If you have a hectic lifestyle and have barely any time to cook, you will tend to rely on fast food or instant/ready to eat processed food. These foods are rarely healthy and the ingredients are unknown. Doing this in the long run can damage your body and cause obesity, prevent this by picking the healthier choice. Cooking healthy food everyday can be exhausting and may cause you to break your healthy eating habits. Avoid this by creating freezer friendly and healthy make ahead meals that can last you for days. Reheating or cooking these meals will only take you a few minutes to do saving you a lot time.
Create your own fast and healthy meals by creating these Make Ahead Meals.
Barbecue Pulled Chicken
This is a great reinterpretation of pulled pork. Barbecue pulled chicken can be served as a hearty main dish or in sandwich form. You can serve it with low fat coleslaw or with mashed cauliflower. You can refrigerate the BBQ chicken for a month in the freezer and just reheat it whenever you feel like eating. You can also make the coleslaw and mashed cauliflower before hand too.
Ingredients: Serves 8
- 1 reduced-sodium tomato sauce, 8-ounce can
- 1 tsp ground chipotle chile
- 1 4-ounce can drained, chopped green chiles
- 3 tbsp cider vinegar
- 2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat
- 1tbsp of minced garlic
- 1 tbsp smoked paprika
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup chopped onion
Directions:
Place chile, honey, paprika, vinegar, tomato sauce, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, ground chipotle chiles, salt and mustard in a slow cooker. Mix it together until it becomes smooth, mix in the onion garlic and chicken. Stir everything together and put the lid on and cook it in low heat. Leave it for 5 hours, then take out the chicken and pull it apart from the bones. Return the chicken meat in the sauce and allow it to cool down before freezing.
Healthy Cobb Salads
Removing the bacon in Cobb salad and replacing the ingredients with healthy alternatives can give you an easy and healthy make ahead salad.
Ingredients: Serves 6
- 4 cups of peeled and sliced avocados
- 1 cup cooked and cubed chicken
- 2 peeled hard boiled egg, sliced
- 6 cups of chopped romaine lettuce
- 2 cups chopped ripe tomatoes
Dressing:
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Directions: Combine all the ingredients for the salad and place in an airtight container. Combine all the dressing ingredients and place in a separate container.
This salad can last for a week or two in the freezer.
Sausage Strata
This easy to make casserole can be placed in the freezer uncooked for a week or more.
Ingredients: 12 servings
- 12 large eggs
- 1½ cup seeded and diced red bell pepper
- 2 cups of chopped onions
- 1/2 pound turkey breakfast sausage
- 4 cups 1% milk
- 1 tsp salt and pepper
- 6 cups cubed whole wheat bread
- 4 ounces grated Swiss cheese
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
Directions:
Coat a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. Cook the sausage until lightly brown (3 to 4 minutes). Remove the sausage from the pan and remove excess oil. Saute the onion and bell pepper until it softens and remove from the pan. Spread your bread on the bottom of the baking dish and spread the sausage, onion and pepper on top.
Whisk eggs, salt, milk and pepper in a large bowl and pour on the bread. Cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate.
You can leave it in the fridge for days. To serve it preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and remove the plastic wrap from the baking pan. Bake it until it turns puffy and light brown. Let it bake for 55 minutes to an hour. You can refrigerate baked strata and reheat it in the microwave or oven if you want a quick reheat meal.
These make ahead meals are amazing time savers. It can save you energy and weight gain. Creating these meals are a lot healthier than fast food or instant processed food. Making make ahead meals during the weekend for the rest of the week has never been easier.
