9 Make-Ahead, Gluten Free & Dairy Free Meals For A Busy Week
Food prepping and making meals ahead of time is one of the best ways to reduce stress, control food portions, save money, and save time. I’m a huge fan of all four of those reasons. This post is all about making meals ahead so you only have to cook once or twice in a work week. Don’t get me wrong, I adore cooking, but I work a busy job. As a teacher, I’m on my feet most of the day. Even though I love cooking, after a day at work I want to come home, workout, take a shower, and relax with my hubby. Since we both manage our own websites, the evening time is important for working on posts, blogs, recipes, and social media.
Once I realized that I needed to stop eating gluten and change my diet completely, food prepping, make-ahead meals, and batch cooking became a new normal for me. I prefer to make all of our meals on Sundays. Sometimes I cook again on the weekend, but that is because I choose to do so.
Here’s what I’m making this week (click the recipe title for each recipe):
Overnight Oats With Fresh Peaches (6 breakfast servings)
Vegetarian Stir Fry (6 lunch servings)
Gluten Free Fish Nuggets in Cassava Flour Tortillas With Roasted Heirloom Tomato Salsa, and Vegan Mexican Slaw (4 supper servings)
Felicia’s Tuna Salad with a healthy, garden salad (6 lunch servings)
Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken with Roasted Sweet Potato Mash (4 supper servings)
BBQ Chicken Nachos (2 supper servings)
GF Egg and Plant-Based Cheese Breakfast Sandwiches (6 breakfast servings)
Salmon With Mustard Horseradish Sauce with Roasted Carrots, Fennel, and Garlic (6 supper servings)
Vegetarian Baked Frittata With Greens And Veggie Sausage (8 breakfast servings) *bonus recipe to get your next week started
The other good news is that all of these meals allow you to stay under 1600 calories per day as well! I don’t know if you are like me and you are trying to lose weight, or if you just want to maintain the healthy weight you are now, but it’s a struggle for most people. I am no exception. I include nutritional information on these recipes for your convenience. As always, the ingredients affect the nutritional information, but the information provided will help you have an idea of the basic nutritional information for each recipe.
Here’s how I organize my day of cooking:
First of all, the menus are planned before the day of cooking. I usually browse my favorite grocery store apps to download digital coupons and check out the weekly ads on Wednesday evening and make the grocery list. I usually do the grocery shopping on Friday evening or Saturday morning.
I start the day by getting dressed comfortably with my most supportive shoes.
If I didn’t get a chance to make the slaw and salsa yesterday, then I make those first. In my opinion, both dishes are better after being in the refrigerator overnight.
I get the oven preheating for the sweet potatoes (325 degrees). I wash and scrub the sweet potatoes, then place them on a sheet pan covered with aluminum foil and season with sea salt. Once preheated, I place them in the oven and set the timer for 90 minutes.
I put the BBQ chicken into the slow cooker first, so it is done by mid afternoon.
I make the breakfast sandwiches, then eat one for breakfast/brunch.
I make the tuna salad and garden salad next.
Once the sweet potatoes are done I set them aside to cool so I can remove the skins before putting them into the refrigerator.
At this point, we are probably getting hungry, so we eat lunch. I usually make something for lunch on Saturdays that we can eat on Sunday for lunch as well.
At this point, I’m done cooking until Thursday. I make the Vegetarian Stir Fry With Plant-Based Ground Meat.
I will make the Salmon With Mustard Horseradish Sauce and Roasted Carrots, Fennel & Garlic on Friday, then eat it again on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
On Saturday I will make the Vegetarian Baked Frittata With Greens And Veggie Sausage, which will be our breakfast again on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday also. We love frittatas with salsa and diced avocado and a side of fresh fruit.
Other tips and advice:
I make sure that the dishwasher is empty before starting my day of cooking so I can clean as I go. The last thing I want is a kitchen full of dirty dishes at the end of the day.
For the same reason, I start the day of cooking with an empty kitchen trash can, a clean kitchen, and fresh kitchen towels.
I like to watch TV or listen to music while cooking. Not surprisingly I mostly watch cooking shows, but I also love sports, so sometimes I have football, baseball, or hockey games on the TV.
If I need to remember to thaw something from the freezer, I put a reminder in my phone calendar or my planner. For instance, this week I need to thaw the salmon on Wednesday to cook it on Friday.
