A couple of years ago I trained with a Personal Trainer and told him what I am about to explain in this blog. His reaction: “sounds great because if you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” One simple secret of eating healthily is: prepare your food for the days ahead.

My approach to save time and eat healthy: create meals using prefab building blocks I have prepared in advance for the week. I usually do that Sundays. During the week I think about each lunch – our main meal – early in the morning and spend a few minutes preparing it. Come crunch time, around noon, I usually need no more than fifteen minutes to put heathly plates on the table.

The picture featured on top of this blog contains some examples of my prefab building blocks:

• tins and bags of beans, chick peas and lentils;
• organic rice, red, black or whole;
• pasta based on organic whole wheat; these days they also make pasta based on chickpea- or lentil-based flours;
• bulgur and semolina (the stuff used in couscous) also available based on other all kinds of flours these days, healthier than traditional wheat (avoid wheat-based products!);
• tins of tomatoes and bottles of passata – easy to combine in so many ways;
• condiments like musterd, capers, olives, vegan mayo, harissa, etc. Stuff to make a sauce in a jiffy.

The examples of plant-based prefab elements that follow are based on what I find in season. But the idea is applicable in any season: cook, steam or grill batches of different foods separately and combine those during the week. This way you have healthy ready-to-go components to create something different every day.

First: fried cabbage. This organic white cabbage I love to fry quickly in the wok pan. Most time consuming in the process is chopping the cabbage colslaw-style. In the wok pan I poured a little sunflower see oil, added the chopped onion and garlic cloves and sprinkled paprika and curry powders. Other spices work of course, follow your taste and inspiration. Once this base is hot, add and stir the chopped cabbage.

Another similar building block is Brussels sprouts in garlic. Add coarse sea salt to add crunchiness.

Some vegetables are also delicious once grilled in the oven. The Italians serve great grilled veggies like eggplant, zucchinis or peppers. One of my favorite grilled greens is cauliflower. Put the white bits on an oven baking tray, sprinkle olive oil and spices on top and grill the cauliflower during fifteen minutes. That’s it; another batch of ingredients ready for the week to come!

Next to frying and grilling you can also boil your goods. Potatoes for instance. Don’t overcook them and bake them later that week in a matter of minutes.

Steam! We recently purchased a steam basket to put on top of regular pan. This helps prepare vegetables like green beans and broccoli in no time without losing taste or vitamins. Again, once ready put the steamed vegetables in a container and serve them later during the week.

On a regular Sunday afternoon a prepare three to four of these building blocks, working in parallel. It doesn’t take much time at all.

Early every weekday I think about our main meal and put the necessary ustensils and lay out the “dry” ingredients (tins, packs) on the kitchen counter. Sometimes I cook something ahead of time, like rice or lentils. This way, come lunch time, I don’t have to pounder or waste any time on the assembly work.

I’m curious to hear if you like this building block approach to a food week. Please don’t hesitate to share your healthy time-saving cooking tips.