Cheap, Easy, Vegan MEAL PREP!

Today we are meal prepping on a budget. I went to the grocery store and spent around $30 for three meals for this week for my family. We're going to cook it once so I don't have to cook the rest of the week and we're going to save money while we're at it. Now I did not buy things that I already had at home. For example, I already had rice at home and I already had spices. But in general, all of these meals still came to less than $2 per person per meal. Let's put it together. Because we're meal prepping, instead of cooking one recipe at a time, I'm going to show you how you cook everything together at the same time. So at the end, we have three different meals. A chickpea sweet potato yellow curry over rice, a creamy marinara pasta with broccoli and lentils, as well as lentil sweet potato tacos. Let's start by cooking our starches. You always want to start by cooking the things that take the longest to make. So let's make our starches. I'm cooking four cups of rice in my instant pot for 22 minutes. Next we'll prep our sweet potatoes. This part takes the longest. While you're cutting these up, make sure that you set your oven to 400 degrees. I've broken this chopper before with sweet potatoes. Sometimes they can be kind of hard. I just layered down some parchment paper, and then I'll spread it out and chop some more. You know, I thought that I would actually need three, but this is a lot. This is a lot more than I thought. I had three large sweet potatoes, and you really only need two medium or two large. So we'll go ahead and cook these. You just want to make sure that there's enough space between all of them. Now even though I use parchment paper, I still want to just add a little bit, the tiniest little bit of oil to the top of them. Not that much. And then add in some salt. And then I always like to add garlic powder and onion powder. If you're sensitive to onion powder or garlic powder, you can definitely leave this stuff out. Shake it around just a little bit. And I like the parchment paper because then it's not going to stick. It makes it really easy. Otherwise it does tend to stick without using a lot of oil. So let's put it in the oven. Since I have this leftover sweet potato, I can even throw together some sweet potato cinnamon rolls, which I have linked below if you want to add that into. Next, we'll cook our lentils just like I cook pasta. So we'll bring some water up to a boil with some salt. Again, this part is optional. You can leave out the salt. Let that boil, and then we'll add in our lentils. While we wait for the lentil water to boil, I'm going to do the exact same thing with my pasta water. I'm going to add some salt, and I will let it boil. If you are watching sodium intake, you can always choose not to salt your water. I'm adding the entire bag of green lentils because I have a large family. You can choose to use less, and we'll let those cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. Now let's talk about saving money on pasta. It is a lot more expensive to buy a high-protein pasta, but instead today, we're going to increase the protein by adding in tofu and beans and save a lot of money on our pasta instead. Instead of paying three dollars per box, these are just a little bit more than a dollar. Plus, they come in a lot of different fun shapes, and my kids are excited to be able to eat a different style of pasta instead of the typical bowtie pasta or penne pasta. We'll add in both boxes of pasta, and we'll mix that up. While the pasta is cooking, I'm going to chop up my broccoli, and we'll let this sit for a little bit while the pasta finishes. Yes, these parts are edible, but my kids don't eat them. You can trim them up and cut them up, but that's more effort than I put into things. Although it would work great for the slaw, but okay. That's cut up, and now let's wait for the pasta to finish. Pasta is done, and now I want to save this pasta water to cook the broccoli. So I'm going to rinse this and save the water. Okay, so I'm putting a large bowl underneath, and then I'll strain it out, and let's add the water back in and use it for our broccoli. I put the heat back on, and we'll just throw this in there. Now we'll check on our potatoes and just mix them up. These are almost done, just a couple more minutes. Probably only need about five more minutes, and the lentils only need about five more minutes. So let's quickly put our coleslaw together and then pull everything out. Okay, we'll quickly put together the coleslaw by cutting up our carrots. I'm just going to grate them with my cheese grater. I'm just going to eat the end here so I don't cut my fingers. All right, let's add this. Now I already had carrots on hand. I always have carrots on hand, but they're still pretty inexpensive, and of course, if you wanted to save time, you could easily just buy shredded carrots. Now let's prep the cabbage. I'm going to take off the outer leaves, and I know I'm not going to use this whole thing, so I'm going to cut it in half and then use my little mandolin here to cut up all the cabbage. All right, don't want to cut my fingers, so we're going to end there. We'll add that to our bowl. I made a mess. Okay, let's flavor our slaw with the juice of two limes. These are pretty inexpensive at the grocery store, but you can also use apple cider vinegar if you have that on hand and would rather do that. Then we'll add a half a teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of sugar. This is just regular sugar. You can obviously use maple syrup or any type of sweetener that you prefer. So equal parts salt and sugar, and we'll mix this together. I'm going to also add in a little bit of pepper. It has a really good little zing to it. That lime juice is so good. And we'll let this sit, because the longer this sits, the more flavor it has. It'll help to wilt down that cabbage. So this is great to make days ahead, because it's just even better the longer it sits. The broccoli is done, the lentils are done, and the sweet potatoes are done. So let's pull everything out. Oh, and also, guess what else is done? The rice. I overcooked the broccoli a little bit. You can cook the broccoli any way you like it. If you'd rather roast it, then I could have actually used my air fryer and roasted it, but that's okay. And then let's rinse the lentils. So many lentils. All right, now let's take out the sweet potatoes. It's amazing how much time you save when you meal prep. I have three meals almost completely done in the same time it took me to make one. Now we'll continue to prep those lentils by adding half of the lentils, not the whole thing, just half, to a pan. And this will be for the lentil tacos. We'll save the rest of the lentils for the pasta. And I'm just going to add a package of taco seasoning, or if you have your own taco seasoning at home, it's just two tablespoons. All right, the lentils are done. They're ready for our lentil tacos. Okay, now we'll store the lentils for later, the taco lentils at least. And I'm going to rinse out the pan so I can flavor the rest of the lentils. Next, we'll add in the second half of the lentils and an Italian seasoning packet. This is for Italian seasoning dressing. And we'll mix that together. Perfect. And we'll store that. Hey, real quick, have you signed up for your free one-week meal guide? If you haven't grabbed it yet, make sure to click on the link below and I will send you a full week of delicious whole food, plant-based recipes. Plus, I even include a shopping list. So all you need to do is take it to your grocery store and you'll have a full week of plant-based recipes planned out just for you. The last thing we have to prep is the sauces, and then we're done. So let's just quickly throw together some higher protein pasta sauce. You have two options in this. You can use a can of white beans if you have any soy issues. So know that you can mix in some white beans instead. But I'm going to do half of a package of tofu. This is extra firm tofu because that's what my half packages come in, but you can use firm as well. All right, we'll place half a block of tofu. And then I want it really, really saucy. So I'm using two jars worth of pasta sauce. Now, this is also where I saved a good amount of money because when you buy the larger jar, it's a lot cheaper than buying two separate smaller jars. We'll add that in. This part is optional, especially for budget reasons. So if it's not in your budget, then you do not have to add this in. But this is a half a cup of raw cashews. And that's just going to make it a little bit more creamy. Completely optional. You can leave this part out. And we'll increase the flavor by adding a teaspoon of rosemary, a teaspoon of thyme, and a teaspoon of oregano. We'll also add in a fourth a cup of nutritional yeast. And last but not least, one teaspoon of better than bouillon, just to add in a little bit more flavor. Because again, whenever you add tofu, it takes some of the flavor away. So I just like to add it back in with some bouillon. Okay, let's make this deliciously creamy pasta sauce. Look at how creamy that is. Holy cow. And it tastes yummy. Right, one sauce done. Let's finish up with our last sauce. Before I start the sauce, a lot of people don't actually love the taste and the flavor of curry powder. And so if you don't love the flavor of curry powder and turmeric, know that instead of using these spices, you can use one tablespoon of like a penang curry paste, or a red curry or green curry, and just use one tablespoon instead. So it'll be a different flavor profile, but it will work a lot better if you hate this flavor. And then along with the milk, you would use a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of soy sauce instead of the salt to swap it out if you're using the penang. Now for the curry, we're going to use tofu and cashews instead of coconut milk. Again, you always have the option of using a can of white beans instead of a half a block of tofu. So you can swap those, just make sure you rinse out the beans. And then we'll use a fourth of a cup of cashews, optional if you're going lower in fat, and then two cups of unsweetened almond milk, or any type of milk that you want. You can also use water, just make sure that whatever milk you use, it's unsweetened. Now we'll add in the coconut flavor with a fourth of a teaspoon of this coconut extract, optional, you do not have to add this. We'll go ahead and add in the spices. So it's one teaspoon of curry powder, a half a teaspoon of garlic powder, half a teaspoon of onion powder, half a teaspoon of turmeric, and make it really yellow, anywhere between a fourth to a half a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of salt. And you can do a half a teaspoon of ground ginger, or I'm just going to do a little knob of fresh ginger, just throw it in there. All right, let's mix this up. Okay, the sauce is done. And now you'll store this sauce with two cans of chickpeas. So we'll open up those chickpeas and store everything together. I drained two cans of chickpeas, I'm going to place them in my bowl here, and then add the sauce. And this is how I'll store it in my fridge until I'm ready to eat. Oh, wait, one more thing, we need to add some pepper. Just a reminder that whenever you have turmeric, you need to pair it with some pepper. You can absorb all of the delicious goodness for your body. All right, now let's store it. Okay, so here are all of the parts that we prepped. So you have the chickpeas in the sauce, which will be our curry chickpea curry. So we have our rice that's ready. And then we will add in some spinach and sweet potatoes when we cook it together. And I'll show you how to do that. Next is the pasta bake. So we'll add in our pasta, the broccoli, the sauce, and the Italian lentils together in a dish and bake that and heat it up together. And lastly, are these yummy lentil tacos. Well, you'll add the half the sweet potatoes, the corn tortillas, the lentils, and this yummy slaw. All right, let's put each one together and taste them. And your kitchen may also look like this. All right, let's put together the creamy marinara pasta with broccoli and lentils. I have a huge, big, wide dish so it can hopefully carry it all. We'll see. Add in that pasta. It's been sitting around for a while, so you know what? I'm gonna need two. I'm gonna need two. Okay, we put the pasta in two dishes. And then we'll do the same with the broccoli. Just spread it out. When it comes to pasta, my kids eat a lot. When it comes to like curries, they'll have just a little bit of the sauce. So that's why this meal is a lot bigger than the other ones. All right, next is the Italian lentils. And then we'll douse it in this delicious, delicious sauce. It's so good. I guess I could have mixed it all in my large pan. That's okay. Now all you need to do is heat it up. So you can choose to store each ingredient separately or if you want to do this extra step and then just have the casseroles ready to go. And then when you already eat dinner, you just heat them up. They store just fine just like this. It's whatever you have room for in your fridge. I've never frozen this. If you try it as a freezer meal, let me know. All right, and then I'm going to bake this in the oven at 350 just until it's warmed through, which is about 20 minutes because it's room temperature right now. The pasta is out of the oven and it does not look very pretty, so we're just going to sprinkle it with some nutritional yeast to make it look a little bit prettier. All right, let's eat it. I think it's really good. It's a bit chewy. Still pretty good. It's good, huh? Looks disgusting, but like every single one of my mom's foods, when it looks bad, it tastes delicious. That's why I don't trust some of the good-looking things. Tastes really good, huh? I like the sauce. Yeah, the sauce is good. It's good. Looks disgusting. Tastes good. You like it? And then the lentil tacos are super easy to put together. We'll just open up our corn tortillas. You can heat them up or double them up so they're less likely to break. We'll add in our lentil taco meat, a few sweet potatoes, the delicious slaw. It's nice and soft now. And if you want, you can add green onions, you can add in some avocado, whatever else you have on hand. All right, here we go. You have the one without avocados. I'll eat the avocados. And here's some of the sweet potatoes. Okay, and you need to at least try something. I'm gonna like salty, salty, not sweet and salty. All right, three, two, three, two, three. Stop it. Okay. Could be better. It's a bit dry. Oh, it's because of the corn tortillas. Excellent. But that really does make it dry. That's really dry. Okay, if you're making this, don't make it dry. Don't make it with corn tortillas. You like flour tortillas, right? I don't want it dry. I don't like the dryness. I need water now. It's too dry. It's way too dry. I think it tastes good. Look, just eat it with one tortilla instead of two because I have two on there. So we'll take off one of the tortillas. How would you put two dry tortillas? Oh yeah, that's probably true. The cracking stills in the noodles are better. Might taste good. We didn't spill anything. You're putting noodles in the tacos? Yeah, and broccoli. Oh my gosh. It's gonna taste good. All right, stop. Wait, don't stop eating yet. Oh no, it broke. It's not dry. Oh my gosh. Okay, I failed on the corn tortillas. You don't like corn tortillas, but other than that, I think it's good. You can add like salsa to this, and I think it would add. We add salsa to it. It tastes a lot better when it's less dry. This salsa is really yummy with the lentil tacos. Now let's throw together the chickpea sweet potato yellow curry over rice. It's super simple. All you need to do is turn on your stove to medium high heat, and we're gonna add in that sauce until it's warm and cook it until it's warm. And then while that's cooking, I'm gonna chop up my spinach. To save money, you can buy this curly leaf spinach. It's about a dollar cheaper per bag, and it tastes exactly the same. It's just not as pretty. It's these huge leaves. They're just as good for you, and so since we're chopping it up, let's just save a couple dollars instead of buying the pretty spinach. The smaller I chop it, the more likely my kids will eat it. All right, now that it's starting to warm through, let's add in that spinach. Oh, it's so beautiful. Super similar to my last anti-inflammatory meals, but actually it tastes totally different. And then you'll add in half of the sweet potatoes. I definitely could have cooked that third sweet potato, but that works great. So it's about one sweet potato chopped and cooked. Look how delicious this is. Let's just wait a little bit longer until everything is wilted, and then this meal is done. Okay, so for the tacos, add your favorite salsa, and that will make it a little better. Noodles. Add them. You love the noodles. That's your favorite, but now let's... No, add the noodles to the tacos. Don't add the noodles. Now we're gonna try the curry. I'm a little worried because we'll see. We'll see what you think. It is a true authentic, like, curry flavor. It's not spicy. It looks spicy. It's like that. Is it spicy? No, not at all. Tastes like curry. Tastes like curry. I don't know what I expected. It is a little bit spicy, though. The tiniest bit. Not at all. If you like curry, you'll like this. If you don't like curry, you'll hate it. Like the yellow curry. If you don't like yellow curry, don't make it because you will not like it. No likey. I don't know. I'm gonna go. It's good, though. It's creamy. Goodbye. Okay, so it's a couple days later, and I want to show you what I did with all of the leftovers because I had a lot. I had leftover lentils. I had leftover rice, and I don't like to waste food. Plus, my kids don't love eating leftovers, so this is my secret weapon. I cook up some impossible meat, and then I added it to the pan with the rice, the lentils, and then just some peas and corn with some extra taco seasoning, and it makes for a delicious leftover meal. So, quick and easy way to use up your leftovers so that those in your family will actually eat it. And as always, all the recipes from today's video are linked below, along with more information about our membership if you need more help and support. And if you liked today's video, then make sure to check out my other Dollar Store and Dollar General videos, where I show you how to make more budget-friendly plant-based meals.