When working on a flexible schedule, the struggle for meal planning is real. Most of all when you work evening shifts. At my job here in Lyon we are opened from seven in the morning until eleven at night, so it happens often that I work in the evening. In the evening we only get a thirty minutes break, which makes it almost impossible to go and get something, let’s not even think of cooking a meal. So there are two options: eating fast food (there is a Quick next to our work, or we could order in) or prepping your meal.
Since I prefer eating healthy, fast food is not an option for me – I assume that I don’t have to explain that fast food is unhealthy?
The perfect thing about evening shifts, is that you have your free time in the morning and a small part of the afternoon. It leaves plenty of time to go to the supermarket and cook a nice meal, which doesn’t even have to take a lot of time. It would be even better when you already have the ingredients at home.
One of my favorites is a ‘cold’ salad, made with pasta, rice or couscous. The easiest thing even! I cook the pasta – or any other ingredient – the way it is supposed to be cooked and I let it cool down for a bit.
While it is cooking, I can start with my vegetables. You could use whatever you like! I tend to use bell peppers or zucchini’s often, since they taste good with everything. So, I cut them and heat them for a bit. You could leave them raw if you want to, it would even spare you more time. If you are planning on eating your meal cold, you can add lettuce. Add some spices, to give the meal its taste. Pesto is also a great tastemaker, it goes with either pasta or couscous. I love it!
As a last ingredient I use some protein. Meat, chicken, eggs or cheese. I prefer using cheese, then I’m sure I don’t have to reheat my meal. Tadaa, done!
You could have this meal ready in just 15 minutes. I normally combine it with having lunch, I am already in the kitchen anyway.
Easy right? I prefer it over prepping lunch for the next day in the evenings. Again, the time you have before work just makes it perfect to cook a nice meal for the evening! So, enjoy your meal prepping when you are on evening shifts :-).
