New Year, New Meal Prep

Who else made a New Year's Resolution to eat better or lose weight? 🙋 Who else is already struggling to keep that resolution? 🙋 It's easy to make promises to yourself when you're feeling motivated, but then life kicks in, the motivation wanes, and those promises become harder to keep. But good news, it doesn't have to be like that this year! 2018 can be the year you keep your resolution. How? Meal prep! Meal prep has consistently been the only thing that keeps me on track, no matter what else is going on in life. A few hours of cooking on a Sunday to not have to worry about food for the rest of the week? It's an amazing trade off. If you have no idea where to even start with meal prep, then check out my meal prep guide, here.

For my first prep of 2018, I kept things simple, fast, and cheap (I only spent $30 at the grocery store for this!)

Here's what I made:

Breakfast: Overnight oats with frozen blueberries and peanut butter

Lunch: Baked tofu, rice, and cauliflower, topped with a spicy tahini sauce (recipes below)

Dinner: Recipe based on Thug Kitchen's Bean & Beer Chili, with some examples of shortcuts you can take using frozen veggies

Check out the video above to see the full prep in action! And be sure to check out some of my other meal preps for even more, yummy, plant-powered, inspiration.

Baked Tofu

Makes 4-5 servings

1 14oz Block extra firm tofu

1-2 TBSP Olive oil (or water)

1 TBSP Corn meal or flour

Seasonings of your choice

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and press your tofu. Dice tofu into 1 inch cubes and add to a medium bowl.
Drizzle olive oil (or water) on top and toss to coat.
Add corn meal (or flour) and your spices. Toss again to coat evenly.
Place tofu in a single layer on a greased baking pan, or on a silicon baking sheet (preferred.)
Cook in oven for 25-30 minutes, until crisp, flipping halfway through.
For extra crisp, turn on the broiler for 1-2 minutes on each side at the end of cooking.

Spicy Tahini Sauce

Makes 5 servings

10 TBSP Tahini sauce

3-4 TSP Sriracha

1-2 TSP Lemon juice

3-4 TBSP Water

Add all ingredients into a bowl/mixing cup and stir until throughly combined. Start out by adding water 1 TBSP at a time until you reach your desired consistency. Taste and adjust ingredients as needed.

Meal Prep Nutritional information (per serving)

Overnight Oats: 630 calories | 14g P / 102g C / 24g F

Tofu & Rice Meal: 413 calories | 16g P / 66g C / 11g F

Bean & Beer Chili: 434 calories | 12g P / 50g C / 24g F

*For lunch and dinner, the recipes made 5 servings and I put one of each in the freezer. I also ate snacks throughout the day since the total calories on this prep were on the low side for my needs.

Besides eating better, what are your 2018 goals? Let me know!