5-day quinoa lunch prep: quinoa salad + quinoa steamed egg
I finally managed to cook quinoa using a rice cooker. What a relief because I wouldn't be greeted with a bowl of rock-hard grains this time, like I was a couple years ago.
But well, my success with a rice cooker came at a price - the sacrifice of both portion and texture. I over relied on the rice cooker. I thought it’d do its job to handle my lovely quinoa which I just left it there until I was ready to check on it. It spilled a little, portion expanded a double, texture was a bit soggy. Good news is it’s still edible, so I decided to turn it to my lunch of the week.
Having quinoa as part of the base ingredients, I also prepared some tomato, cucumber, corn, carrots, and red onion - all chopped.
Prepare salad base
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked quinoa - cook quinoa in rice cooker w/ 2 cups of water. I also add a pinch of salt and 2 full spoons of ground flaxseed powder for more nutrients. Mix well. Press that button. Bam!
1/2 tomato - chopped - chopped the day before to keep it fresh and juicy
2 small cucumbers - chopped
1 corn - boil and remove corn from cob
1 red onion - chopped
some green bell pepper, green onion and cilantro - chopped
Store them in boxes for the week.
Each box of salad contains all these ingredients as the base.
Once you have the base, it makes it easier for you to prepare your every day lunch. With the base, you can basically just add in whatever you like, or have, in the fridge that can be served with salad.
This is the different combinations I’d had for the week. Day 1 to 5 (left to right):
Day 1: Base, 2 small baked sweet potatoes (cut into cubes), some lettuce, 2 Japanese eggs from Hana-musubi. Olive oil and vinegar for dressing.
Day 2: Base, some lettuce, 2 Japanese eggs from Hana-musubi. Olive oil and leftover salsa from the night before for dressing.
Day 3: Base, some broccoli. Leftover Aioli from the other night for dressing.
Day 4: had lunch at home, forgot to take pic, ops - salad same as day 3 but dressing was olive oil and vinegar
Day 5: Steamed egg with the rest of the base and broccoli
All these lasted me a week of lunch. I got a bit bored of having similar things the whole week, so I improvised and had steamed egg with the ingredients left in the fridge on day 5. It was surprisingly good!
Sweet potato is one of my favourite ingredients to have in a salad bowl. It brings a kick of sweetness to it. Out of all the ingredients, sweet potato has the most flavours, especially because I usually will cut about 2-3 of them in cubes, bake them with olive oil and honey, sometimes lots of honey. Then, sprinkle them with some salt, pepper, and mixed herbs (literally the small bottle you can get from supermarket). Bake them for about 15-20mins. Taste test if it’s soft, if so, you’re good to go! You can prep some more, and there you go - 2 days of sweet potato salad for lunch! Who doesn’t like an easy and flavourful salad? It mixes so well with other veggies as they comparatively don’t have as much flavours. Many have tried and they all liked it!
All these salad combinations (and the steamed egg, hehe) are full of nutrients. Not only do they taste fresh, but also make you feel healthy. So, I don’t care much about what kind of salad dressing I put because I know that the food I consume from that salad is full of energy and nutrients. Don’t be so hard on yourself! Whatever dressing I had, I just took it haha.
I don’t do weekly meal prep. But when I overcook a portion, I’ll work from there. I get to use my creativity to prep for different lunch, and it’s fun! I enjoy cooking. But when I spend time cooking an actual meal, it takes at least 2-3 hours, and I don’t even know why.
Sometimes, it can be tricky to think about what to prepare for lunch the next day, especially when there are certain foods that can’t be stored overnight after they’re cooked, such as tofu, according to Mama So, yes, that’s a powerful citation. When Mama So says no, it’s a no-no.
There are a few ingredients I always pre-chop and store them in fridge - carrot, bell peppers, corn, red/white onion, green onion and cilantro - when I prepare for lunch, they always come in handy.
I usually prepare stir-fry or fried rice. It’s easy to prepare and easy to cook. Basically just throw all the ingredients in and put rice/noodles last. Once in a while, I’ll switch it to salad, with very similar ingredients, just another way of cooking, or no cooking at all, hehe.
The pre-chopped ingredients really can go with anything you can think of. If you’re a veggie fan like me, I highly recommend to have those ingredients pre-chopped and stored in the fridge. Prepare them in the weekend. It really saves you a lot of time!
