When it comes to planning meals for the week, it can be easy to get ahead of yourself. While swirling around in the abyss of trendy recipes, nutritional life hacks, and hardcore grocery shopping, one must not forget the basics of convenience. After all, you wouldn’t want to spend your weekend preparing food ahead of schedule only to watch it soil and wilt by Wednesday, would you?
Use these five long-lasting, great-tasting ingredients to make your culinary creativity last all week long.
Eggs
Simple, easy, tasty, and healthy—what more could a practical chef want? Eggs are the classic example of a versatile dish that doesn’t break the bank.
For the purpose of storing them all week long, there are many ways to preserve this tasty food. If you are a fan of egg salads and sandwiches, hard-boiling them and refrigerating them in their original carton (shells still on) makes for a very efficient prep method. With a dash of salt and pepper, you could even just eat them by themselves!
Lentils
Forget everything you thought you knew about lentils. These cheap, nutritious members of the legume family are so adaptable, you will be able to eat them every day of the week without once getting bored.
All you need to do is purchase some dried lentils, add 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of water or a broth flavor of choice, toss in a pinch of salt, and boil them for around 20–30 minutes. Seal them in a suitable container until you decide to serve them in a salad, soup, rice dish, or even just by themselves, drizzled with a hint of your favorite dressing.
Ground Beef And Turkey
It’s no secret that ground meat is a versatile food. Whether it be burgers, meatballs, or topping on a pizza, it’s pretty hard to find a dish incompatible with some form of meat. That being said, there are few precautionary measures one can take to keep your meat fresh longer.
After heating up a skillet and cooking your meat until it is evenly browned, do your best to tightly seal the final product in airtight freezer bags, squeezing the excess air out as you zip it up. Now all you have to do is pop those bags in the freezer and remove them whenever you’re ready to cook!
Chicken
Is there a carnivorous human on Earth that doesn’t like the taste of chicken? As with ground meat, even the most naïve of chefs could prepare a chicken dish that would satisfy the general public. Its enduring deliciousness is what makes it such a perfect leftover meal!
For ideal preservability, use chicken thighs instead of breasts. To prepare, simply coat the meat in a tablespoon or two of your oil of choice and bake it at 360º F for around 30 minutes. Feel free to get as fancy with your seasoning as you wish. Once finished, your chicken should last four days in the fridge, but can still be frozen and kept past that point.
Brown Rice
The idea of a healthy carb source may already sound like a fantasy; add on that it’s low-cost and lasts a long time and you get every busy mom’s dream food! Brown rice has always been praised for its nutritional value, but few know that it can actually make the perfect leftover dish as well.
Start by rinsing one cup of short-grain brown rice in cold water. Add the rinsed grains to 1 1/2 cups of boiling water, allowing it to soak for around 30 minutes. Once your rice is thoroughly softened, simply let it cool, fluff it with a fork, and then store it in shallow, airtight containers for the remainder of the week.
