Meal Prep for the Week! Keto and Low Carb Meal Prep - Chicken Curry, Egg Bites & Pumpkin Muffin

Hey guys, I'm Jen, welcome back to my channel and welcome back to another

meal

prep

video this

week

. I'm going to

prep

are cooked

chicken

breasts for salads. I'll wash my produce and make a blue cheese dressing. Some instant egg

bites

, but. I'm actually going to make these in the oven,

chicken

curry

, Greek salad, greens and dip and possibly some

muffin

s, so the first thing I'm going to make is my instant pot egg

bites

. This is the recipe that I use, but I'm actually using my oven to make them on this particular day and they turn out really well in the oven, they're a little bit, I don't want to say crispier, but they're a little bit firmer in the oven, My husband actually likes them better this way, so I go back and forth between making them in the oven and making them in the Instant Pot, but either way I'll leave a link to the original recipe below and you can definitely cook them.

Either way, whatever is most convenient for you, so in a big bowl I just added my eggs, my cottage cheese, my cream and my seasoning and then I'm going to go ahead and grate some fresh gouda cheese, so once that have all that. combined in the bowl, you can use a regular blender or an immersion blender or you can even just blend it. I've heard that works well too, so just mix it all together and make sure everything is mixed together. I also like. to use a bowl with a spout for this so you can pour it into the

muffin

cups like I said today.

I'm using Gouda cheese and some leftover chopped bacon that I had for breakfast, but I've used a lot of different combinations in these you can use vegetables and cheese, you can use just cheese, you can use sausage, ham and bacon. I've tried all the combinations and I really like them all, so today I'm going to go ahead and put some silicone muffin liners in my pan. I'll link them in the description box below if you're interested. I just put a couple pieces of bacon on the bottom of each one, poured in the egg mixture, and then I'll put a little more grated cheese. the top and then I had a little bit more egg mixture left over so I'm going to take a mold and make a big egg bite with the leftover egg mixture because I didn't want to waste that so I went ahead. and I'll put them in the oven.

I'm going to bake them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and just so you know, the one in the pan took a little longer because it was bigger, so the next thing I'm going to do is prepare some shredded cheese for the

week

, one of the things I'm making for dinner this week is broccoli cheese soup and I like to make sure I grate my fresh cheese for this, and that's one of the things you can definitely do. I prepared ahead on the weekend so I just ate a 16 ounce block of sharp cheddar cheese and went ahead and cut up about 12 ounces of that, grated it and put it in a ziplock bag so here are my bites of eggs fresh from the oven. you can see they have puffed up a bit and will shrink as they cool so I leave them in the muffin tin and leave them until they are cool enough to handle and then I take them out and put them on a glass plate .

We like to have these for breakfast during the week. I really can't get enough of them since I make a different variation each week, but I like to wear them to work. I just take two and microwave them for about 60 to 90 seconds and they make a great breakfast so the next thing I want to make are some snack boxes that I really like to make to have on hand for my husband and I to take to work, as well as children. have them in your lunches if you want so I just had some meat and turkey sticks in the fridge that I wanted to use so I went ahead and cut them into smaller pieces and also cut the cheese into small cubes. containers that I am using right now in my Systema.

I'll try to leave a link to the ones in the description box below and then this one is from easy lunchbox. I like both and use them all the time to make snacks like this. so in one container I added some cashews, some cheese and meat and then I will also add some low

carb

dark chocolate and then in the other box I also added some tomatoes and I added them with a little kosher salt. Okay, next thing I'm going to make is cooked chicken breasts today. I'm going to use the Stouffer's seasoning wrappers. These are a fairly new product and I actually first saw them on Leanne's channel.

Her channel is called Grady's Mom. she's one of my friends here on YouTube and I'll leave a link to her channel below if you haven't seen it. He posts a lot of great food related content so if you like my channel you'll definitely love his so these are something unique you basically just take your thinly sliced ​​chicken breast and wrap it in parchment paper that you already have seasoning and cook them for 10 minutes on each side in a dry pan. Now they were full of flavor. I thought they turned back. It came out really great, the only thing I would say is that my chicken breasts were a little thin so I think I cooked them for too long because some of the pieces were a little overcooked, but overall they turned out great. and I will definitely try them again.

I like to have them on hand in the fridge for salads for Adam and I and they are also great additions to the kids dinner if I want to whip them up quickly like a pasta and alfredo dish, it just worked really well so we've already used them this week and it's only Wednesday, so the next thing I'm going to make is some blue cheese dressing. I had some blue cheese in the fridge that I wanted to use, so Conor. He was actually helping me because I was really interested in the food processor, so we went ahead and put our blue cheese in there and then we're going to add some apple cider vinegar.

This recipe actually came from one of the cooking magazines I receive. So I'll write it in the description box below, but it's very simple and looks great. After adding the blue cheese and apple cider vinegar, we'll add some sour cream. I also added a little salt. and then we'll add some mayonnaise as well, so I'm just going to put that in a measuring cup and then I'll have Conner help me scoop it into the food processor. He was funny, he was so intrigued by this. He definitely wanted to push the button and help me mix everything together so you can see here he's also trying to help me grind the pepper in there and then the last thing I'm going to add is just a little bit of garlic powder. just to add a little bit of garlic seasoning, the only modification I made to this recipe was that after I processed it all, it seemed a little thick to me, so I added a little bit of heavy cream just because we're doing it or I'm doing it.

I'm doing

keto

right now, but if you like it super thick or want to use it as a sauce, you can definitely omit the cream or you can use buttermilk or regular milk, just play with the consistency until you get the shape you like. I thought this was pretty perfect. Connor actually tried it and said it tasted like ranch and gave it a thumbs up, which was a little surprising to me because you wouldn't think kids like blue cheese much, but he's definitely not a picky eater. and I'll try just about anything so I went ahead and put this dressing in a glass jar which is my favorite way to store homemade dressing so I'm going to keep it in the fridge to eat this week.

Okay, now I'm going to prepare it. some chicken

curry

now I know this is called

keto

or low

carb

meal

prep but my family doesn't always eat keto and obviously I have two kids so they don't eat keto but I wanted to make some curry in one of The modifications I made to this were for my husband. I went ahead and added some potatoes, but you'll see me later. I actually took out my portion for lunch this week without the potatoes, so this is just a tip if you're cooking. For more than one dietary style, definitely think about how you can modify your dishes so everyone can eat the same thing.

I know everyone makes curry a different way but as a kid I always remember eating chicken curry with potatoes so that's always how I do it and then I just don't eat the potatoes if I'm eating low carb at the time, but also in Korean I'm going to go ahead and put in a little bit of red pepper so I'm just going to I cut it into smaller pieces and then I also wanted to add a little bit of onion so I'm going to go ahead and chop it up. I get a lot of questions about the knife I use and I think it's very important. having a really great chef's knife if you're going to be cooking a lot and I literally cook almost every day and definitely on the weekends I cook a lot so a chef's knife is really something that I need in my kitchen.

Leave a link to the particular one I have in the description box below, but in addition to the knife, you may also want to purchase a knife sharpener so you can keep your knives really sharp. I have to say that my husband sharpens me. knives, so I'm not really sure how he does it, but he likes to keep them nice and sharp for me, so the only other thing I needed to prepare for the curry was some chicken breasts, so I went ahead and cut them into cubes. large cubes. I'm just washing my hands. I'm going to go ahead with salt and pepper and add a little garlic powder before I sauté it.

I also just wanted to acknowledge that yes, I did remove the fat. my chicken breasts and I know for people who do keto sometimes that's something they're not supposed to do but I honestly don't like fat on my chicken breasts and that's just a personal preference and I feel like I'm on point. in my life where I can decide if I want to trim my chicken or not, so that's something that I just decided to do and decide to do on a regular basis, so if you're wondering that, there was an answer to that question. So these potatoes were cut into pretty small cubes so I just had to boil them for about 10 minutes and then once the chicken was cooked through on one side, I'm going to go ahead and stir it up and then add my peppers and onions to the pan and let them cook until all the chicken is cooked and the vegetables are a little soft, so once that's done I'll go ahead and add my curry sauce, you can definitely use your own.

I have this bottle of Trader Joe's Yellow Curry Sauce in the pantry that I needed to use, so I just poured it into the pan, rinsed the bottle with some hot water, and poured that in too. I'm going to stir it well and then let it simmer until the chicken and vegetables are very tender since I was going low carb. I wanted to add some broccoli to this for my portion and while it was simmering I just added a few smaller pieces. I cut the broccoli all the way to the top and then I went ahead and put the lid back on and let it simmer until the broccoli was tender okay so now that the broccoli is cooked through I'm going to go ahead and remove my portion and I will put it. a glass dish I'll keep it in the fridge so I can have it for lunch at work later this week and then I kept draining the potatoes and put them in the pan along with the chicken and the sauce and then I just left these or let it sit for about 20 minutes so the potatoes can absorb the sauce and then it's ready for my husband to eat, so I also like to prepare all my produce on the weekends.

Personally, I don't mind cutting my own products. I know there are many options available for pre-cut products, but honestly, it's a little relaxing for me to cut them all and wash them. I know I'm weird, but that's what I like to do, so I just bought it. two packages of broccoli this week because one night I was going to make broccoli cheese soup and the other night we were going to steam it as a side dish for dinner, so I went ahead and cut up the florets and then so I didn't waste too much. Many of the stems I am going to peel, cut into pieces and add to my salad spinner.

In fact, I abandoned the peeler halfway and started using my knife, but since I was going to make broccoli soup. with some of this I didn't mind having the chunks there as they would just puree into the rest of the soup. I mentioned this before, but also one of my favorite kitchen tools is my oxo salad spinner. I always leave a link that says in all my cooking videos it's one of my most used kitchen utensils and a lot of you messaged me telling me you bought one and now you love washing your produce so that makes me super .

I'm happy to wash my broccoli anyway. I don't normally use vinegar in this, sometimes I do when washing other things like berries, but I went ahead and put this in the strainer. I'm going to add a little bit of cold water and leave. let it sit for a while, rinse it off and then it'll be fine, so in an effort to use less disposable bags as block bags, I ordered some of these reusable gallon bags from Grove collaborative and I really like them, so I'm using them this week for both my broccoli and myCauliflower, if you're not familiar with Grove, is basically a company that delivers household items, personal care items, and cleaning supplies to your home monthly and you can choose whatever you want.

I can skip months. I use it all the time and buy things with my own money. I wouldn't recommend anything that I don't buy or wouldn't buy with my own money, so if you're interested check it out. I always have a link in my description box, but it's one of the places where I definitely got a lot of clean kitchen utensils, so same with the cauliflower we were going to have for dinner one night this week, so I went ahead and washed it and put it in. in the refrigerator in one of those reusable bags that I also had an orange bell pepper in the refrigerator that I wanted to snack on one night this week.

We were going to have sausages and peppers that I roast in the oven, so one of the things I like to do is just meal prep components of the meals, so I don't necessarily prepare all the food, but just wash all the produce so that much easier and faster during week nights, after getting off work, to cook them another night this week that we were going to have. asparagus as a side dish for dinner, so this is another thing you can definitely wash ahead of time, just make sure you dry them really well before you put them in the refrigerator, so I just soaked them in a little bit of cold water in my salad spinner and I drained them.

It comes off really well and then once you drain it, you can just lay down some paper towels, put the asparagus in there, roll them up to make sure they're nice and dry and then I went ahead and put them in a ziploc bag and I'll keep it in the refrigerator until we are ready to steam it and eat it for dinner. I'm probably going to order more reusable bags so I can make an effort to use less disposable bags since I really like them. So if you've been watching my videos for a while, you know that I love to cut mine and this week I received a package of romaine lettuce, so what I like to cut and wash is just cut it into small pieces.

Go ahead and put that in my salad spinner, it's actually about three heads of romaine lettuce, but I'm only going to cut two. I usually find that if I spin it, it browns a little faster than if I leave it whole, so I just wanted to chop what I needed, but what I like to clean my lettuce is put it in the salad spinner. I go ahead and use my juicer to squeeze a lemon in there and then I soak the lettuce in very cold lemon water for about 10 to 15 minutes after soaking it I make sure to drain it really well and then I dry it and this is the best method I I have found to prevent the lettuce from browning.

Lemon juice gives the lettuce a nice flavor as well. helps prevent lettuce from turning dark in the refrigerator. I also like to store my lettuce in the Rubbermaid produce containers, which I think really helps, so I'm going to go ahead and spin it dry and then put it in my container with a paper towel to soak up the excess. water, okay, next thing I'm going to prepare is some carrots and hummus. I know this isn't strictly keto, but my husband eats them and from time to time if I can't afford the carbs. I definitely like to snack on them as well and if you watch my videos of what I eat in a week you'll definitely have a better idea of ​​how I approach the low carb and keto diet, but what I like to do is just put my hummus in some small cups of dressing.

I buy them on Amazon and then I go ahead and put some baby carrots in a ziploc bag and put the cup of hummus in there and then I just have a quick snack pack to take to work where my husband takes them. I work and if my kids are in the mood, they'll eat them too, so the next thing I was going to make is a Greek chicken salad to take to work for lunch one day this week, so one thing I would say about Before Making Salads , you want to make sure to keep the components of the salad a little bit apart so you can see here that I'm not actually stacking all the ingredients on top of each other, but I'm sectioning them off. this plastic plate and this is from Ikea.

I bought it a long time ago so I'm not even sure if it's still available, but I went ahead and put in some of my lettuce, some crumbled feta cheese, cut up some cucumber and put it in. there some tomato and then I'll also add some of that chicken breast that I made along with some kalamata olives and then I'll add some freshly ground black pepper on top and then I'll also add one of these Greek dressing packets that I bought from Aldi, so here is the prepared salad, like I said, keeping all the components of the salad separated in their box that way really makes it keep better and in fact, I had this for lunch today, it was great. and delicious and I love to eat salad for lunch okay so the last thing we're going to make is some

pumpkin

pie cupcakes.

I can't say enough good things about this recipe. I really love them and will definitely make them again. I'll leave a link. for them in the description box below, but they're actually pretty good. I don't have Nutri, oh yes I do, they only contain about 3 carbs per mini cupcake so they are definitely a great option and taste exactly like

pumpkin

pie if you want. put some ready mix on top, so basically you just whisk the dry ingredients, put coconut flour, pumpkin pie, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt and then in another bowl you'll whisk the wet ingredients, so so this requires some pumpkin puree. sweetener a little heavy whipping cream 1 large egg and a little vanilla.

I'm using Sola sweetener for this, which I think is erythritol, but you can use any sweetener you want if you keep them low carb. I would definitely, obviously, use a low one. -Carb Sweetener: If you're not on a low carb diet, you can definitely use sugar if you want, so I'll go ahead and whisk all the wet ingredients together until combined and then pour in the dry ingredients. ingredients and whipped them up, this recipe as written only makes six mini cupcakes or regular size cupcakes I guess, but if I make this again, which I will, I will definitely double it and make 12 because like I said, these were so delicious I would probably recommend using the silicone molds for these so I'm going to go ahead and evenly distribute my batter into each of those six muffin cups and then you're going to bake them in the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes until they're done and then , after you bake them you'll want to go ahead and let them cool on the counter, put them in the fridge and I actually let them sit overnight before trying one but the recipe says to let them sit for an hour in the fridge and I ended up serving them with a little whipped cream and a little cinnamon sprinkled on top and they were just as delicious as I said I will definitely make them again and probably for Thanksgiving because they are a delicious substitute for pumpkin pie okay?

This is what I did today. You can see the kids are playing on their iPads on the island, so I shred my cheese. I also made my snack boxes with nuts and Lily's low carbon chocolate on the turkey and cheddar cheese sticks. I also made one. With some tomatoes for Adam I also made my chopped Greek salad along with my little packet of dressing for work lunch this week. I also had some of my roast chicken left over for Tia. I washed my lettuce and that's one at a time. From my produce managers I also washed my broccoli for the week and my cauliflower that are in my reusable plastic bags.

I also made some carrots and hummus to make great weeknight snacks for my husband and I, and then I also washed my In fact, we had asparagus for dinner tonight along with some salmon. It was delicious. My blue cheese dip that I just saved in a glass jar and then also the orange bell pepper that I chopped up here are my muffins cooled and ready to serve. the refrigerator, also my bacon and egg Gouda bites for breakfast this week, there's my chicken curry that I'm having for lunch one day this week and I think that's it, so that's all I made today the Sunday.

I work hard. time away from home, hey Murphy, so it's really important for me to do all of this during the week so we can eat healthier and avoid eating out during the work week, so thanks again for watching and I'll see you in my next video, bye bye.