These 6 easy meal prep ideas make planning everyday Indian meals so much simpler, especially during the busy weekdays. A little planning and prep work on the weekend will set you up to eat healthy daily, save money, and reduce your stress through the week.
How To Plan Everyday Indian Meal?
If you have ever drooled over the elaborate Indian thali meals on my Instagram feed, then I must share a secret. Meal Prep is the key to eat a home-cooked delicious meal every day.
By following these easy meal prep ideas like me, you can make a variety of Indian food recipes throughout the week despite being busy.
Think and plan the menu for the week in advance, prepare your grocery shopping list, and write down meal prep notes for each dish. At first, you might feel like it’s a chore, but I’m betting once you get going, and you see how effortless it is not to worry about dinner/lunchbox/breakfast during the week, you’ll look forward to it!
Tips for getting started with meal prep:
Take Baby Steps: Start with one meal that pains you the most. It could be either breakfast or packing lunchbox (check out lunchbox ideas for adults). Later, slowly move to plan all the meals of the day.
Set Reminder: During the first week of meal prep you need to set a lot of reminders to get it into your routine. Like, if you are starting with breakfast set a reminder for Sunday night or mid-week to do prep work for breakfast.
Handpick Recipes: Make sure initially you pick Indian food recipes that are easy to follow. Over a period, you can select more elaborate recipes and plan their execution like an expert.
Plan Small: Try not to meal prep for the entire week in a single day. That’ll be too much work. Start by planning for the first three days of the week and then on Wednesday night, do the prep work for the rest of the weekday meals.
Few of my staple meal prep tools, hope you also find them useful:
Glass Box Set: They are just awesome to store anything from boiled lentils, salad, chopped vegetables to fruits. Mason Jars: They are perfect for storing salads, fruits, overnight oats or anything you just want to grab and go.
Free Weekly Meal Plan: Download a free printable weekly planner.
Ziplock Bags: They are the life-saver when it comes to storing chopped onion, garlic, fruits for smoothie or green vegetables.
30 Everyday Indian Meal Ideas: Use these meal ideas to plan a weekly menu for breakfast/lunch/dinner.
Here are 6 easy meal prep ideas for Indian kitchen:
1) Freezer Friendly Indian Curry Paste: Making an excellent Indian curry after a long working day is a sort of challenge. It requires hours of labor if you start from scratch. Hence, with these gorgeously good DIY Indian curry paste sitting in the fridge, you can make your favorite Indian curry in 30 minutes.
This is exactly how I plan my dinner throughout the week. These curry paste can be quickly prepared over the weekend and stays fresh in the fridge for up to a week. These curry paste are one of my ideal easy meal prep ideas for an Indian kitchen.
Here are my 4 everyday Indian curry paste that is naturally gluten-free and utterly simple to prepare.
2) Chop Fruits & Vegetables: For making any Indian meal, we require a lot of chopped onion, tomato, vegetables, and greens. It is always best to chop a small batch of onion, tomato, and store in the fridge. Or peel and chop vegetables required for the first few days of the week and store them in ziplock bags. This really expedites the cooking process during the weekdays.
Similarly, I dice mangoes, banana, strawberries or other fruits for the milkshakes and stash them in the freezer. Whenever required, bring out your favorite fruit and prepare a creamy milkshake. Or if chopping is too much, use a fabulous food processor to do the job for you.
3) Cook Big Batches & Store: It always not bad to cook big batches of dishes and enjoy throughout the week. I always boil a large batch of potatoes and keep them handy to make a variety of Indian breakfast (see 21 best Indian breakfast ideas).
Or never hesitate to boil lentils, beans, and legumes in large quantities and season them with different tempering each day. The big batches of Indian desserts are a huge hit in my family.
4) Takeaway Salad Jars: They are the best when it comes to eating salad, fruits or drink smoothies while on the go. On Sunday night, layer up all the salad ingredients in a mason jar, pack the dressing separately and keep them in the fridge. Each morning pick a salad jar and rush to the office.
This way you can save a lot of time cooking office lunchbox and eat healthy homemade lunch even on a busy day. Not only salads, but you can also pack milkshakes, overnight oats, wholesome soups or just anything in a jar and keep them handy for a takeaway.
5) Ready To Use Condiments: We use a lot of herbs, spices, and chutney in an Indian kitchen. To save time I keep a bag full of peeled garlic, ginger, green chili, washed and cleaned coriander leaves in my fridge. And not to forget the multi-purpose ginger-garlic paste. These easy meal prep ideas save a lot of time in the kitchen and help me cook even fantastic meals in no time.
On the first Sunday of every month, I make big batches of homemade spice powders such as garam masala, coriander powder, curry powder, etc. Mostly, they last more than a month, add so much flavor to the dishes, and save a lot of money as well.
6) Use leftovers: Who says leftovers are always bad? Like leftover steamed rice can be easily transformed into a delicious pot of fried rice or lemon rice. If you have roasted chicken sitting in the fridge, then use it to make sandwich stuffing or salad.
There are zillion creative ways to use leftovers plus they are the best way to put a check on food wastage. One more thing I learned from using leftovers is they make meal prep work reduced to half and add so much variety to the table.
Leftover Recipes: Chicken Biryani, Tawa Pulao, Chilli Idli Fry
Sudha Venkat says
Your ideas are excellent. But it is not advisable to cut onions and store them for future use; because cut raw onions tend to absorb the germs present in the air outside. Even if you refrigerate or freeze, they can still attract the germs. So it is always advisable to saute the onions before storing.
Hina Gujral says
Thank you for your feedback. But I don’t think cut onion, packed in a clean ziplock bag, stored in a fridge overnight is infectious. Yes, onion sliced or any other vegetable cut and left in open is definitely prone to germs.
Shipika says
Ideas are good, but its too unhealthy to have refrigerated cooked masalas after a long time. Similarly, one should not keep chopped vegetables for long. Food is always healthy when fresh. After few hours of cooking, it looses its nutritional value.
Hina Gujral says
For many of us who are working 8 – 10 hours in a day cooking from scratch every day is a luxury. So little planning, meal prep work is so much better than binging on restaurant takeaways. Cut vegetables, prepared curry paste are absolutely fine if stored properly. These meal prep techniques are used worldwide by many food experts and the results are not at all harmful.
Yes, if you can cook every day, three meals a day for your family from scratch nothing like it. That’s what our moms did.
Tejal shah says
I fully agree with u
Sahely says
This is a life saver! When you don’t get time to cook and have to eat bread straight for breakfast, lunch and dinner – Meal Prepping saves our life! 🙂
Hina Gujral says
Totally agree with you. Meal Prep helps a lot to cook at home on busy weekdays.
Surabhi says
WHY u look at meal prep if u dont want anything cut/ prepared in advance
akanksha says
Meal prep is a lifesaver!
All of these are such amazing tips!
I am always looking for ways to make my life in the kitchen easier.
Keep Sharing 🙂
Hina Gujral says
I am so glad Akanksha you find them useful. Thank you!
Yashika says
Planning on what to eat the next day is always a headache , planning meals in advance surely helps. The meal plan is so cute , I am downloading it right away. I have seen my mom preparing the ginger garlic paste and refrigerating it. Now a days for working women chopping and storing the vegetables to be used in the next few days is a time saving hack. Useful hacks .!!
Hina Gujral says
Very well said. And I agree with you totally on this makes things super easy for working women 🙂
Sumayya says
Hi hina.. your ideas are awesome.. can you add some kid friendly recipes too..also the recipes for the 4 types of curry masala please..
Hina Gujral says
Thank You. Curry Masala Paste link is added in this paste or you can search it on my website.
Rushika says
Life is so much easier with meal planning. I think it’s really awesome to be able to save time because you have ingredients ready to go! These are great tips!
Hina Gujral says
I am so happy you find these tips useful.
Kalpana says
Hi hina..thank you for your tips …will follow them for sure
Hina Gujral says
Glad to know that 🙂
Juhi says
One of my favorite aspects to your meal prep ideas is that you use affordable and accessible ingredients. Healthy food does NOT have to cost a fortune! Thank you for sharing these ideas.
Could you also suggest some good storage containers to buy?
TEJAL SHAH says
Hiii
It would be easier for working women
Hina Gujral says
I agree with you 🙂
Veena Rathi says
Hi Hina, thanks for sharing time saving tips!
Will share them with my newly wedded daughter!
Bless you!
Hina Gujral says
Awww…..you made my day! Thank you so much
Humera says
Hina thanks for sharing these useful tips,not only for working women but also for us, home makers.
There are times when some guest may arrive or we might be stuck in some other household chores. These tips will surely be helpful for many of us.
One more tip that I would like to add is to fry onions and refrigerate or one can grind them as well before storing,as it’s time consuming. Making gravies will be easier…
Hina Gujral says
I am so glad that you find these tips very useful.
Anshu says
Hi Hina, I love every tip you have given. I don’t think onions would spoil or should not be kept in the fridge. As long as we fully wash the vegetables and fruits and dry them thoroughly, even those with peels such as onions, they will not spoil, in fact ready made masala for gravy can be stored into Ice cube trays.This can make cooking a cinch when you are busy. So carry on foodies
Hina Gujral says
Thank you for sharing great tips and your thoughts with us. Loads of love!
Shereen jain says
Hi Hina, these are some amazing tips., perfect for someone who is working/studying. I do this on Wednesdays and Sundays. Keeps the food fresh and also saves me so much time,
Hina Gujral says
I am so happy that you find them useful. Thank YOU!
Mansi says
Hey Hina, I loved your ideas here for meal preparation. Can you tell us what recipes were you trying to prepare in advance for the ones in the pictures? Baked corns, sliced onions, cubed carrots and green beans. I wanted to know the recipes you were preparing for.
Hina Gujral says
Baked or roasted corns are for Mexican Corn Salsa or Mixed Beans Salad. Sliced onion is used for mushroom or chicken pulao. Cubed carrots and beans are for fried rice or any Indo-Chinese Dish. Hope this helps.