How To Meal Prep 12 Easy Vegan Recipes In 90 Minutes For A Beginner

All these things are found at your local grocery store. 99 cent store, honey. You can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, OK? Hey, y'all. I'm Tabitha Brown. And I'm here with my friend, Destiny. Hey, girl. And I'm going to show her how to prep 12 vegan meals in 90 minutes. I am new to this whole vegan thing. I don't really know where to start with my meal prepping. I can help you out with that. So for breakfast, we're going to do a tofu scramble with a little sweet potatoes in there. That's one of my favorites. Then for lunch, we're going to create a couple of grain bowls. You can do all kinds of things with those. And then for dinner, we'll have a little bolognese, as y'all call it. I just called it spaghetti growing up. But I'm also going to show you how to mix and match it so it doesn't get boring and you get a variety. Awesome. I love that. Well, I'm really excited to see if we can get all this done in 90 minutes. Girl, I'm up for the challenge. It's very possible. All right, I trust you. Let's do it. OK, so we've got our rice cooker here. And this is for our quinoa. And we're going to use a rice cooker, because you pretty much cook it the same way. And the great thing about this is it's got a little button that say rice. Hello. You just push it, and it'll do all the work for you. OK. All right, so we'll add our bowl of quinoa. OK. And then the salt. We're only going to add a pinch. Then we're going to add the water. Make you feel like you're doing something. Yeah. But this is the only part you're doing. And then we're going to add our little top. And then we just hit the rice button. That's so simple. You can just put it in and walk away. So now we've got our veggies. All right. OK, this is what we're going to use for our grain bowl. OK. To save time, we leave the skin on the potatoes. OK. You just make sure you scrub them, clean them real good. Because the skin actually has so many nutrients in it, and it's so great for it. Awesome. So tell me a little bit more about why you decided, I'm going to go vegan. In my family, there's a lot of diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. And so I kind of was trying to figure out what's a way that we can help with these things. And so I did my research and kind of found that eating more plant-based is better for that. I recently also had kind of like a pre-diabetes scare. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that really put everything into perspective for me. So I was like, let's try this. I've tried every diet in the book. But being vegan or plant-based is something I haven't tried. How good for you. Thank you. You know, I had this resting headache in the back of my head for one year and seven months. Oh my goodness. Every single day, I would be dizzy. I had chronic fatigue. I tried all kinds of drugs that the doctors prescribed, because they couldn't even figure out why I was having this. Right. And when I did the 30-day challenge, after 10 days, my headache went away. Wow. And then after like 20 days or so, I started getting energy again. I started feeling better. And I was like, wait a minute. Honey, this thing seemed to be working. Yeah, wow. I'm going to stick with this. And it literally changed my whole life. Wow. Absolutely. So inspiring, don't you think? Yeah, girl. So we're going to put our yams here or sweet potato, whichever you want to call them, OK? And then our peppers and broccoli and our chickpeas. And then we're going to season them up so we can get ready. OK. So everything gets a little bit of garlic powder. Awesome. I love garlic powder, because you know, you can use as much as you like, if that's your business. OK? And then a little bit of salt. And then we got chili powder for our chickpeas here. And then paprika for the yams. So now they're all seasoned up. OK. We're going to put a little bit of oil. I prefer grapeseed oil. Yes. Very good. Girl, yes. You're doing great. Go on ahead. Now we're going to roast them for about 20 to 25 minutes. OK. Set a timer. But baby, check it about halfway through, OK? You know, you get doing stuff, and you forget that you got stuff roasting. You don't want burnt veggies. Here we have five cloves of garlic. So we're going to use three of these for our bolognese. And then we'll use two of them later when we make our pesto. Great. And the great thing about this is a little trick. All right? If you shake this really hard, the peeling off of the garlic cloves will come off. Really? You go ahead and give it a try, girl. OK. Yeah. Oh my god. You see that? Look at that. You see that? That is so cool. So another great way to save time when you're prepping is to use a food processor. OK. OK, so we gave our veggies here like a rough chop. We let the food processor mince them up real good. So we're going to go ahead and take our celery, carrots in there, some onion. And then let's put the garlic in. Oh, yeah. All right, so now we have these all minced up. OK, and then we'll just add them to the pot. So now we'll take the walnuts. Nuts, in general, are great on a plant-based diet for a meat substitute. And honey, you ain't no need to keep cleaning it out, because it's all going to get. That's true. That looks like ground beef. Very good, very meaty. And then we're going to set it aside. So now what we're going to do is we're going to add a little bit of our grapeseed oil into our veggie base. We got a little bit of our dried basil, dried parsley here, and our good friend oregano. This is going to be our good base for our bolognese. One of the great things about meal prepping, honey, is multitasking. So while I am stirring these veggies, I want you to make us a little dressing for our grain bowl. All right, so this will be like you by yourself imagining in your kitchen that I'm there with you. OK. You too. So we're going to take some basil, some arugula. We got a little sea salt here, some lemon juice, some water, our garlic cloves that we had, a little bit of walnuts, and olive oil. We're going to blend it up and make a good old sauce. Yeah. Wow. We're going to take this, and we're going to transfer it into a mason jar. So we got a little bit of tahini, some water, lemon juice, salt, and some maple syrup. OK. And you know, we could have just kept the one dress and the pesto sauce or whatever, but we don't want to get bored. Keep it interesting. Yes. This is like one of the first times I've been really excited about changing the way I eat. I've never been excited, but I love this. That makes me excited. Wow, look at that. That was easy. Girl, you done made pesto and a dressing. I'm a chef now. Honey. So see how our veggies are soft? Oh, yeah. They look good. OK, so now we're going to add a little bit of tomato paste. All right, we stir it on in. Let it get brown. Smooth it on around. Let it get brown. OK. So now we're going to add everything else that we need. So we got our veggie stock, the walnuts that we minced earlier. We got our tomatoes, a little bit of salt, and some lentils. Awesome. Stir it up till it gets all mixed in together. We're going to cover it, reduce the heat, and let it simmer for about 35 minutes. So now our bolognese is simmering right now. I also put on a pot of boiling water for some pasta that we're going to make later. While all that is happening, we're going to go ahead and make our tofu scramble. OK. Make it taste like some good old scrambled eggs. Oh, I see your face now. Tell me how you feel about tofu. The times I've had tofu, it just was like spongy and just kind of like no flavor. I don't like nothing bland myself, so I ain't going to feed it to you. OK. All right? I put it in a towel just to kind of pat it dry. You don't have to worry about pressing it. I know tofu gives you a lot of water, but this will be fine. Once you break it up, it'll absorb all the other flavors right nice and sweet. I know it does feel right weird, child, but it's all right. There you go. OK, we're looking like eggs. So we've got a little bit of low sodium soy sauce, and then we've got nutritional yeast, garlic powder, because you know we love garlic. Sure do. And it makes everything better. Now, this is the black salt. Oh. You only need just a couple of pinches of it. OK. And the black salt is to give it an egg flavor. Now, we're adding turmeric, because that actually gives us a little bit of the color, so it looks like we've got some real eggs going on. But also, it's great for inflammation, especially when we add the black pepper, because this activates the turmeric. I did not know that. OK, look, we don't have time to be inflamed. No. Wow, like this looks like scrambled eggs. It is looking like a little scrambled egg, right? And we're going to add a little bit of spinach. OK, that's great. And you know, like right here, it's tons of protein. Your tofu is protein. Your greens are protein. So when the people be like, oh my god, you're going to go vegan, how you going to get your protein? Message. Give me a wrap with some guacamole and salsa, baby. Yum. We eating then, girl. So we have our bolognese still simmering. We always need a fresh green salad. So we have some mixed greens here, a little spring mix, with some arugula already in here. And a little fun fact, when you have them in your container in the refrigerator just to keep them fresh, just put you a little paper towel like that. And that just kind of helps soak up the moisture. I throw away so much spring mix, it's like shameful. So that's good to know. Let's go ahead and chop these up. So something that I really like about everything we've been cooking today is that these are all ingredients that I've heard of or like can find at any grocery store. So that's really exciting. I think that's the misconception, right? A lot of times people hear the word vegan and they freak out first and foremost. I did. Especially people in our community. Listen, I ain't even gonna lie to you, but when I would hear the word vegan, I really thought, oh, that's for white people that do yoga. I mean, I'm from a little small town, it was never even mentioned. Now, it's like a movement, but really in the black community which makes me excited because we need it. We do. We are the high percentage in all of the, like, you know, diabetes and high blood pressure. And this is so great for us. Yeah, I agree. So it doesn't have to be expensive. All these things are found at your local grocery store. 99 cent store, honey. You can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, okay? Now we're gonna add it in. Ain't that pretty? It's so pretty. Ooh, I get excited about a good colorful salad, child. So the hemp seeds are great because they have fatty acids in them, which is like omega-3s and it's so good for us. This is a lifeboat. Ooh, look at that, honey. It has simmered on down. So now what we'll do is add a little bit of our red wine and then a little bit of salt just for taste. Let's go ahead and stir it up. And then what we'll do is we'll leave this uncovered and let the wine kind of cook down in there for about 10 minutes. And now it's been enough time that our boiling water, it's time to add the pasta. Let's do it. Voila! Okay, so let's start with our breakfast. So we have our breakfast scramble with our sweet potatoes. You have it just like this, or you can get fancy and make a breakfast burrito. And we add a little bit of our roasted red peppers in there, you know, to add a little flavor. That's really good. We have these amazing grain bowls. Under the bottom, we have our quinoa. We just mix up our dressing. So we have our pesto, and then we got our tahini dressing that you made. And then if you notice, you see we have half with the sweet potatoes and then half with the red pepper because we mixed it with our breakfast burrito. That way we won't get so bored. Let's try it out. Girl, you did that? That pesto's good. Who made it? Go ahead, girl. For breakfast and lunch, these are usually the ones that you take on the go with you. So you individualize them right in containers. But with dinner, I keep the bolognese sauce in the pan, and like our big salad, we keep that in a container because we make our dinner at home. So we have our standard way with our noodles and the bolognese on the top. And then if you say, you know what, I'm trying to do right with my life, you can use some zucchini noodles or whatever veggie noodle that you want to use. And then if you get to the point where you say, honey, I am bolognese out, I don't want no more of it. Put that thing on in the freezer and freeze it until you're ready for it again. You still got your pesto sauce that you know you had in your little mason jar in the refrigerator. Put that on your pasta, whip that up. Honey, now you got a little pesto pasta. I love that. And then you pair it with your salad. And you can have that salad with every meal. And then you can also take some salad to work if that's what you want to do. It's your business. It tastes like a meat sauce. That's the lentils and the walnuts and all the veggies. So say you want to switch it up, right? Some days you may want to just do your pasta like how you have your pesto pasta. Use some of your veggies and mix it up in there. Okay, your peppers and broccoli and chickpeas, baby. That's some pasta salad. Options. Yeah, you got options. Well, I cannot believe we were able to make 12 meals in 90 minutes. And all this food is vegan and easy to find and healthy and good for you. It feels good. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. You know, because the first step is being open to just trying something new. And plant-based living can be super easy. If you want me to come back, comment below, say, y'all bring Tad back to the room. We'll come back and do some more meal prepping ideas and have some fun in the process. I love it. High five. So proud of you.