Hi guys, welcome back to my channel and to another meal plan and meal prep with me. Today
I'm going to be meal prepping for the week ahead and I have so much to show you. I'm
going to be making four different dinners, my lunches for the week, a breakfast, snacks
and a treat as well. And all the recipes that I'm going to share with you are very much
family favorites that me and the kids all love. So they're tried and tested and I hope
you really like these ideas. And of course, meal planning and meal prepping
can be a great way to stay on track when it comes to health and fitness. I hope you enjoy
this video. If you're new to this channel and you do like what you see, please consider
subscribing for more content like this. I'd love to have you. With all that said, let's
get into the meal prep. So first off I wanted to give you an idea
of our meal plan for this week. So I'm making a huge veggie lasagna and we're going to have
that on Monday and Tuesday with garlic bread and salad. I'm also making fish burgers for
Wednesday. On Thursday we're having a soy and honey salmon and on Friday we're having
a chicken and broccoli bake. So first off I'm going to meal prep some lunches
for Matt and I to have over the next few days, so that it's nice and easy to make good choices.
It's just ready to go in the fridge. And this is like a Mexican Chipotle bowl. Super simple
so I'll show you how I do it. First off, I'm putting on some brown rice and I tend to do
half a cup of dried brown rice for two people. So I'm doing that times three, if that makes
sense. And then the rest of the ingredients, I pretty
much just do as a tray bake. So it's very simple to just chuck into the oven. So I've
put on a four chicken filets and I've put some fajita seasoning on top and some salsa
as well, nearly a whole jar of salsa. And then I'm just going to chop up some peppers.
I think I chopped up two and an onion as well. And then I'm just going to chuck that onto
the tray bake as well, maybe with a little bit of salt and pepper. And then I just put
the oven on 200 and I stick all of that into the oven for about half an hour.
Okay, so now that's cooking away and the rice is as well. For a simmer amount of time, I'm
going to get on with something else, but I'll come back to this and show you how I put it
all together in my meal prep glassware. But now I'm going to make a vegetarian lasagna
for the whole family and this is absolutely huge so I can make it last us for dinner for
two nights because I serve it with garlic bread and salad, and just make it go that
bit further. And it's a very simple recipe. I'll link it down below. You can make it with
ground beef or you can use a substitute like I am as well, and the kids don't even notice.
But first off, I've just finally chopped an onion and I've browned it. I also added in
some garlic powder and some Italian seasoning and then just cheating with a lasagna sauce
jar. I'm just chucking that in. And then I always tend to get a little bit of water.
Does everyone else do this? Shake it around and then make sure I've got ooh like sauce
and put that in. Then I'm just going to give it a mix and then let that simmer away for
15 minutes until it's all cooked and done. So once I've turned the heat down and it's
simmering away, I'm going to check on my tray bake and I forgot to season the peppers. I'm
just adding some salt and pepper, giving it a bit of a shake. And then I'm also going
to cut up some veggies so there's like no dead time while I'm meal prepping today. So
I'm just chopping up a cucumber, a couple of carrots, a pepper as well because I only
had one left, but this is just really handy to have in the fridge. I've said it before,
but my kids like raw veggies even as a side with dinner or with hummus. And then I'm also
making the simplest salad. I'm just chopping up cucumber into cubes. And then I'm also
going to cut up the cherry tomatoes. And then you can add like feta cheese if you want to
or red onion. And that is just a very simple salad because
the kids will eat that whereas they're not as good with lettuce, but they'll eat this
on the side of a lasagna. Yes, I'm just going to put that in Tupperware and have it in the
fridge. And it's not only good for the kids, it's good for me as well if I'm ever craving
something crunchy, I can just reach for this. And quite a few people ask me how long fruit
and veg normally lasts in the fridge when I'm meal prepping. But it's probably about
three to four days, maybe even five days. But to be honest, it doesn't really last that
long in this house, no food does. In the time that I've been doing that, the
sauce is all ready so all they have to do is put the lasagna together. So I'll show
you how I layer it. I'm putting a tiny bit of sauce on the bottom so that these lasagna
sheets don't stick too much. And I always get the no pre-cooking required sheets so
they can let you just chuck it in. So I'm putting a layer of those first then about
half of the meat sauce. And then instead of the white sauce that you normally get in lasagna,
I find that quite heavy. So a little hack that you can do is just use cottage cheese
with some Parmesan and some dried parsley as well. Or I'm using Italian seasoning so
I don't have parsley and this is like much lighter option. It's delicious. It's also
a bit better for calories and all of that stuff. And I also put a bit of grated mozzarella
in with the white sauce. Then again, I'm doing another layer of pasta,
the other half of the meat sauce and so on. And that's all that I'm going to do. If I
had more meat sauce, you can do like a third layer, but you basically can't put any of
the lasagna sheets on top because any exposed ones just pretty much burn I find. See, I'm
just going to then do another white sauce with the Parmesan and Italian seasoning and
lots of mozzarella, and that is it. It looks like that. And then once you've cooked it,
it comes out looking delicious like this. And as I said, I could make this last for
two nights because I serve it with the salad and the garlic bread. And obviously the kids
portions are that little bit smaller. So yes, this is actually our dinner tonight.
I wanted to show you what it looked like and I just craved it after I had put it all together.
So that is the lasagna. And then my tray bake is all done. So I'm just cutting open one
of the filets to double-check and I just have to put it all together. So I got this glass
Tupperware on Amazon for meal prepping and it's great. You can microwave it, just store
it in the fridge. So I'm just putting in at two or three tablespoons of the rice and then
I'm going to just chop up all of the chicken, and I'm going to make four go over six obviously,
and then add the peppers and the onions. And then I'm also going to add in some black beans
as well, and a slice of lime. You can also add in things like sweet corn
if you wanted to. And then when I actually go to eat it after I've microwaved it, I'll
also add on some coriander and maybe like some sour cream or something like that. And
it's really, really delicious. It's super filling. I actually had this today for lunch
and I couldn't finish all of it, but it kind of worked out because Matt had my leftovers.
And yeah, so I'm just going to stick this into the fridge. That's our lunches for the
next three days. So if we're having a busy few days, it's just ideal. And as I said,
easy to make really good choices. Next up, I'm going to show you the simplest
chicken and broccoli baked that's so delicious. My kids eat this as well. And every time I
share it on Instagram or somewhere like that, I get messages from people saying they've
made it and they loved it, and how great it was. So first off, I'm just putting in about
four chopped up chicken filets. Obviously, you can do less if it's for less people and
I'm just browning up those chopped up bits of chicken, and that's all the cooking I'm
going to do. Then I just chopped up one head of broccoli
and I'm going to stick the chicken and the broccoli into a tray like this. And then I'm
going to make up a very simple sauce to put on top of it. And I'm actually going to freeze
this dinner today and have later on in the week because it freezes really well. It's
easy to do. This is a great one as well if you're pregnant, you're like batch cooking
before you have a baby. So for the sauce, I'm adding in at two cans of condensed soup.
I tend to do one chicken condensed soup and one condensed mushroom soup, but you can use
two chicken or two mushroom if you have that to hand. And then I'm adding in a big tablespoon
of mild curry powder. You can add more in if you want to, but for my kids I just literally
add the on,. And it does have like a nice curry-like taste to it.
Then you just whack all of that soupy sauce on top. And then the secret ingredients, which
is a little bit weird is add on a packet of crisps, could be anything, but I have cheese
and onion crisps to hand. So I'm just crushing up the crisps in my hands like while it's
still in the bag and then I just open it up and put this on top, and then you top it off
with grated cheese as well. And all of this does it gives it like a really nice crispy
topping. This is definitely not like the healthiest dinner ever, but my kids love it and I serve
it on rice and they eat it all up and I really like it. It's very like comfort food.
So as I said, I'm going to stick it in the freezer and then when I come to cook it, I
will probably take out in the morning and thaw it. And next up, I'm going to meal prep
some salmon. I'm not actually cooking the salmon today. I'm literally just marinading
it and then we'll have it later on in the week. And I think I've shown this before,
literally the simplest marinades. I'm just sticking into glass Tupperware, putting on
some soy sauce and honey, and that is pretty much it. I'm kind of like rub that around.
I think I added a bit more soy sauce as well, but this is just a really nice glaze and my
kids really like it. And then when I do cook this salmon, I just stick it into the air
fryer. There's a fish setting, but I think it's for like nine minutes.
And then I also wanted to show you that I'm meal prepping some pancakes for the kids.
Obviously, you could buy pre-made pancakes, but when you make it yourself, you just know
what goes into it. It's also much cheaper and so easy to batch cook because it freezes
so well. Anytime I make pancakes or waffles, you can make double the batter and then freeze
the leftover. And then when you want to eat it, you just stick them into the toaster and
they just work really well. So I'll link the recipe down below because
I'm kind of like flying through this. I think I could probably make these in my sleep, but
I think it's 300 grams of self-raising flour, 300 ml of milk, two eggs, a little bit of
sugar, a little bit of baking powder and you just whisk it all up. And it's literally that
simple. These are definitely more of an American style like fluffy pancake than like a crepe.
And then I'm just literally going to cook it as you normally would. And I think this
made about 10 pancakes, and then I just let it call and then package them up in these
like great little Ziploc baggies that I have. And then as I said, I'm going to stick them
into the freezer. I could actually leave some in the fridge if I thought, "Oh, they could
have that tomorrow or something," but I think I'm just going to freeze it today. And then
it's so nice because during the week like even if it's a school day, it's not like a
stress. You can just stick them into the toaster and it's just something a little bit different
and you can always adapt this recipe to make it a bit healthier. If you wanted like wholemeal
flour or add in a bit of like porridge oats into the pancake recipe, but these are just
pretty much my normal fluffy American pancakes. Next up, I'm going to show you how we make
these really delicious fish burgers that my kids actually love. And so do I and Matt,
and it's like the simplest thing. So if your child is a fish fan, try breading it like
this and then sticking it into a burger bun and I'm pretty sure they might eat it. So
I've shown this method so many times I use this for homemade [inaudible 00:12:05]. I
use this for chicken escalopes, but you pretty much just need three bowls, one with flour,
one with egg that has been beaten up, and then one with bread crumbs and these are store
bought bread crumbs, but you can make them yourself as well.
And then I've just got some white fish. I think this is haddock and I'm just cutting
it into like burger-sized shapes. And then I'm just going to put them through all of
the bowls. And first off, I'm going to coat it in the flour and then that will make the
egg stick so then I put it into the egg and coat it and then finally into the bread crumbs.
And it's literally that simple. So now I just have to do that to all of the pieces of fish.
And then this will actually feed us for a couple of nights. So anything we don't eat
this week, I'll put into the freezer because it freezes quite well.
And then the way that I cook it is I actually put it into the air fryer, but you can also
bake these in the oven, or you can even make them in a frying pan. If you fry them for
a few minutes on each side, they cook really well that way as well. And the trick is to
use one hand for dry ingredients and one hand for wet. I think I was using both for both,
but that is a little hack for you. And as I said, the kids really like this. We've just
served it with raw veggies or salad and chips. And the last thing that I wanted to show you
today is a sweet treat, but I put it at the end because it's the first time I've tried
this recipe. And I almost felt a bit like, "Oh, I should've stuck to my normal flapjacks,
but they were really delicious. These are flapjack biscuits. So I'll link the recipe
down below. It's very simple to follow. You need hundred grams of unsalted butter, a hundred
grams of self raising flour, a hundred grams of rolled oats, a hundred grams of golden
syrup and then a hundred grams of nuts and raisins. So you can see it's very easy to
remember. And then you literally just whisk it all up. I just used my hand whisker, but
you can stick it into a food processor as well.
And then you put all of that into a cake tin, preferably the type of cake tin that the bottom
comes out of. And I also lined it with a baking paper so that nothing would stick. I put a
little bit of a golden syrup at the bottom because the recipe said that it's really nice
when that might kind of cooks on the bottom, stick the batter in, just pat it all down
and then put it into the oven on 180 for just 15 minutes. And then you take it out, take
the bottom off, let it cool for about 10 minutes or so, and then you cut it up and it is really
delicious. It made the house smell so good and the kids do really like it.
And I feel like there's a bit more to it as a treat because there's like rolled oats in
it and there's nuts, and there's raisins. So yeah, give it a try. I'll link it down
below. But I think I still prefer just straight up flapjacks personally. But the kids did
really like it and it was really nice with like a cup of tea. Right, so that's it for
this video. I really hope you enjoyed it. Let me know in the comments below which meal
was your favorite and that you'll be trying, and I'll see you on my next one. Bye, guys.