apple with a little coconut oil and cinnamon. Add the remaining millet, turmeric and some plant milk, heat and season with a sweetener of your choice if necessary.

For lunch, use the leftover vegetables from Thursday. Sauté some onion and garlic with olive oil in a pot. Add the vegetables and hot water and puree everything. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with fresh herbs.

For the potato gratin, sauté an onion and garlic clove with a little olive oil and pour soy or oat cream, then season with nutmeg, salt, pepper and marjoram. Preheat the oven and in the meantime slice the remaining potatoes from the day before. Then put everything together in a baking dish and prepare a cashew yeast flake melt in the blender. Pour the melt over the potatoes and bake everything briefly. Garnish with chives or parsley and serve.

You can find suitable recipe suggestions here:

• Vegan vegetable soup
• Potato gratin with yeast melt

Book Tip: If you're looking for more tips and inspiration for appropriate weekly plans, I highly recommend the Book "Vegan Yack Attack's Plant-Based Meal Prep" by Jackie Sobon* recommend!

More vegan meal prep recipe ideas

Here I have a few more good vegan meal prep recipe ideas. Some meals are well prepare, like the Overnight Oat granola mix or the lentil noodle salad. Other Meal Prep recipe ideas include ideal remnant recyclers such as Chia Chai Millet or Kitchari. Banana Bread, Energy Balls and Hummus are perfect Meal Prep Dishes for snacks.

The following list of recipes is of course not exhaustive, but should only serve you as an overview and inspiration for vegan meal prep recipe ideas:

• Protein banana bread
• Energy Balls
• Peanut protein balls
• Kitchari
• Overnight Oat Muesli Blend
• Lentil noodle salad
• Hummus
• Thai Crunch Salad
• …

Healthy and quickly supplied with vegan Meal Prep!

With vegan meal prep ideas you can eat a balanced, time-saving and delicious diet. At the same time, you eat mainly self-prepared dishes, so you do not consume additives and sugar and also save money. You now have everything you need for successful implementation in hand.

I hope you enjoy these delicious Meal Prep recipes! Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have any other tips to make the vegan Meal Prep weekly plan even better!

All the best,

P.S.: For more inspiration on the topic of nutrition, check out our posts on Diet without substitute products, Nutrition and environment and our book Cooking for the climate.