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Preparing home cooked meals without much fuss and with minimum effort starts with the simple practice of going grocery shopping on Sundays. Load up the fridge with essential fruits and fresh vegetables that will last through the whole week. Fill the pantry with groceries required to prepare meals for school and office, for the week that lies ahead.
With that done, the beginning of a brand new week will appear that much calmer as you gear up to take on busy days that leave little time to plan meals. Once your fridge is stocked and the pantry full, some hacks can come in handy for preparing stress-free lunches that make you look forward to home cooked meals in the afternoon. Choose the one you find most suited to your needs and get cooking!
Hack 1: Plan Category-Wise Meals
Instead of planning dishes as individual recipes, go category-wise while formulating a meal plan. Then, rotate these categories according to ingredient availability. Start with roti-sabzi combos in the first few days of the week and follow this up with one-pot meals, wraps, rice bowls and then repurposed leftovers as the days progress. This reduces decision fatigue and the worrisome ‘too many choices’ conundrum, while making grocery shopping smoother. For instance, if Tuesday is wrap day, the category stays constant, only the fillings change.
Hack 2: One Base, Two Lunchboxes
This is an especially useful trick for working parents preparing lunchboxes for school and office. Choose those dishes which can seamlessly fit the themes of both tiffins. So, paneer bhurji can be prepared as a whole wheat paratha stuffing for kids’ lunchboxes and the same bhurji can be made with a side of phulkas or rotis for the parents. Grilled chicken can be turned into a multigrain sandwich for school going members and can be used to top up a protein-rich salad for the office going adults. Same efforts in the kitchen, but dramatically double the output.
Hack 3: Batch Prep What Holds Well
Put some free time during the week or over the weekends to good use and batch prep certain masalas or dry chutneys that will stay fresh through the entire week. Sesame or groundnut chutneys can be prepared in advance, as well as a wet, green mint chutney. Steam some cooked items like dal in larger proportions and keep them in the fridge to be used over a couple of days. Give the dal a tempering as and when required for making a quick dal khichadi or dal tadka and jeera rice meal. However, be mindful of batch prepping only those foods which stay fresh. Avoid this technique with fried snacks, chopped fruits and watery gravies.
Hack 4: Mix And Match Lunchbox Elements
As the end of the week inches closer, the ingredients in the fridge also begin to dwindle. This is the time to prepare mix and match foods which can be interesting surprises in the lunchbox. Think in terms of components, rather than dishes. Assemble leftover paneer chunks as a stir fry bowl with greens and soy. Make warm rotis and pack them with a jeera aloo dry sabzi and a groundnut chutney and curd dip. Cook just one vegetable curry and pair it with steamed rice. Such a lunchbox can be assembled on a chaotic morning within minutes.
Hack 5: Friday Resets
Armed with these hacks, the end of the week comes without stress and zero waste or leftovers to manage. Friday lunchbox ideas can be those which exhaust everything that remains behind. Turn leftover steamed rice into lemon rice or puliyogare, use extra rotis to make wheat quesadillas and convert sabzis into sandwich fillings. This tasty clean-up lunch resets your fridge and pantry, paving the way for a relaxed weekend.
