What are your stock meals? I’m incredibly uncreative when it comes to meal planning, and though I’m fine to eat the same things pretty regularly, I often don’t eat enough due to lack of planning. So, what are your staples for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner? Extra points for filling snacks and your favorite recovery meal/drink.
I’d consider myself a solidly decent cook, but looking for easy ideas, since I tend to eat worse when I get too busy.
Thanks for any ideas! Hopefully this can serve as reference for a lot of folks who struggle here, but feel free to point me towards a different thread if something exists.
I eat essentially the same breakfast (oats with fruit and hemp seed) and lunch (big smoothies with chia seeds) daily and then dinner is varied. It js mainly as I know the calorie counts and cannot be fussed or too lazy. For snacks I have almonds or cashews. Dinner is usually a protein with legumes and a salad.
Cook a big bowl of rice, and pasta. Frozen vegetables. Some kind of protein. Oatmeal. You can do A LOT with that. Apples and Bananas can be snacks. Also Pb and js
Here’s one… I’ve eaten french toast every morning for almost a year now ever since watching a Greg Doucette Youtube video about french toast…
Get a big tupperware-like container, fill almost to the brim with egg whites, then add cinnamon, vanilla imitation (or pure extract), and artificial sweetener to taste.
Just turn on the stove, dip a few pieces of bread in the mixture, and cook on both sides. Top with greek yogurt, fruit, and sugar-free syrup. 3 pieces fills me up for 4-5 hours until lunch and is right around 400 calories. I’ll do 2 pieces if I’m not going to be exercising and 4 if I’m eating after a workout. I just mix it up using different greek yogurt flavors and fruits. Haven’t gotten bored of it yet.
Sometimes I will mix in 6-8g powdered peanut butter to the vanilla yogurt to get a “peanut butter” that only adds 20-40cals. Sometimes when I do this, I’ll mash up raspberries and layer it like a pbj sandwich. Way more filling, and way less calories.
Breakfast is usually oats with protein powder and some fruit. I make it the evening before; blend the protein powder with almond milk, then pour over the oats, add some frozen berried, and stir through. Put it in the fridge overnight and its ready to eat in the morning. Sometimes I’ll just do a smoothie with instant oats if I forget.
Myself and my other half cook fresh most nights. We try and cook enough so there’s 2 days’ worth of food, including lunch if we want to do that. Some staples:
Moroccan lamb with sweet potatoes and dates - brown off your lamb with coconut oil and then chuck the lot in the slow cooker.
Chilli - self explanatory
Cajun chicken and sausage casserole - 1 large saucepan, takes an hour start to finish.
Steak stir fry - again, self explanatory
Honey, mustard and parsnip chicken casserole - another 1 pot, 1 hour job.
That would be probably 7-8 days’ eating, with a takeaway or meal out probably once a fortnight.
Snacks: dates, apples, the odd bit of cheese, sometimes a latte and the odd chocolate bar. I’m not a pro and don’t count calories
oatmeal, almond milk, salt, cinnamon, chopped bannana, and natural Pb for breakfast every day.
Burrito bowl for lunch going on 3-4 years now every day.
3 rice cooker cups of rice cooked. add in salt and lemon juice after and stir.
3 cans of beans (black or pinto) for 6 meals.
2 chopped green peppers sautéed , add an onion if you like but i try to be low fodmap.
1 block of extra firm tofu, and 1 block of tempeh for 6 meals. seasoned with adobo powder and baked at 380 for 30min. I used to do chicken with a skillet.
Eat with corn chips. This shi- is so good and easy. Nets me about a 1k cal lunch with the chips
This is funny… I was just about to ask for help on breakfast foods because I’ve recently discovered that I have digestive intolerance for oats (not gluten… but specifically whole grain oats). For a long time, my wife and I have been trying to figure out why I have the most putrid gas in the evening on most days (seriously, it could kill a cow).
Like many of you, I’ve been doing oatmeal as part of my breakfast for almost a decade. We never thought that oats were the issue. But we tried eliminating certain foods like all the typical suspects (e.g. dairy, beans, super processed foods, bread). But when we finally tried oats ta-daaa the gas was gone (seriously, I can eat gluteny bread all day long and it doesn’t give gas). So now I’m super stumped on what my new breakfast carb should be, especially after a morning workout. (All my workouts are done straight from bed in the morning, then breakfast happens afterward.)
So, to tag along to the OP, any advice? I’m considering getting into sourdough bread-making… or maybe some kind of whole-grain bread?
Breakfast for me is usually
Pancakes, oats. Maybe cereal.
Add some peanut butter and fruit for extra flavor. Sometimes I’ll do different flavored overnight oats or regular oats. For example; you can add some pumpkin pie spice with shredded or diced apples with oats maybe some walnuts. Simply delicious and taste like fall. Other times I do like a turmeric coconut milk oat bowl and top with some almond butter and shaved coconut flakes. My wife shared some strawberry pop tart overnight oats recipe too there are endless ideas for overnight oats, and also pancakes!
Lunch I use the same concept every week but I change the grain and/ or seasoning I add in. I usually use ground beef, I buy a bag of frozen peppers and onions, one can of tomato diced, some frozen carrots and peas, this week I am using barley with some Italian type seasoning and next week I’ll probably do couscous with curry type seasoning.
Dinner I usually do some chicken thighs lots of veggies and potatoes. Same concept with seasoning.
I’ll try to find a seasoning guide for different flavors but I’m sure anyone could online. Seasonings of all types are one easy way to make one meal you’ve had all the time, taste way different!
every Sunday I bulk cook enough oats(with ground flax, blueberries, and applesauce) and baked sweet potatoes. This way i have at least one meal a day ready to go and it gets me a big portion of my daily carb needs.
Through the week I cook pasta or rice for dinners and always make enough for at least one meal of leftovers.
Option 1: oat groats cooked in the slow cooker. Served cold with protein powder and then a mix and match of berrys, fruits, nuts and seeds
Option 2: replace oat grotes with a 50/50 weetabix and granola
Weekend: poach eggs with smoked salmon on toasts + artichokes or olives or spicy guacamole or grilled red peppers… or everything.
Plenty of mix and match to have different options with the same setup.
Lunch & dinner: I’m always doing something different but one of my favourites at the moment is tuna stake with grill veggies in the cast iron skillet. Easy and quick
I’m big on roasts on the weekend. I love meat and fish
I like to do nice thick soup. You can pack a ton of carbs in them (carrots, potato’s, parsnips…) a big batch and freeze it to have a meal ready for whenever. Tip put some oxtail and you have a proper dinner
For snacks: oat groats with fruit and/or Greek / Icelandic low fat yogurt. Seeds, nuts and berries are always welcomed.
Big salad with kale/radicchio/arugula + protein (crispy chickpeas/smoked salmon/leftover chicken) + whatever random fruit/veg/nuts I have around. With lemon/olive oil dressing.
Smoked salmon + avocado on toast, with vegetables or a salad
Stir fry - what ever veg and protein with lots of ginger and garlic, some chilli or Siracha, then add a sauce made of soy sauce 4tbsp (can add more), 1heaped tablespoon of peanut butter, 0.5-1 level tbsp corn starch, 0.5 tbsp sugar. Stir in and cook till thick and coats everything
My go to home cooked meals are all about sorting out my protein needs. Carbs are trivial, but getting low calorie protein (without relying on powders) takes work. Tends to be things like curries (with minimal sauce), sous vide chicken (great with salad), chilli etc. Anything that’s primarily lean protein plus a decent chunk of flavour.
I don’t do breakfast as such (intermittent fasting), which is probably a good thing as I’ve never really enjoyed much beyond omelettes for that (in terms of food with a good amount of protein). I don’t have time for snacking (not enough hours when doing IF!), but if I did it would almost certainly be various nuts or PB as I often struggle to get a good amount of healthy fats in.
I’ve been meaning to try some of the recipes from the Greg Doucette cookbook (BUY MY FREAKING COOKBOOK) but have been too busy. I’d be interested in any opinions here from anyone that buys the new collab cookbook too.
Couple breakfast options if you have a bit more time (but still not much… because who actually has relaxed breakfasts M-F?!)
Option 1:
Oatmeal + water + pinch of salt ----> Microwave until boiling.
Add scoop of whey, Stir
Add frozen berries, stir and eat immediately, berries will have cooled the oatmeal sufficiently most of the time!
Option 2:
Put pan on hot stovetop at max temp, spray lightly with spray oil
Cook eggs (whites + any yolks counted towards morning healthy fats), stirring in pan and seasoning to taste
Put a heaping pile of spinach on a dinner plate. Sprinkle water on spinach. Salt and pepper.
Put plate of spinach in microwave on high for 2 minutes.
Put cooked eggs on bed of spinach when it comes out.
Client and former favorite of mine:
Coffee + Whey Protein + Quick Oats thrown in a shaker bottle.
