10 ingredients, 3 effortless vegan meals | Vegetables for Health

Today we're talking vegan meal prep, but we're not going to just make one big batch of the same recipe and eat it over and over again. Instead, we're going to take just 10 ingredients and transform them into 3 delicious and simple vegan meals that you can enjoy throughout the week. And these 10 ingredients are everyday items, nothing crazy expensive, exotic, or fancy. The key to a successful and stress-free meal prep is planning. Planning exactly when you're going to go to the grocery store and sticking to that grocery list, taking inventory of what you already have in your fridge and pantry, and figuring out how to combine all of those ingredients to create quick and healthy meals throughout the week. I've taken care of the planning part for you in this one so you can sit back and enjoy the video. All you have to do is head to the grocery store to pick up 10 ingredients and do a very quick, fuss-free meal prep when you get back. First, we'll walk through the 10 different ingredients you need to get, some of which you might already have at home. Then we'll do the meal prep portion. I recommend doing this on a Sunday. It takes about an hour, maybe two hours. It's very quick. And then I'll show you how to use this meal prep to create 3 different, healthy, delicious vegan meals. Alright, here are the 10 ingredients you need for this meal prep. Kale, tortillas, sweet potatoes, cashews, garlic, chickpeas, nutritional yeast, lemons, pasta, and basil. A couple notes about the ingredients in this vegan meal prep. First, the kale. We've got a ton of it. This is about 3 large heads. You can tailor according to how many people you're feeding, but it is the main vegetable in this meal prep, so we're going to be using quite a bit of it in a few different ways. For the cashews, these are raw cashews that I buy in bulk. We're going to use them in 3 different ways. First, we'll toast some of the cashews to make the pesto. Then we'll use some of the raw cashews to make a cashew parmesan. And then we'll soak some of the cashews in boiling water for 1 hour, or room temperature water overnight to make the cashew cream. For the chickpeas, these are dried chickpeas. This is about 1 pound of chickpeas. And in New York City, I can get this for about $1.35, and it makes 7 cups of chickpeas. So a lot cheaper than if I were to buy canned chickpeas. I would need 4 cans of chickpeas, and that would go anywhere between $4 and $6. So if you buy as many beans as I do, it definitely adds up over the long run. For the pasta, this is cavatappi. You can use any pasta shape you like. And this is just plain old flour pasta because I have a ton of it in my pantry that I need to use up. But if you're gluten-free, of course, use a gluten-free pasta. If you want something a little healthier, use a lentil or bean-based pasta. And for these tortillas, they had some large spinach-flavored tortillas at my grocery store on sale. But if you're gluten-free, again, use the gluten-free tortilla. And if you're low-carb, you could try an almond flour tortilla or even a collard green wrap for something on the lighter side. Now for the meal prep steps. First things first, we're going to cook our dried beans. I'm just gonna pop them in the Instant Pot with some water and salt. But of course, if you're using canned beans, you can skip this step. For the sweet potatoes, I'm going to bake them whole in the oven, 400-425 degrees Fahrenheit, for about an hour since they are quite large. I prick them all over with a fork so the steam can escape, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleanup. While they're baking, I will make the cashew cream, the pesto, the cashew parmesan, and wash, chop, spin, clean, saute, or steam a bunch of kale. One of the first things you'll want to do is soak the cashews for the cashew cream. You can soak them in boiling water for one hour or overnight in cool water. While the sweet potatoes are baking, we'll get started on the kale. I'm washing and drying the kale in a salad spinner. I find this is the most efficient and easiest way to clean greens. You'll leave some of the kale raw and shred it up, and you can leave it in a Ziploc bag or an airtight container in the fridge for about five days. And if you have extra raw kale, you can use it to make salads throughout the week. And then we'll steam the rest of the kale using a steamer basket on the stove. But if you want a little extra flavor, I recommend sauteing the kale in a little olive oil and garlic. For the cooked kale, I like to finish it with a little lemon juice and sea salt. Next, we'll make the kale basil pesto. We'll start off by toasting some cashews. It's not essential, but it does add a nice toasty flavor to the pesto. And next, we'll need to blanch the basil for the pesto in salted boiling water for just 15 seconds. This step ensures that the pesto stays bright green and doesn't go brown in the fridge. After 15 seconds, transfer the basil to a bowl of ice water to cool down, and then dry it off with paper towels. To make the pesto, you'll add the toasted cashews to a food processor, along with some chopped up kale, the blanched basil, some kosher salt or sea salt, fresh chopped up garlic, lemon zest for extra freshness as well as lemon juice, and nutritional yeast for cheesiness. We'll blend it until it comes together in a paste, and then with the motor running, drizzle in a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add more oil as needed to bring the pesto together to your desired texture, but if you want to minimize the amount of oil you're using, you can also stream in some water. Store the pesto in a glass jar in the fridge, and as long as you've blanched the basil, it should stay good for five days. The next condiment we'll make is our easy cashew parmesan, and all you need are four ingredients. Raw cashews, nutritional yeast, salt, and just a tiny bit of olive oil. Pulse the mixture in a food processor until it's the size of kind of panko breadcrumbs. You can store this vegan parmesan in an airtight container in the fridge or glass jar, and it will stay good for several weeks. You can also cook up some pasta for the week during your meal prep, but pasta doesn't take very much time or effort to cook, so I prefer to cook it fresh on the day that I'm eating it. The sweet potatoes should be done baking by now. You want them to be fork tender but not falling apart, and you can store cooked sweet potatoes in an airtight container in the fridge for three to five days. The cashews are also done soaking by now, so we'll make the cashew cream. We've got our soaked cashews, nutritional yeast for those umami flavors, fresh garlic for a sharp pungent bite, some sea salt or kosher salt, as well as freshly cracked black pepper, lemon juice which helps mask the taste of cashews, and some creamy plant-based milk, but you could use water instead as well. Blend that all together in a food processor for three to four minutes, or about one to two minutes in a high-powered blender until it's thick and creamy, and you can store the cashew cream in the fridge for about a week. Once the food is all cooled, I store everything in glass jars or airtight containers in the fridge. All you need to do is take some cooked pasta. You can use pre-cooked pasta or cook it fresh right before you eat, which is what I prefer to do, and mix it with enough cashew cream to coat all of the noodles. Toss in some steamed or sautéed kale, and then add some chickpeas for a balanced meal. I also recommend adding any additional ingredients that you might have on hand. Some good options would be cherry tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, steamed broccoli, frozen peas, or toasted nuts and seeds. Today I'm adding cherry tomatoes and hemp seeds because that's what I have on hand, and I'm finishing it off with the basil we bought for some freshness, and a few sprinkles of the cashew parmesan. The first thing you want to do is make the crispy blistered chickpeas. Heat up a little olive oil in a skillet and add some chopped garlic, and cook until the garlic is fragrant and lightly golden. Then add some of the cooked chickpeas in an even layer. Allow them to sit undisturbed for about three minutes, then toss and allow them to cook undisturbed for another three to five minutes until they're blistered and browned in some spots. Finish with some sea salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice, and this is going to give the chickpeas a more interesting texture and flavor. To serve, make a long cut along the top of each sweet potato, but don't slice them entirely in half, and fill the sweet potato up with a few spoons of the kale basil pesto, and top with some crispy blistered chickpeas. You can serve these potatoes alongside a kale salad using some raw kale, or you can add the steamed kale as a filling directly in the sweet potato. Finish the potatoes with a sprinkle of the cashew parmesan, and if you'd like, a drizzle of the cashew cream as well. To get started on the wrap, you're going to take some of the cooked chickpeas, and you can use the plain cooked chickpeas or the crispy blistered chickpeas from the last meal. Add some lemon juice, salt, and a few spoons of the cashew cream, and mash the chickpeas with a fork until it's roughly mashed, leaving some chickpeas whole for extra texture. Then take one of the baked peeled sweet potatoes, and cut it into thin slices. Take the wrap of your choice, and spread on a generous amount of the pesto we made. Another option is to use the cashew cream instead, or you can use a thin layer of both spreads for something more creative. Add this mashed chickpeas on top of the pesto, along with some thinly sliced raw kale and the sliced sweet potatoes, and roll the wrap up. It's really delicious and satisfying, and if you want, you can serve some cashew cream on the side as a dip for the wrap. If you want to see my vegan grocery staples, and how I use them to make delicious, quick, easy meals throughout the week, you're going to want to watch this next video. And if you enjoyed this video for three vegan meals with 10 ingredients, and would like to see more meal prep videos in the future, be sure to give this video a thumbs up, and leave me a comment down below. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.