This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy for more details.

In this weekly series, “Meal Prep Friday,” I want to show you how do-able it is to eat healthfully throughout the week with wholesome meals if you put a little effort into planning and prepping in advance. I will share with you my weekly “game plan,” my purchases at the store, and any helpful tricks and tips I’ve learned along the way. Let’s get cookin’!

Returning home after an extended vacation is always rough. I always feel like I need a vacation after a vacation, and I KNOW I’m not the only one who feels this way ;). We got back to Austin last Saturday afternoon, and seriously, I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. Although the fridge was in dire need of replenishment since I cleaned it out completely before we left, I decided to take things nice and slow. I still need to do some Costco shopping, but that can wait until this weekend…my to-do list is getting out of control.

Meal Prep Friday 4.10.15

Total – $43.72

While I thoroughly enjoyed all the foods I had in San Diego, I’m so happy to have my greens and fresh produce back in my life. You may be thinking, how did 2 people survive a week (well technically 5 days) on this? Well, let’s take a look 😉

My usual drill…

As you can see, I didn’t make any “complete” dishes that can simply be reheated. Slaving over the stovetop was the last thing I wanted to do this weekend. Instead, I did what I could without putting pressure on myself to get things done. We all have these slow-moving moments, and my advice to you is – take it easy. Honor and respect your desire to simply rest. And that my friends is the key to long-term success when it comes to meal prepping and anything else for that matter. Remember what I said about stress and how it can attribute to hormonal imbalance? Yup..totally not worth it.

What you see in the above picture is what I did over the course of two days. Then came the fun part – getting creative with assembling all the prepped ingredients into a well-balanced meal.

Weekly Eats

Swiss chard salad – took out a container of frozen chickpeas the night before and added it to the bowl along with the rest of the prepped veggies. I especially loved the addition of cara cara oranges. Drizzled a simple balsamic vinaigrette at the end. Prep time: <5 minutes.

I was really craving something spicy, so I made this gochujang sauce on Monday. It’s a great sauce to make ahead and will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. I added some to this Spicy Korean Farro Nourish bowl.

And some to this soba noodle dish (is this close enough for ya? ;)) What’s awesome about soba is that it literally takes less than 8 minutes to cook.

And this week’s mason jar…

Spinach Harvest Salad with Honey-Orange Dressing

Makes 4 jars

Ingredients:

Honey Orange Dressing

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon orange juice

1 teaspoon orange zest

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cumin

salt and pepper to taste

Salad

1/4 cup minced red onion

1 cup diced apples (I used Fuji)

1 cup roasted sweet potatoes (I seasoned mine with cinnamon and tossed it with coconut oil)

1 cup cooked farro

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

2 cups of baby spinach

The morning of: Add protein of choice. I added grilled chicken

Pour the dressing into the mason jar. Add onion, sweet potatoes, apples, farro, pomegranate seeds, and then the spinach in that order. Seal and refrigerate.

[Tweet “Meal Prep Friday 4.10.15 – weekly inspirations + Spinach Harvest Mason Jar Salad recipe @mjandhungryman #mealprep “]

Meal Prep Friday - steak and cheddar panini

Towards the end of the week, when I was running out of food, my freezer came to the rescue once again. I made a steak and cheese (used Cabot Cheese Pepper Jack..so good!) sourdough panini with this slow cooker fajita I had made several weeks ago. I served it alongside my favorite chip in the whole wide world (I’m sure you’ve seen it show up in so many of my previous meal prep posts) – Trader Joe’s Quinoa & Black Bean tortilla chips.

I’m feeling a bit more motivated today so let’s see what how much meal prep I get done this weekend! Hope you join me again next week ;). Have a lovely weekend everyone!