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Prep Cook: Spicy Buffalo Wraps, Loaded Pizza, Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie, and More
Heather Yamada-Hosley
8 minutes ago
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Hello, hello, it’s time for Prep Cook! We’ve taken care of the hardest part of meal planning: actually choosing what to eat. We test a week’s worth of recipes so you spend your time and money making the most delicious ones. This week we have jam filled muffins, pizza packed with tasty toppings, spicy buffalo wraps, and more.
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Everyone has a different schedule (and different tastes), so you can skip meals that don’t sound good to you or switch them around based on how much time you have to cook when you get home). Make weekday cooking easy and set aside two to four hours on this weekend to prep ingredients for the week (cut produce, mix up sauces that will last, mass cook items you can freeze, etc.).
Breakfast
Strawberry shortcake smoothie: Quick and filling because of the protein powder, this smoothie is something you can throw together in less than ten minutes and get out the door.
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Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Add in other frozen fruit to change the flavor as you like.
Jam filled muffins: If you’re feeling fancy, these muffins look (and taste) decadent. Great if you have an hour or so to spend baking on a weekend morning.
Prep difficulty: Medium
Boost it: Fill with nutella or peanut butter instead of jam for a savory version.
No bake protein bars: Filling, tasty, and super easy to make, these are a great grab-and-go snack! You can easily use popped rice cereal in place of popped amaranth (I couldn’t find that, even at Whole Foods).
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Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Dip these in chocolate rather than just drizzling it on. Yeah, more chocolate never hurt anyone.
Lunch & Dinner
Spicy buffalo chickpea wraps with smoky tomato soup: This meal has flavor, lots of flavor. And it is simple to pull together, plus scales well with little extra effort.
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Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Add tahini to your wrap and sprinkle some fresh herbs on top of the soup.
Add meat: Swap the chickpeas for diced chicken.
Pack it for lunch: Keep the pita separate from the filling until it’s time to eat.
Very veggie pizza: Grab pre-made dough (I used the garlic herb one from Trader Joe’s), spoon on some sauce (I used leftover tomato soup from the meal above) and your favorite toppings and you have a most delicious dinner. If you want leftovers for lunch the next day, make two pizzas.
Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Add more toppings than you think will fit on the pizza. No regrets.
Add meat: Ground beef, turkey, or sausage sprinkled throughout the veggies.
Pack it for lunch: Wrap in foil and toast it if your office has a toaster or toaster oven. Otherwise use a container that’ll keep the slices flat so the toppings don’t tumble off.
Sweet potato and apple latkes with crowd-pleasing caesar salad: Frying up latkes is a bit of work, but the crispy goodness that you end up with on your plate is well worth it. The salad helps cut the oily fried latkes.
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Prep difficulty: Medium
Boost it: Make your own dressing. Seriously.
Add meat: Toss sliced or cubed chicken or steak into the salad.
Pack it for lunch: Keep the latkes separate from any yogurt or applesauce you plan to top them with.
Sticky rice mushroom shumai with asian salad: This sounds difficult, and it is a little hard to prep, but if you get pre-made wrappers at your local asian grocery store, this dish becomes a lot easier to make.
Prep difficulty: Hard
Boost it: Add chili oil to your filling for some spice.
Add meat: Throw ground meat into the filling.
Pack it for lunch: Keep the salad and shumai separate.
Slow cooker coconut lentil curry: I accidentally let my slow cooker go a bit too long and added too little liquid so the edges of my curry started to caramelize—but luckily it added a lot of depth! I recommend serving this with rice, naan, or a good crusty bread (I choose olive). This dish is extremely easy to make, so it is good for a night when you’re too busy to do much cooking.
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Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Add a hit of lemon or lime juice before serving to bump up the acidity.
Add meat: Pan fry a chicken breast and slice it to top a bowl of this curry.
Pack it for lunch: Scoop into a container and you’re set.
Chili garlic tofu bowls: I’ve made these before for Prep Cook and they were so good I decide to make them again! The trick is to get your tofu realllly crispy by pressing the water out and not fussing with it while it is in the pan.
Prep difficulty: Hard (but it gets easier the more you make it)
Boost it: Make your sauce the star of this dish by adding in chili oil, Japanese BBQ sauce, and garlic. Lots of garlic.
Add meat: Swap the tofu for chicken or a white fish.
Pack it for lunch: Keep the rice apart from the rest of the bowl so it doesn’t get soggy.
Carbonara pasta with oyster mushrooms: This is a tweak on classic carbonara, using ingredients that are a little less finicky. Pasta is my favorite food (carbs… mmm) and oyster mushrooms are an amazing ingredients, so this dish comes highly recommended from me.
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Prep difficulty: Easy
Boost it: Make your own pasta (or use fresh, not dried, pasta). WORTH IT.
Add meat: Add in ham or pancetta.
Pack it for lunch: Pile it into a container and you’re good to go.
Share your own tips and tricks in the discussion below as you try these recipes out.
Heather Yamada-Hosley
heather.yamada-hosley@lifehacker.com
@Curious_Heather
Contributing Writer, Lifehacker.com
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