There is no denying the importance of vegetables while prepping meals. Honestly, half your job is done if you meal prep veggies alone. No matter which cuisine you cook, having chopped vegetables is key to preparing quick and easy meals. There are a couple of easy vegetarian meal prep ideas that you can use any time to make a healthy meal.
Coming to Indian cuisine specifically, any dry sabzi can be easily prepared in less than 10 minutes if you have vegetables chopped and stored in the fridge. All you need to do is crackle rai or jeera in hot oil, roast some spices, add chopped vegetables, and cook. Consider reading this article if you would like a more detailed information on prepping Indian food.
Table of Contents
Busting Myths
Before we see how different vegetables should be stored, it is important to bust myths associated with prepping vegetables. It is natural to be concerned about storing chopped vegetables. Let us address address some of the concerns that you may have.
- Myth 1: Vegetables lose their nutritional value
This is the primary concern most people have they meal prep veggies. First of all, let us be clear that reduction in nutritional value and contamination are two different things. Contamination of vegetables makes it unfit for consumption whereas reduction in the nutritional value just makes it less beneficial.
As far as reduction in nutritional value is concerned, there is some reduction in nutritional value of vegetables. But if stored properly, the loss is so minimal that it is negligible. Especially if you compare the benefit of eating a home-cooked meal over take-out, it is a no-brainer. - Myth 2: Chopped vegetables get contaminated
Most of the contamination happens because of bacterial growth which can be easily avoided if you ensure proper hygiene. I have mentioned steps you should follow when prepping vegetables in the next section. - Myth 3: All vegetables can be chopped and stored
As much as I love the comfort of prepped vegetables, there are some best chopped as needed. A few vegetables should be used fresh. You can find them in a later section in this article.
Guidelines
Now that you are comfortable with the idea of storing chopped vegetables without any inhibitions, let us move on to the next step. It is important that you follow these simple guidelines to ensure that you can use these vegetables without any problem.
- Ensure you wash your hands before you start chopping
- Sanitise all your storage containers, knives, and cutting board.
- You must store all the vegetables in the fridge only in air-tight containers
- If you don’t have airtight containers, you can use resealable bags.
I use storage boxes linked here for all my chopped vegetables.
Storing Vegetables
Let us now take a look at how you can store different vegetables and for how long. If you ask my personal preference, onion, ginger, garlic, chilli, and carrot are the best vegetables for meal prep. They stay fresh in the fridge for longer and are used in multiple Indian dishes. Also, I would suggest you buy corn and peas frozen as vegetables take a long time to prep and are not worth the effort.
Conclusion
As an Indian living out of India, I always wanted to continue eating homemade food, and using some simple and easy vegetarian meal prep ideas has made it very convenient. I would like to add that I have tried to make the list exhaustive but I definitely must have missed some. Please feel free to mention them in the comments and I will try my best to research, experiment, and test them and update the blog.
