Eating whole foods - tips for being prepared/meal prep?

[Hibernatingtilspring]

I'm trying to eat more whole foods and protein, as I know that when I do go over my calories it's usually when I've reached for convenience food as they're always higher calories/carbs. Obviously by nature, whole foods aren't as convenient as something I can grab from the freezer aisle.

I tried some meal prep ideas I saw online but I struggle to believe that anyone truly lives off reheated chicken breast and roasted veg - the former so dry, latter soggy!

I'm trying to make sure I've got plenty of fruit, carrot and hummus, yogurt and berries etc available for snacks, and pre cooked chicken and packet rice that I can throw together in a pinch, along with ingredients for a stir fry. I also batch cook a low fat chilli with lots of veg most weeks. Does anyone have any other tips for things for things to buy, or partially prep, when eating this way? Anyone tried any meal prep successfully?

This is my all time favourite source for wholefoods:

https://hodmedods.co.uk/

And there are recipes attached to pretty much every item.

However - at times when I’ve been too busy, too ill, or too hot to cook anything, I’ve found the

Bold Bean Co

ready cooked jars of chick peas, beans and peas unbeatable. I eat mostly raw food over summer and they’re incredibly easy to add to whatever you want for a very fast and highly nutritious meal.

My staples for quick in the cupboard/freezer meals are:

• Frozen raw prawns; stirfry with rice, have with a jacket potato, or with pasta
• Frozen mixed veg (Waitrose frozen stirfry veg is amazing), for anything.
• Eggs; Spanish omelettes with tinned potato and frozen veg.
• No added sugar baked beans with jacket potato.

Fresh-er meals I often do some sort of meat in the airfryer with either new potatoes, packet rice, or cous cous. I buy a reasonable amount of pre-prepared veg, like the Mediterranean vegetables mix (I don’t put the sauce on and just airfryer with spray oil) or recipes mixed veg packets.

For breakfast I get through a lot of oats, alternating between porridge, overnight oats, and baked oats. Which I make 3-4 days worth at a time. Using frozen fruit with each; overnight oats with mango and blueberries with coconut milk, or baked oats with peanut butter & raspberries are my favourite.

For lunched I cook a packet of chicken at the start of the week and use it throughout the week. Usually with salad, wraps or pitta bread. The usually once a week I’ll make a large dinner and then use the left overs for lunch the next 2 days, I find mince beef reheats better than anything else.

For snacks I get through an awful lot of Greek yogurt and kefir with fruit and chia seeds. Plus babybels with a side of apple.

Nuts for snacks

I make superfood salads for lunches, can make and store on a Sunday for Monday, Tuesday and Weds. I find they don’t last any longer than the 3 days. Sadly eating like this I find takes a lot of planning and a lot of time. But I do think it’s worth it.

Baby spinach and leafy vegetables that you can eat raw.
Hummus
Peanut butter
Veg and lentil batch cooked 'stew' that can be jazzed up for different meals
Soya chunks

Thanks all, some really good tips, and the recipes on the hodmedods site look lovely!
I should make more use of beans and pulses, I tend to use them to add to curries but I need to expand my repertoire a bit more! I always forget about omelettes for some reason, such an easy thing to make and cheap too.

Eggs are great for this. My quick meal is a bag of salad leaves a day past its sell by date, rinsed and put into a pan. Sweat it, crack an egg onto it,turn the heat off, then leave it with the lid on until the egg white has set.

Great way of using up something instead of binning it.

I always carry mixed nuts for a small snack. Do you like fish. Tinned sardines and mackerel are great, quick sources of protein. I have have a tin for breakfast but the can be used at any time