I always tell my fiancé — anyone who thinks healthy eating is boring should come spend a week with me. I firmly believe the best thing you can do for your health (and your running and/or fitness routine…) is learn how to cook. Cooking opens you up to so many fun, creative ways to combine foods, and trust me – there are SO many ways to eat healthy outside of just steamed veggies and chicken (AKA what most people think of when they think of eating healthy).
This week I wanted to share a week’s worth of meals for Ryan and I. We have gotten really smart about the way we plan our dinners, how we cook once to eat twice (or sometimes three times). We have been enjoying our food way more than ever before, saving money and wasting way less food, and feeling better than ever (in our workouts and daily life in general).
The trick to making all of this happen is just a little planning and prep work. I’ll start brainstorming meals and looking at recipes on Saturday of the week before, and on Sunday we’ll write our grocery list for the week and go to Trader Joe’s for one big grocery haul. But going into shopping, I always know exactly what our lunches and dinners are going to look like for each day.
I LOVE getting creative in the kitchen, so we have fun mixing it up and trying new recipes each week. The recipes I choose always: (1) are low in refined sugar, (2) use real, whole foods (100% corn chips are about as refined as we get), and (3) have some kind of veggie and healthy protein. We love to treat ourselves once or twice a week, but I make sure our main meals are always packed with nourishing, good-for-you ingredients.
For breakfast, I tend to eat the same thing every morning. I go through cycles depending on what I’ve been feeling lately. For a while I was doing oatmeal every morning. Lately, my go-to breakfast has been two slices of avocado toast with two fried eggs, and two slices of turkey bacon on the side.
What a Full Week of Eats Looks Like for Us
Sunday was the start of the NFL season (my fiancé is a huge football fan), so I made Paleomg’s Buffalo Chicken Casserole for us with corn chips and homemade Chili Sweet Potato Wedges. The casserole serves four, and I purposefully made a big batch of sweet potato wedges so we wouldn’t have to worry about lunch the next day. The Buffalo Chicken Casserole was out of this world, and we both agreed if you placed it in front of someone without saying anything, they wouldn’t believe it was healthy. In reality, though, it is packed with veggies — onions, red peppers, and a base made out of spaghetti squash! The ground chicken also gives it lots of filling protein.
Monday lunch: Leftover Buffalo Chicken Casserole + Chili Sweet Potatoes
Monday dinner: A Fall-Themed Power Salad
Trader Joe’s mixed greens blend, grilled chicken breast, quinoa, dried cherries (unsweetened), and pecans, tossed in a homemade Maple-Dijon Dressing
To make, all we had to do was cut a few chicken breasts into bite sized pieces, roast them on a baking sheet for ~20 minutes at 400°. While that was in the oven, we made a BIG batch of quinoa (enough for a big salad + quinoa bowls tomorrow night). Quinoa cooks up in 15 minutes. We combined the dressing ingredients in a mason jar, shook it up, tossed all the salad ingredients together, and poured the dressing over the salad. Voila… a little over half an hour start to finish. Again, we made way more than we needed for two people… this gave us four large, meal-sized salads (two for dinner tonight, two for lunch tomorrow).
Tuesday lunch: Leftover Fall Power Salad
Tuesday dinner: Deliciously Ella’s Mexican Quinoa Bowls (from her cookbook, but you can also find the recipe online here)
I put a pound or two of chicken breasts and a little chicken stock in the crock pot in the morning. They slow-cooked for eight hours, until they were super tender, and when Ryan got home from work we shredded them with a fork. The quinoa was already made the night before, and Ryan and I tag-teamed the rest of the ingredients – the cashew cream which blended up in <5 minutes, the guacamole which came together in <5 minutes, and the tomato salsa which also came together in <5 minutes. The recipe serves four people, which meant we had extras of all the ingredients (except the quinoa) for the next day.
Wednesday lunch: Mexican Chicken Salad
We made salads out of the leftover ingredients from last night.
Wednesday dinner: Take-out from a Thai restaurant around the corner. I got the stir-fried broccoli, carrot, garlic, and chicken in one of their lighter, healthier sauces. Served over rice.
Thursday lunch: Big green smoothie bowl – Mint Matcha Chip (recipe coming soon). I used protein powder in it to make it more satiating.
Thursday dinner: Homemade turkey burgers (unpictured). I ate mine as sliders, and Ryan ate his on Trader Joes’ whole-wheat buns.
Friday lunch: A big “kitchen sink” salad, with mixed greens, extra chicken from the week, and pre-cut veggies I had bought for exactly these kinds of days.
Friday dinner: Dinner at my future in-laws’ house
Saturday lunch: Take-out from By Chloe… a healthy vegan “fast food” restaurant and one of my all-time favorite places.
I got their Kale Caesar salad with shredded kale, chopped romaine, shiitake bacon, avocado, almond parmesan, sunflower seeds, and caesar dressing. Air-fried sweet potato fries, and coconut water (straight out of the coconut) on the side.
Saturday dinner: Loaded Vegan Nachos and Homemade Salted Watermelon Margaritas
Perfect for Saturday date-night-in (AKA movie night). The Loaded Nachos are made with corn chips, black beans, a homemade vegan queso sauce (which was out of this world), pico de gallo, sliced black olives, homemade guacamole, and fresh cilantro. The recipe is from the Minimalist Baker cookbook… my newest obsession. (Every recipe in there is gold.)
Sunday brunch: Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Waffles from Minimalist Baker (recipe is also from her cookbook)
The stats:
- I went grocery shopping once. (Because I had a plan… this is key!)
- I cooked only six times for twelve lunches and dinners, and one brunch.
- I ate out twice.
- I saved a lot of money.
- I had no cravings. (Because the food I eat satisfies me, and I genuinely love what I’m eating!)
- And health and happiness are both very high.
