Looking for an easy way to get a healthy dinner on the table during the busy holiday season? Check out our latest webinar, where Chef Jeremy showed us how to turn an hour of meal prep into three delicious meals. In between cooking, he shared lots of helpful cooking tips, including how to pick the perfect pineapple. Read on for highlights…
What if you could mix up ingredients in different ways to create the building blocks for three amazing meals in under an hour? It’s possible! In our Back to Basics—Mastering Meal Prep for a Healthier You, Chef Jeremy from our partner, Wellbeats (a LifeSpeak company), showed us how to be a meal prep master and make these mouthwatering dishes:
- Shredded chicken tacos with pineapple pico de gallo;
- Sizzling fajita bowls with shaved cabbage, black beans and lime;
- Pineapple-marinated cauliflower medallions with greens.
It was amazing to see how quickly the meals came together. Just a little chopping, sautéing and blending transformed the simple ingredients into meals with loads of veggies, healthy fats and lean protein. They were also beautiful to look at, incorporating virtually every color of the rainbow—which we know is the key to healthy eating.
While we waited for things to cook, Chef Jeremy offered some great tips to make the most of your time in the kitchen:
- The trick to great meal prepping? Use components from the meals you create in different ways. For example, the chicken from the tacos serves as the base of the fajita bowl. And the pineapple pico de gallo becomes the vinaigrette that not only marinates the cauliflower, but also serves as a dressing for the greens.
- Chop or dice an entire ingredient, even if you only need a small amount. Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator so it’s ready to go when you need it next.
- Want your greens to stay fresh? Once they’re washed and dried, place them in a bowl with a damp paper towel on top and put it in the refrigerator. Greens will stay fresh and crisp for days.
- Love corn tortillas but wish they were softer like flour tortillas? Place them on a grill pan on low heat until they’re warm and flexible.
- Use a pastry blender to shred the chicken for the tacos. This also works for shredding pulled pork.
And about that pineapple. According to Chef Jeremy, the foolproof way to pick a ripe and juicy one is to smell the pineapple. It should smell sweet—like a pineapple!
Check back here for more great cooking demonstrations from our partner, LifeSpeak Inc., In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how you can help your employees improve their well-being by focusing on nutrition, contact us at connect@webmd.net.
