I often don’t get enough vegetables and other healthy, whole foods in my diet. It is not because I don’t like veggies. It’s because I am not great at preparing. I forget to plan, get hungry, and then grab whatever is nearby. So what if the food nearby was delicious, nutritious, and easy to assemble? Of course I’d eat it. That was my goal in putting together this gluten-free meal prep plan. I wanted to improve the quality and flavor of the food that I eat at home, along with streamline my efforts in the kitchen. I love how I had one big cooking and cleaning effort and that was it. Assembling the meals meant one dirty dish and one fork. I like combining multiple flavors in one bite, so you see some “bowls”. Did I get sick of these ingredients after so many similar meals? Not really because I kept changing the sauces. Plus the feeling of eating whole, fibrous foods on a regular basis really felt amazing, so it was worth a teeny bit of monotony. I ate these meals over a course of 4 days. Thank you for checking back from time to time as I continue to explore new gluten-free meal plan ideas!
Prepare the Building Blocks
Chicken – cook 3-4 chicken breasts in the oven at 350 degree for about 20 minutes. (I sprinkled with garlic power, thyme, salt, pepper)
Salmon – cook 2 filets of salmon in the oven at 425 for about 8 minutes. (I sprinkled with garlic power, salt, rice vinegar)
Broccoli – Boil 2 cups of chopped broccoli for about 5 minutes. Leave a little crunch!
Brussel Sprouts / Carrots – Chop and boil together for about 5 minutes. About 1 cup total.
Kale – Combine 1 tbsp of olive oil with 1/4 cup of water and add about 8 leaves of kale (chopped). Cook for about 5 minutes while stirring.
Black Rice – rinse black rice and cook 1/2 cup of rice with 1 cup of chicken stock. Simmer for 30 minutes or until cooked.
Jasmine Rice – cook 1 cup of rice with 2 cup of water. Simmer for 15 minutes or until cooked.
Tips
Store each item separately. Make sure veggies are well drained and when you store them, line the bottom of container with a paper towel.
This all took me about 1 1/2 hours.
I used the same baking sheet to cook the salmon and chicken (at different times) but used different parchment paper.
I boiled the veggies separately (except brussels and carrots together) and didn’t reuse the water because I poured them into a colander.
(I have air-fried onions in this picture, but I decided not to recommend because the flavor and crunch wasn’t worth the effort)
Lil’ Buddha Bowl
For this one, I added every ingredient (except them salmon) plus some feta cheese. For the sauce, I used Trader Joe’s Vegan Casear Dressing
Teriyaki Bowl
White rice, black rice, kale, broccoli, salmon, coco aminos and Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce. Note: Most soy sauce and teriyaki sauce isn’t gluten free. Primal kitchen makes a ton of great gluten-free options
Rice Pancake with Pesto Chicken, Brussel Spouts and Carrots
Combine about 1/2 cup of cooked white rice and 1 egg. 2 tbsp oil in a pan on high. Once hot, pour mixture on a pan. Flip after about 4 minutes. Remove once both sites browned. Mixed carrot/brussels with a serving of chopped chicken and a tsp of pesto and microwave for about 1 minute.
Salmon with Smoked Paprika and Olive Oil
Serve up some salmon, brussles/carrots and black rice. Drizzle everything with olive oil, smoked paprika and salt.
Burrito Bowl
Chicken, white rice, plus I added shredded cheese, beans, avocado, and Trader Joe’s Salsa Verse
Pesto Chicken Salad
Chopped chicken and mixed with a tsp of pesto and a tsp of mayonnaise. I also added a bit of olive oil and salt to the rice and broccoli.
Chicken and Kale Soup
Combine chopped chicken and kale with chicken broth. Heat in a sauce pan for about 10 minutes on medium heat. I ended up putting a dash of sriracha in there. If you have any other veggies laying around, throw them in! I didn’t miss the starch for this meal. Also, a great choice to make as your last meal to disguise that the food is now a few days old.
My Favorites (Ranked)
1. Teriyaki Bowl – Classic and can’t fail. I’ll be continuing to test out various gluten-free teriyakis. What a time to be alive.
2. Lil Buddha Bowl – the feta and dressing really enhanced the flavor.
3. Salmon with Smoked Paprika and Olive Oil – Simple and Delicious. Something about that smoked paprika…
4. Chicken and Kale Soup – I happened to have broth on hand but besides that, so easy. Salty, comfort food vibes.
5. Burrito Bowl – My one and only critique is that adding too many extra things defeats the purpose of doing this.
6. Pesto Chicken Salad – Even though I ranked this one low, it was still delicious!
7. Rice Pancake with Pesto Chicken, Brussel Spouts and Carrots – I wanted to love this one but it fell short. The patty had more egg flavor than I wanted and the brussel sprouts didn’t mix well with the chicken.
Conclusions
Brussel spouts didn’t work well this week. The flavor is so unique and didn’t blend. I won’t use them again in weekly meal preps. A few times I added something extra like avocado or feta. I’ll try to keep that to a minimum in future meal preps plans. Also, next time I will do two different types of starches. Although the two different styles of rice was fun. The Organic Black Pearl Rice cooked with the chicken broth was absolutely delicious. Plus it’s supposed to be healthy AF. I pictured these meals in the order I made them. I think it was a good call to make the soup last because it masked the fact that they food was a few days old.
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