JL Fields - Vegan Meal Prep Ready-to-Go Meals and Snacks for Healthy Plant-Based Eating

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Interior and Designer: William D. Mack

Editor: Stacy Wagner-Kinnear

Production Editor: Erum Khan

Photography by Darren Muir, 2018, Food styling by Yolanda Muir

ISBN: Print 978-1-64152-290-8 | eBook 978-1-64152-291-5

Always for the animals.

Contents

If you picked up this book because youre new to meal prepping and new to vegan cooking, Ive got great news: Youre about to master both.

The heart of meal prep is bulk (or batch) cooking. Plant-based food groupsbeans and legumes, grains, vegetables, fruit, and nuts and seedsare perfect for advance preparation, from meals to snacks to dessert. The art of meal prep is to take those batch-cooked foods and turn them into portable, portion-controlled meals to reheat and eat throughout the week.

So, yes, Im too busy to cook folks, this book is for you.

Actually, its the book I wish I had eight years ago when I transitioned from vegetarian to vegan. Lucky me; up until that point, my husband did most of the cooking. But he felt a little lost when I announced my dietary decision, and suddenly I was in the kitchen for the first time in years trying to figure out cookingand plant-based cooking at that.

It didnt take me long to discover that planning was everything. I began spending an hour or two in the kitchen on the weekend preparing a few beans and grainstwo hearty plant-sourced staplesto reheat and eat with vegetables during the week. I had a few bumps along the way, though, because sometimes I got a little too ambitious and would end up making far more food than we could eat, and some of it would go to waste.

Thats when meal prep saved the day (and the food). Instead of making huge batches of one food, I started creating recipes designed for a set number of meals per week. I portioned out those recipes, layering them in single-serving containers, to create the ultimate fast food. Storing them in the refrigerator (and sometimes on the counter), I could see exactly what meals I had ready to eat, and I cut down on waste.

This advance cooking and prepping technique actually catapulted me into a culinary career. I morphed from enthusiastic home cook into a cookbook author, university culinary instructor, and cooking coach. I also prep meals for private clients on a weekly basis.

And now meal prep is hot, hot, hot in many kitchens. Most people are motivated to meal prep to eat healthier, avoid spending too much time in the kitchen, and have a little more control of portion sizes. While it may sound too good to be true, meal prepping can help you do all of this! It might feel a little overwhelming at first, but Ill be right next to you, sharing what Ive learned over the years, offering simple yet delicious recipes that are perfectly portioned for prep.

Youll find 70 recipes ideal for advance cooking and eight preps that coach you for the week, step by step. The preps will vary by type of meal. Have dinner meetings all week? Choose a breakfast and lunch prep and build your culinary muscles. More importantly, since many of you are new to vegan eating and cooking, youll learn how to create balanced plant-based meals because the preps star beans, vegetables, grains, fruit, and nuts and seedsall of the five vegan food groups!

Remember, this book is a guide, not a prescription, so dont get hung up on the notion that you need to make preps every week or that you have to follow them from prep one to eight. But do remember that during those excruciatingly busy weeks when youre not even sure youll have a chance to catch your breath, you can give yourself the gift of time by carving out a few hours to create nourishing, healthy food that will sustain your energy through the most hectic of weeks.

What exactly is meal prepping? Its the highest-level meal planning you can do: Prepare food, portion it out into single-serving meals, and store it. In this case, plants are the star of those perfectly-portioned preps. Youll be making vegan mains and sides and some one-pot meals that can be reheated, as well as simple salads that you can grab and eat right away.

You may already know that vegan foods are considered healthy for good reason: no cholesterol and lots of fiber! If gaining control of portion sizes, losing weight, and/or reversing or preventing disease are your motivations for eating plant-based mealsor youre simply ready to create healthy foods at homehaving the structure of meal prepping should really help you along toward those goals.