How to make your food faster and healthier as a student!
This post is all about tips on meal prep.
The tips on meal prep and cheap breakfast ideas for students that I’m about to share with you are a LIFE-SAVER, trust me.
Let’s start off by admitting the truth:
As college students, WE DON’T HAVE TIME OR ENERGY TO WASTE. And if we did, we probably still wouldn’t want to spend it on excessive cooking, decision making about what to eat every day or grocery shopping for 1000 ingredients.
This post is all about tips on meal prep.
BEST TIPS ON MEAL PREP FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS:
Learning the best tips on meal prep has honestly been a game changer for me while living off-campus in college. These tips on meal prep are ones that I know I will take with me through the rest of my life. I used to wonder how meal prep could possibly be efficient. Anything with the word “preparation” in it sounds time-consuming and exhausting. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. At least, not with my meal prep system.
I think any student would agree that everything in our lives right now NEEDS to be:
- CHEAP but COST-EFFECTIVE
- QUICK and EFFICIENT
- Requiring MINIMAL ENERGY
- EASY TO REMEMBER
And my top two tips on meal prep are FULL of those attributes. So, let’s get to it.
1. Have AT LEAST 3 staple recipes PER MEAL
Having 3 staple, go-to recipes for each meal has absolutely changed my life in college. And before I continue, let me make it clear that I actually LOVE cooking. It’s one of my favourite things to do. But as someone who’s taking a full course load, working part time, volunteering, freelancing, running this blog, and trying to be involved on campus, cooking every day just doesn’t fit in my schedule (or budget, to be honest).
Enter my three staple recipes. Staple recipes are meals you can either throw together quickly, or else make in bulk and keep eating on-the-go throughout the week. Later on in this post, I’m going to share with you three of my absolute staple healthy breakfast recipes that I’ve been using since the beginning of college (and I STILL USE). If you like those ideas and want more for lunch, dinner and snacks, let me know by leaving me a comment below.
I always make sure I have ingredients on hand for at least one staple recipe at a time so that every week, I have 1-2 primary breakfast, lunch and dinner go-tos. These can, of course, change or get added to over time if you get tired of them. But it’s really important to always have three key, simple recipes in mind.
2. Split up your grocery shopping strategically
Guys, COLLEGE GETS BUSY. For real. I’ll be honest and say that there have been times I honestly haven’t had the time or energy to go grocery shopping for 2-3 weeks. In those times I’ve resorted to scrounging for whatever nonperishables I have or whatever is left in the freezer. But when you’re not eating a full, healthy diet, especially as a busy person, you’re just going to feel tired and hungry all the time.
So, instead of letting myself get to those points, I split up my grocery shopping so that not every single trip to the grocery store has to be lengthy, expensive and tiring. Here’s how I do my grocery shopping:
As you can see, the weekly shopping list is significantly shorter than the monthly one. This means I can easily stop somewhere on my way home from school and pick up whatever I need that week, while doing long shopping trips less frequently.
CHEAP BREAKFAST IDEAS:
Now, I’m going to share with you 3 totally simple, cheap breakfast ideas I’ve used countless times all throughout college. And please, alter these recipes to your liking. I won’t be offended! The point of this is to get you started on ideas of staple meals that will work for YOU, for YOUR SCHEDULE, YOUR TASTE BUDS and YOUR CONVENIENCE!
Breakfast #1 (this in itself is an absolutely genius hack, BTW): Scrambled Egg Leftovers
The title “leftovers” might make it sound disgusting, but bear with me.
You know when you’ve got, like, red peppers that aren’t rotten, but they’re just getting soft? And you don’t really want to eat them fresh?
Or leafy greens that aren’t totally gross yet, but are getting limp? And they wouldn’t be too satisfying in a salad anymore?
Or maybe mushrooms that are a couple days over the ‘best before’ date but they still look (sort of) fine?
Insert the veggies of your choice into that equation, but you see what I’m getting at.
I hate wasting food. Especially produce. It’s expensive! And it sucks to put something perfectly healthy to waste. So, when I’ve got veggies that I probably wouldn’t want to eat fresh, but they’re still in that stage where I’d feel guilty throwing them out… I scramble ‘em up with eggs.
The great thing about this is that you can do it with basically anything you have on hand. Get crazy with it. Use up all those scraps. No, seriously. I’ve used:
- Bell peppers and jalapeno peppers
- Leafy greens (I’ve even scrambled up romaine lettuce with my eggs)
- Mushrooms
- Tomatoes
- Onions (actually, I always use onions)
- Zucchini (don’t judge me)
- Broccoli
- Basically, think of any vegetable… I’ve probably used it…
I know you’re secretly judging me, but try it. Once the veggies are cooked, you don’t notice AT ALL that they’re not at the ideal level of ‘fresh.’ You use them up, therefore saving money and feeding yourself a healthy breakfast. It’s a great hack for the low-budget student. And I think it’s common sense that scrambled eggs take next to no time to cook!
Breakfast #2: Homemade granola with yogurt + toppings of your choice
Homemade granola is a little more time consuming to make, but you can make it in bulk every 2-4 weeks. It keeps great in a jar.
The reason I highly recommend homemaking granola is because healthy store bought granola is SO EXPENSIVE and always seems to come in such small quantities. Unless you spend a crazy amount of money on a huge one. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it.
Here are a couple great granola recipes you can try out:
I love having this for breakfast when I have an early class. It’s easy to prepare the night before so that you can just grab and go. What I do is cut up some fruit the night before (like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries) and put it in a container in the fridge. Then, I put some granola in a reusable snack bag and put that in the fridge with the container of fruit, next to my vanilla yogurt. In the morning, it only takes me seconds to scoop some yogurt into the fruit container, grab the bag of granola and be on my way.
Obviously, you can eat this at home before you leave. I’m just pointing out that it’s really easy to take on-the-go which is what I do a lot. I usually avoid early morning classes, but one semester I had an 8am class while living off-campus. This was a breakfast I took and literally ate on the subway almost every time. When you want to eat it, you just dump the granola into the yogurt container and it becomes your own on-the-go yogurt parfait.
Breakfast #3: Bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon
Pretty self explanatory, right?
The one downside I will admit about smoked salmon is that it’s generally on the expensive side (I buy mine at $9 for a medium sized package) and it has to be eaten within a few days of being opened. It really doesn’t keep well. BUT I actually love this because it means that for a few days straight I just eat this breakfast. It takes so much preparation out of the equation. It’s especially handy for an extremely busy week. And, even if the salmon only lasts you 3-4 days, you’re basically paying $2-3 every day to have it for breakfast. That’s a lot better than buying a bagel from a coffee shop on the go, which might cost you $3-4 but has a lot less protein.
Speaking of protein, that’s what I love about this breakfast. It’s perfect for a busy day or a packed morning where I won’t be able to eat for a while. It’s extremely filling and the cream cheese + salmon on the bagel make for a really high protein meal. You can make up for the lack of fruit and veggies at lunch or dinner.
What tips on meal prep have changed your life?
This post was all about tips on meal prep.
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