Easy meal prep for students in med school

The busier med school gets, the more likely it becomes that we’ll start skipping meals and neglect taking care of ourselves. Or start eating out more, which sometimes, is just inevitable. But there are simple things we can do to avoid eating out and skipping meals. Here are some easy meal prep ideas for students, in med school or otherwise.

Meal prep idea #1: wash and prep fruits/vegetables after a grocery run

Washing vegetables

I used to wash and prep vegetables after a grocery run at home, but I’ve been doing this more diligently since moving to Grenada. I go to the farmer’s market every other weekend. As soon as I get home, I put everything away except for items I can wash and prep to make things easier when it’s time to cook.

Like spinach. I’ll go through the bag, break off the stems and chop the leaves it into smaller pieces for easier/faster cooking. Then I’ll let it soak for a while to get out all the dirt. While it soaks, I’ll either have breakfast or take care of some other meal prep. Then I’ll transfer the spinach to a clean pot and boil it. If I’m not planning to cook spinach that weekend, I’ll let it cool, transfer to a Ziploc bag and freeze it. (I just realized the large freezer Ziploc bags on Amazon are much cheaper than in-store.)

When freezing, I flatten the spinach, or any other item, as much as possible and make it evenly distributed. This makes it easier to store and more importantly, the food defrosts faster. Gotta keep that in mind as well. I’ve cooked frozen spinach a few times now and, aside from the different taste in Grenada, it turns out really well.

Cutting fruit

If I buy some bulky fruit like watermelon or honeydew, I like to cut it right away. This is really easy meal prep for students and it helps in 2 ways. It’s easier to store a container in the fridge than have a round object, which takes up a lot of room.

And more importantly, having cut up fruit makes it more likely that I’ll eat it. When I’m packing lunch for a long day on campus, I always include some fruit. But I’m usually in a rush and want stuff that requires minimal work to prep. If I have pre-cut melon, all I have to do is transfer to a small container or Ziploc and it’s ready to take with me.

Meal prep idea #2: have marinated chicken/fish ready to go

This easy meal prep for students is probably the most helpful – and my favourite. I can get the bulk of the work done in advance but still enjoy fresh food throughout the week.

When I buy meat, I usually buy a couple packs so some of it goes straight into the freezer and some of it is prepped for that week. Whether it’s chicken or fish, I’ll wash it, season, and let it marinate.

Depending on my week’s schedule, I might cook all of the seasoned meat at once so I don’t have to cook during the week. Or, if I have time for cooking that week, I’ll cook some of the marinate on the weekend and leave some in the fridge. That way, I can make it whenever I need since the bulk of the work is done and the cooking time doesn’t take long. And the best part – I can have hot, fresh food during the week.

It can get boring having chicken week after week so I alternate. One week I’ll have chicken, the next week I’ll have fish. And if I’m tired of both, I’ll add shrimp to the rotation. But shrimp is the most expensive so I try to keep it as a treat meal and mostly stick to chicken and fish.

There have been so many times I wanted to eat out (for no real reason) and I stopped myself because I knew I had food ready to go. So thank you meal-prep me. Credit card is also grateful.

Meal prep idea #3: cook in bulk and freeze

Finally, cooking in bulk and freezing comes in clutch. There are usually some weeks and/or weekends that aren’t as busy. So it’s smart to take advantage of that time, put on Netflix, and make extra food to freeze. That time investment will pay off during busier weeks when you don’t have time for anything.

To be honest, I’ve never been much of a food-freezer until now. I recently made beef pasta (turned out so good) that ended up being a lot of food. I thought instead of eating it 5 days in a row, how about I freeze half of it. Keep a reserve in case I run out of fresh food. So I laid it flat in a Ziploc and froze it. A few days later, I was completely out of food so I pulled out some pasta. And much to my surprise, it tasted just as good as when I first made it. So now I’m a food-freezer, space permitting.

Since that worked so well, I decided to do it again. I had a slow weekend after the DM exam which was the perfect time to do some extra meal prep. I made another batch of the same pasta recipe and froze it. Now, I have about 4-5 meals worth of food in the freezer in anticipation of busy times before the neuro exams and/or final exams.

I also froze one curry. I ended up making too much and I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it all. But I also didn’t want to risk freezing all of it only for the taste to go bad. So I compromised and froze a small portion of it. In case it doesn’t taste right after defrosting, I won’t feel as bad for throwing it out.

If the frozen curry turns out to be a success, I’ll definitely be doing this with a few more foods.

How do you meal prep?

So those are some of my easy meal prep ideas for students.

What are your favourite meal prep tips?

-M

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